Whether you’re enjoying an edible, an oil, a capsule, or a dab, you are actually consuming a cannabis extract. The ability to infuse cannabis extracts into many kinds of other products makes them super convenient to work with, and a common ingredient in many products, including ours.
Depending on the kind of extract you are trying to produce, there are likely several different ways to make it. Some methods use chemicals or solvents, and others are solvent-free. Why does the process used matter? Because a solvent-based process can affect the quality of the final product when it comes to purity, cleanliness, and safety.
As part of our mission to help people through all-natural healing, we want to empower our customers to make the best choices possible when it comes to the wellness products they use. That’s why we’d like to take a few minutes to talk to you about cannabis extraction and how it can impact the quality of your products.
Solvent-based Extraction vs Solventless Extraction
All cannabis extraction methods can basically be broken down into two groups: solvent-based extraction techniques and solventless extraction techniques.
Solvent-based extraction techniques use solvents such as butane to strip the good stuff from cannabis plant material. A solvent chemically strips trichomes and valuable cannabinoids and terpenes from the bud into a single mixture. Afterward, a heating process purges the solvent chemicals from the mixture, leaving behind chemical-free cannabis extracts.
By comparison, solventless extraction techniques result in a similar final product, but without the use of any chemicals or solvents. We can look at rosin for one example of a solventless process. Made by placing cannabis buds or hashish into a rosin press (a machine similar to a hydraulic press), the press uses only pressure and heat to literally squeeze the extract out of the plant material. Because solventless extraction techniques do not use any solvents or chemicals, the final products are chemical-free cannabis extracts.
