Poll: Which kinds of extracts do you use? 2017 edition

Which concentrates do you use regularly? Please post and elaborate on your preferences :)

  • Traditional Hash/Kief

    Votes: 13 28.3%
  • Rosin

    Votes: 19 41.3%
  • Bubble Hash (1-4 star)

    Votes: 3 6.5%
  • Bubble Hash (5-6 star - Full Melt)

    Votes: 10 21.7%
  • Dry Sift (1-4 star)

    Votes: 6 13.0%
  • Dry Sift (5-6 star - Full Melt)

    Votes: 6 13.0%
  • Charas

    Votes: 2 4.3%
  • Distillates (The Clear or similar)

    Votes: 3 6.5%
  • BHO/QWISO/QWET/PHO/RSO

    Votes: 23 50.0%
  • HTFSE/HCFSE

    Votes: 2 4.3%

  • Total voters
    46

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I figured we should see which extracts we prefer to use now that there are so many different options available! I have done my best to include all of the inhalable concentrates here :)

Polls on FC do not allow more options so I can't add more.

Please provide any extra detail explaining preferences etc below. I have not included terps (Blue River etc) here since I ran out of options but please feel free to say so if you are enjoying terp dip bong rips :D
 
herbivore21,
  • Like
Reactions: kellya86

DieHard

Accessory supplier
Accessory Maker
HTFSE and HTFSE are both some of the tastiest concentrates that I have had the pleasure of tasting. I have not tried bubble of any star yet.
 

ginolicious

Well-Known Member
Doing the ISO washes. But I have to say my second round with only kief oppose to just AVB did not turn out as well as I wanted it to. Consistency was weird and it had an awful chemically taste even though it was evaporated and purged.
 

TeeJay1952

Well-Known Member
Only regular concentrate usage here is ISO wash from stems and bongs. I have a cleaning day every 2 weeks and pool ISO after filtering onto sandwich plate. After 3 or 4 cleaning days heat plate in microwave for 15 seconds and scrape. I have a 7 gram ball of goo that I incorporate into Dragonballs (Meds surrounding goo) or toss into cookies.
 

Dabberhashery

electrobubblerizer
Oh man thats such a good menu
5514414.jpg
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
HTFSE and HTFSE are both some of the tastiest concentrates that I have had the pleasure of tasting. I have not tried bubble of any star yet.
Most definitely brother, they are the only solvent extract worth mentioning in the same breath as full melt IMO. I wanted to make sure it was included here because it is definitely a distinct extraction method ;)

Doing the ISO washes. But I have to say my second round with only kief oppose to just AVB did not turn out as well as I wanted it to. Consistency was weird and it had an awful chemically taste even though it was evaporated and purged.
The consistency being rock hard shatter is very normal for a kief run with heat purge man, especially if the kief isn't freshly sifted off of fresh/well stored material that isn't overly dried out. If there is a strange taste though, it is possible that you have either underpurged (yes, remember that even absolute shatter can still have enough trapped solvent in it to taste bad) or overpurged. Definitely PM me with a detailed description of how you set up your double boiler etc, I'm sure we can get to the bottom of it :)

Only regular concentrate usage here is ISO wash from stems and bongs. I have a cleaning day every 2 weeks and pool ISO after filtering onto sandwich plate. After 3 or 4 cleaning days heat plate in microwave for 15 seconds and scrape. I have a 7 gram ball of goo that I incorporate into Dragonballs (Meds surrounding goo) or toss into cookies.

Man reclaim is so helpful for we medical users. Despite the quality of what I usually dab, you'd better believe I still make good use of my reclaim too :D That's my insomnia meds ;)

Oh man thats such a good menu
5514414.jpg
Lol imagine if it was a menu, in some kind of an extract restaurant :D

@Baron23 brother you need to go DIY :p Here's one of my latest efforts ;)

3CxAedH.jpg

Sometimes the best way to do the job right is to do it yourself ;)
 
Last edited:
herbivore21,

Monsoon

Well-Known Member
I switched to commercial BHO from homemade QWET a few months ago since the price dropped to CAN$40-50 a gram through multiple online dispensaries here in Canada. I find the taste to be better overall and I like that I can order 10 different strains at once which I just can't make that quickly at home. It's still cheapest to make it myself so I'll keep doing that for edibles and lotion, and dabbing if I get a particularly good end result.

I sadly haven't seen any good bubblehash for sale recently but if I ever come across some 6 star for sale I'll definitely snap some up to try. I got some THC distillate in my last order, the taste was unexpectedly bleh but I really like the clear clean high I go from it.
 
Monsoon,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I switched to commercial BHO from homemade QWET a few months ago since the price dropped to CAN$40-50 a gram through multiple online dispensaries here in Canada. I find the taste to be better overall and I like that I can order 10 different strains at once which I just can't make that quickly at home. It's still cheapest to make it myself so I'll keep doing that for edibles and lotion, and dabbing if I get a particularly good end result.

I sadly haven't seen any good bubblehash for sale recently but if I ever come across some 6 star for sale I'll definitely snap some up to try. I got some THC distillate in my last order, the taste was unexpectedly bleh but I really like the clear clean high I go from it.
Man it is so true that solvent based concentrates will be made with best results by large scale extractors for retail. This is the way that the kind of spending that is required to get the best results can be most easily justified. Even with the know-how I have developed with cannabis resin over the years, I just can't justify some of the equipment/materials in the house that I would need to bring my solvent based extracts to surpass the level of quality of a basic 200f ~2000 psi rosin press.

A rosin press is so much quicker to use and cheaper than high end solvent processing equipment (read: CLS!) that the decision is a no-brainer.

I also believe it would be unconscionable to continue processing solvent based meds without a CLS because of the environmental impacts of venting all of those hydrocarbons into the atmosphere - especially when we all know now that there are much less messy ways of making higher quality meds.

IMO solvents will be used less and less in the home as time goes on, but will remain a major part of the concentrate menu with most retailers as these methods lend themselves to mass production scenarios very well.

I spend a lot of time helping people with DIY extractions of all kinds around FC as we all know. One thing that I will remark is that I have not spoken to a single one of these people whose scenario wasn't best suited to rosin. Solvents just aren't going to get 99% of you the best results from your material without a lot of trial and error. If you can get enough pressure, adequate parchment and the right temps to keep your material inside your press plates you will get good meds. That is infinitely fewer variables to keep under control than what you need to watch out for in solvent processing.

I still get plenty of folks reaching out to me thinking that solvents are easier because they don't wanna spend on a rosin press.

I explain that most people aren't going to make good oil with solvents at first and that you could have spent as much on solvents and sub-par extractions as what would have bought you a nice press very quickly when you first try your hand at solvents. IMO, almost all home extractors should be looking to rosin for their DIY needs - not solvents. I should also point out that if you didn't have success with rosin tek at first, you are not likely to have more success trying your hand at solvents! Solvents require more skill/know-how than rosin to get high quality results.

Also to would-be squishers: remember that your flowers aren't wasted if you squish them and nothing comes out. You can still grind them and vape them and they'll be great unless you squished way too hot! I see so many people complaining that they wasted their buds when failing to squish and it is just not true unless you're doing something unusual.

As much as I love full melt, most people just don't have enough high quality flower to justify making it themselves. Rosin is definitely more suited for bringing high quality but cost-effective DIY dabs to the people.

For those like yourself who can purchase a variety of quality retail solvent extracts when you need it and whose needs are better met this way - more power to you :D
 

zenmasterofzinfandel

Well-Known Member
Most definitely brother, they are the only solvent extract worth mentioning in the same breath as full melt IMO. I wanted to make sure it was included here because it is definitely a distinct extraction method ;)

HTFSE and HTFSE are both some of the tastiest concentrates that I have had the pleasure of tasting. I have not tried bubble of any star yet.

HTFSE & HTFSE are different, or did some1 miss an Acronym ? Concentrates FAQ should have a table of acronyms, with these types of threads linked at min, for those of us who forget what those acronyms mean :)

Happens on all types of forums, not just the mj forums...when I visit often enough, I remember....go away for some months or years, forget them all, lol.

Another thread on concentrates herbavoire??? I have not done enough 'research' to post up to the other threads I posted initial posts to a few wks ago.

herbavoir...you left out 'water hash' & 'ice wax' <<<TNCheeky sarcasm about use of terms that many forums & dispensaries butcher/make up their own definitions.

I had a friend past few years, beat bad prostate cancer @age 40, only to be hit with a lupus diagnosis (family history, mother & sister died in their 40's)...he used to work at a dispensary, knew many dispensary owners. I introduced him to flower rosin, I was knew to rosin then; he heard of rosin tech, but did not know much about it. He made his own hash many years from his personal outdoor grows of Sage, using dry ice sieving, which I had zero understanding of at the time>still don't know much...been reading the 'other' forums about all this past month.

There are many consistencies of hash & rosin that are much more difficult to work with/handle/collect/store. I'm guessing 'budda' is popular because it is not so sticky, easy to get same size doses from.

I have some questions about bubble/ice/water/dry sieving decisions for those other threads. What is quality: "As much as I love full melt, most people just don't have enough high quality flower to justify making it themselves." Reason I ask, is I do agree quality is paramount, but what consists of quality is in the eye of the beholder to some extent. Why is it necessary to have perfectly clean rosin or full-melt? Think I can find opinions of probably Bubbleman, but surely Matt Rize, that 4 star is some damn good shit in their minds, pretty sure Emerald Alchemy stated that their 4-star is still loaded with terps---I"m going to get their Goji-4-star next wk and let u know<6-star Purple Princess was nice, but I did try a Fluerish Farms Tangie rosin that I though had the most terps of all, comparable to Holywater &Spoiled_Patients BHO terp saps...tho M_Rize has his own 10 out of 10 scale, and there is a rating guide on his instagram or other page that explains somewhat<not all the much of a fan of his rating scale usefullness, I prefer the 6* scale.

So you don't need full melt, especially if you are not dabbing, instead vaping like the departed hashtagXXX had mentioned in the hashing making thread.

I have been using in my Crafty for about a year now, concentrates-prefilled e-juice carts, then rosin, various lousy forms of hash, dark hard/drier stuff 'traditional' style (not sure how it is made) that does not melt unless combustion or dabbed on a nail; because of my 'tolerance' or inability to find any sativa strains that actually have the effects sativa's are supposed to have...not much luck.

I'm getting mixed results on the terpene front, some rosins are better than *many* of the 6-star & 10/10 M_Rize ice wax (only last few wks did I get a wrap around the concepts...need picture/drawings to illustate the concepts of how the process works with sieving, different sizes of mesh, for different size of resin heads). But then i read something about how...was it bubbleman? that said full-spectrum is desired by some...why? You left out the finer details...and definition of what full-spectrum ice wax/bubble hash is. Then there are the variants of dry sift flower rosin, dry sift or wet sift(bubble, water hash/ice wax, dry ice processed ice wax) rosin pressed from these hashes. I'm thinking of getting BM's 6-star (produced locally by Tony V) to compare to the BMbranded rosin made from BM hash.

Stay tuned for a bunch of links to other forum threads on the subject for the other threads.

As far as dry sift, it is usually full-melt I assume? Suppose it depends on how much contaminants are in the dry sift? Bubbleman thinks you can clean up these contaminants and get to full-melt that way. Matt_Rize mentioned that Romulan (presumably of any quality level) will not produce full-melt.

I'm not sure for what I'm looking for, if full-melt is anything that is really needed, anymore than strains that 'squish' well, produce 'adequate' yields <more on why that is in your hash making thread< think we will get more views there.
 
Last edited:
zenmasterofzinfandel,
  • Like
Reactions: grokit

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
@zenmasterofzinfandel
lol see the original poll options for what my bro @DieHard meant by 'HTFSE and HTFSE' ;)

You'll notice that almost, if not all of my threads and posts typically relate to concentrates lol

I haven't consumed flowers in my usual day-to-day medication for a long time now and discussing them is only relevant for my purposes where it relates to extraction ;)

lol at your dig at marketing terms like 'water hash and ice wax'. I agree, a lot of folks seem to get confused and think that these and 'bubble hash' are all different things. For those wondering, bubble hash and water hash are synonyms. Ice wax refers to a waxy consistency that some water hashes can take on depending on how they were processed ;)

In reference to your comment on dry ice: I have experience with dry ice sieving (although strictly speaking, I consider this another kind of dry sift technique - an inferior one in my view. Dry ice makes your nugs so brittle that the slightest agitation will turn them to powder in no-time. This does not make for good separation of contaminant from the resin via sifting.

Budder is indeed something people like because it is easily dabbed and not so sticky as you say. I tend to ignore consistencies when judging material since I am confident handling each kind. I focus on the flavor and the effects (I am a medical user who makes only my own medicine and this is what is relevant to my needs).

On that note I have to agree broadly (if you read a lot of my posts over the years, I've always maintained this) that 4 star hash can be absolutely beautiful (hell, 2 and 3 star hashes can taste outstanding when vaped and better than a lot of solvent-based dabs and even some lesser rosins!). 4 star hashes can smell as good in a jar as 5 and 6 stars do easily in some cases! In some rare cases (I give an example below), it can taste better at the start of the bowl than some full melts!

The reasons that full melts are still sought after even more than 4 star and less are twofold - you can consume full melt by dabbing; many with time constraints or who are fortunate to have the funds for sapphire e-nails will prefer dabbing to vaping. Saves time and with sapphire, tastes a little better than the best current vape offering for the same purpose (I've owned all of the highly rated hash vapes around these parts too, still do own a number of them)!

The second reason that we might prefer 5 and especially 6 star hash to the lesser melting ones is that when you reach the end of the bowl, the taste noticeably deteriorates with the less melting hashes. In fact, this difference is very noticeable even when comparing 5 and 6 star full melts to one another!

This is all moot for me of course. When I run bubble, I make sure to choose flowers with mature, high resin containing glands. With my processing techniques, I only get 5 and 6 star full melt, and one bag of contaminant/pistils etc.

This is what I refer to by flowers that justify hash running. Not all resin glands are created equally. Consider for example that very immature flowers will have radically less resin coverage overall, and a higher proportion of sessile trichomes vs capitate stalked trichomes. This is significant because sessile trichomes contain 1/8 of the resin capacity that the capitate stalked trichomes have. Moreover, less mature capitate stalked trichomes will have much less resin content and therefore less melt (also less development of the more chemically complex kinds of terps) than those that are extracted from flowers that were harvested later. There are so many more considerations relevant here but I can't possibly get it all into words right now lol

These points I mention above as you can see are clearly not in the eye of the beholder: You will get significantly and noticeably less of the later developing terps, volume of resin in each of your gland heads and less gland heads overall depending on the quality of your flowers :)

BTW, the concentrate with the 'most terps' is not the best, especially in this age of adding extra terps after the initial extraction. Especially products that have large amounts of single terps added in can even reach levels of individual terps (the various pinenes are the most significant examples from memory) that are regarded as unsafe for human exposure through inhalation. We need to remember as with all things, that the poison is in the dosage. Most things can be toxic in the right quantity and IMO it is much more prudent to understand what is a safe amount of various terps and then shoot for that, rather than just experiment and sell that on to the people as many vendors sadly do right now.

BTW, IME all things being equal, I've never seen rosin that tastes/effects better than the best several grades of full melt bubble or dry sift from the same starting material. Rosin, even made from the most delicious bubble hash loses a noticeable and delicious part of the overall flavor of the original hash. Full melt presses into lots of rosin, but the rosin doesn't taste nearly as good. Removing the contaminant completely is not necessary as you suggest. Although as the non-melting portions of a given hash get larger, so too will the end of the bowl taste harsher, sooner.

This is why my new tek turns less melty hashes into full melt using a completely different approach and does not lose this aspect of the original hash flavor :D No rosin involved! I have posted loads of pics of such material in other threads so have a look around if you're interested to see the results.

By the way, some terps have much more pronounced flavor than others in much lower quantities than others would require to be so noticeable. This means that what 'seems more terpy' subjectively is not a reliable way to know what actually is more terpy :2c: we need test results. Also this means that something with slightly less overall terps may actually seem more vividly tasty than something with more! Cannabis quality is a complicated topic!

Dry sift can be of any quality, from no melt kief all the way up to 6 star full melt ;)

IME I'd be disappointed to go back to dabbing even the best rosins after dabbing only the tastiest of hashes regularly for so long. Bubbleman (also Frenchy!) always remarks that whole resin heads with the membrane intact taste better than any other kind of extract. When you ask people who can dab whatever they like what they choose, IME those people will tell you that they opt for the high quality full melt (either bubble or dry sift) every time.

I will highlight that some 5 and even 6 star full melts may be less tasty than some 4 stars in some cases (just to make it even more complicated lol). For example, in some cases a 6 star 25u full melt may not taste anywhere near as good as 45 and 73u 4 star from the same run!

This is because in many varieties (except for some of the long-flowering narrow leaf varieties which have much smaller resin heads) 25u resin glands are very small, and comprise sessile trichomes which are smaller than capitate stalked glands and develop less terpenes (but more of the rare and medically valuable minor cannabinoid, CBC!!!!) as well as small immature capitate stalked trichomes which have not reached peak terp/resin production yet. This is only one example. The key is where you can, sample the medicines on offer (assuming it checks out safety-wise!) and see what you find best for you :2c:

I apologise if this is a very convoluted post, I do not have time to edit for clarification lol :peace:
 

weenstoned

Well-Known Member
Dunno if it's too late to add poll options, but would love if you could add a separate option for live resin. Curious about how many people are shelling out extra over standard BHO/PHO.
 

2clicker

Observer
@herbivore21 how are you using your reclaim?

when i scoop the reclaim out of my attys i put it onto a slick sheet folded up and just sit on it. ive got like 7 grams of this shit. every once in a while ill scoop some right on the coil and will vape it. doing so just before bed. i keep a gunky coil around so im not throwing the reclaim on a good coil.

anyway... what say you?
 
2clicker,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Dunno if it's too late to add poll options, but would love if you could add a separate option for live resin. Curious about how many people are shelling out extra over standard BHO/PHO.
Damn I can't edit now since too long has elapsed, that would be an interesting question! We maxed out the number of options in the poll as it stands though so we probably couldn't add another anyway.

I suppose strictly speaking, live resin is less a different kind of extraction in the sense that this poll relates to and is more of a different kind of input material being used (that is 'fresh-frozen' plant material as opposed to dried and in some cases cured too) - probably better placed in another poll/question :)

@herbivore21 how are you using your reclaim?

when i scoop the reclaim out of my attys i put it onto a slick sheet folded up and just sit on it. ive got like 7 grams of this shit. every once in a while ill scoop some right on the coil and will vape it. doing so just before bed. i keep a gunky coil around so im not throwing the reclaim on a good coil.

anyway... what say you?
I can't actually say that yet sadly brother, what I do with my reclaim is secret herbivore magic for now lol

What you are doing is ideal advice in the meantime though - reclaim is for night meds as you say :D

Prior to my recent experimentation, I always did the same, a large dab of claim in a separate rig for my last dab for the evening.
 

Dangus

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Mainly use sift rosin these days, and some sift on its own now and then.

Would have liked to see the solvent extracts split out a bit more, qwet/qwiso split from bho would provide a better picture imo...
 
Dangus,

grokit

well-worn member
I'm limited to rosin of the living and dead variety + keif at this time.
But I have aspirations to consume...
Which acronym represents high-quality shatter?
Is keif the same as 5-star sift?

:hmm:
 
grokit,

DieHard

Accessory supplier
Accessory Maker
Acronyms and names decoded.
HTFSE = High Terpene Full Spectrum Extract
HCFSE= High Cannabinoid Full Spectrum Extract
BHO = Butane Honey Oil
PHO = Propane Honey Oil
QWET = Quick Wash Ethanol
QWISO = Quick Wash Isopropyl
RSO = Rick Simpson Oil
Charas = Hash produced from rubbing live plants
Rosin = Hash produced by heat/pressure
Bubble = Hash produced using cold water, agitation and sieving
Dry sift = produced by sieving dry material
Distillates = produced by vaporization and condensation using lab glass

Hope this helps someone and not just overstating the obvious.
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Mainly use sift rosin these days, and some sift on its own now and then.

Would have liked to see the solvent extracts split out a bit more, qwet/qwiso split from bho would provide a better picture imo...

There was no option to separate out these basic solvent extracts because we already ran out of poll options to include (FC limits this). There is little distinction between the end products made with these methods (assuming the extractor knows what they are doing!) in practice. Combining these options was the only way we could fit all of the options here, which are more distinct processes/end products IMO and so remained separate choices. I do wish RSO could have been a separate option though, damnable option limits!

I know lots of people still think that QWET and especially QWISO cannot be as good as BHO. I've shown that assumption to be wrong in the past years ago here. Those people have simply not tried good QWET/QWISO (of course this should be expected really, professional extractors tend to use BHO which is the more common solvent and most QWET/QWISO is made DIY ghetto-rigged style in the home and is rarely made well from good starting material). See the share your dab stash and concentrates for noobs threads for a bunch of old pictures of my QWISO extracts which were indistiguishable from BHO made with the same flowers ;)

I'm limited to rosin of the living and dead variety + keif at this time.
But I have aspirations to consume...
Which acronym represents high-quality shatter?
Is keif the same as 5-star sift?

:hmm:
High quality shatter could be any of QWET, QWISO, BHO, PHO depending on the solvent used. It may even be rosin!

Kief/keif is a term used in the west to describe the really crude sift made with the screens in the bottom of one's grinder. This is what I refer to.

In another thread, you saw me mention that 'kif' is a term which refers to high melt, high quality unpressed Morrocan hash (which is AFAIK not made for export). Kif is something that could conceivably only contain glandular trichome heads with little contaminant (may be 5 or 6 star melt) but kief/keif as we in the US and other Western countries call it is not the same thing.

I am using the Western parlance which is what I am sure most here would use. In the other thread where I raised this distinction, this is what I was driving at. The individual in that thread thought that people were talking about nothing but trichome glands when people there spoke about 'keif' but this was not what was being discussed ;)
 
herbivore21,
  • Like
Reactions: grokit

grokit

well-worn member
Okay so what's the most popular hq shatter found in better dispensaries?

I don't want to sound like a total noob if I ever wander into one...
 
grokit,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
Okay so what's the most popular hq shatter found in better dispensaries?

I don't want to sound like a total noob if I ever wander into one...
Generally BHO is most common and hence most popular. PHO is gaining popularity atm in some legalized necks of the woods ;) QWET and QWISO as I said above tend to be used in DIY extractions, which is why a lot of people tend to associate these methods with inferior product.
 
herbivore21,
  • Like
Reactions: grokit

grokit

well-worn member
Generally BHO is most common and hence most popular. PHO is gaining popularity atm in some legalized necks of the woods ;) QWET and QWISO as I said above tend to be used in DIY extractions, which is why a lot of people tend to associate these methods with inferior product.
So if it's oil, it can also be shatter?

I thought oil would be a thick liquid, while shatter would be solid but pliable.

:freak:
 
grokit,

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
So if it's oil, it can also be shatter?

I thought oil would be a thick liquid, while shatter would be solid but pliable.

:freak:
lol cheeky!

Oil is a catch-all term for crude extractions targeting the 'essential oil' fraction of the cannabis plant. It does not describe one particular consistency when used in this sense. If you were speaking about an oily consistency though, I'd be thinking of something that might be runny like you ;)
 
herbivore21,
  • Like
Reactions: grokit

Dangus

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
I mainly suggested the split of bho and qwiso/qwet to reflect that idea of diy you mentioned, I think it'd give a clearer picture of retail vs home etc

I've made plenty of qwiso over the past few years and don't disagree you can achieve a high quality product, you could look back at my posts as well ;)

Rosin is much easier to deal with...frankly I'm really happy to have moved on from solvents...and no vac purging :)

Cheers
 

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
I mainly suggested the split of bho and qwiso/qwet to reflect that idea of diy you mentioned, I think it'd give a clearer picture of retail vs home etc

I've made plenty of qwiso over the past few years and don't disagree you can achieve a high quality product, you could look back at my posts as well ;)

Rosin is much easier to deal with...frankly I'm really happy to have moved on from solvents...and no vac purging :)

Cheers
Oh man a DIY vs buying concentrates question would be one of the most interesting poll questions we could ask! I think we have another thread right there (this one ran out of poll options hence the limits) :)
 
Top Bottom