@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
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
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
I apologise if this is a very convoluted post, I do not have time to edit for clarification lol
Here's one of my latest efforts 
