Live Rosin and Resin: Understanding These Cannabis Concentrates

Cannabis concentrates are a delightful way to enhance your cannabis experience. They offer tokers a potent and flavorful option beyond traditional consumption methods that tear up the delicate compounds. Among these concentrates, live rosin and resin stand out for their rich terpene profiles and potent effects thanks to their clever twist on the post-harvest phase. 

What is Live Rosin?

Live rosin is a solventless cannabis concentrate renowned for its purity and robust flavor profile. It undergoes a meticulous extraction process utilizing only heat — along with pressure. This means it's devoid of solvents like butane and even CO2 which are commonly used when creating concentrates. 

The key to live rosin is it doesn't have to undergo the traditional drying and curing stages that take several weeks. Cannabis flower is immediately frozen after harvest before undergoing the extraction process. 

How Live Rosin is Made?

It goes without saying that you want to use the highest-quality flower. You want to look for a strain that produces a strong aroma right before and after harvesting. Ok, now that that is out of the way, away we go! 

Cannabis flower must be frozen immediately after harvest. If it starts drying, you no longer have the ability to make live rosin with the flower. Regular rosin is still an option. Next, the frozen cannabis material undergoes a series of extraction steps to create full melt bubble hash. This process involves agitating frozen cannabis buds in ice water. This causes the trichomes to detach from the plant material and form a concentrated mixture known as bubble hash. 

The “full melt” designation indicates the high purity and potency of the hash, and that it should melt when exposed to heat.

Once the full melt bubble hash is obtained, it is carefully dried to remove excess moisture while retaining its potency and flavor. The dried hash is then ready for the final step. To produce live rosin, the dried full melt bubble hash is placed between layers of material like parchment paper that keeps everything tidy when we press and heat the hash. 

This process causes the trichomes to release their cannabinoids and terpenes, which are collected as a sticky, resinous substance. By pressing the trichomes instead of the entire flower, the rosin is more pure and concentrated in cannabinoids/terpenes. I.e., there is less non-psychoactive plant material gunking up the concentrate. 

And, What is Live Resin?

Like live rosin, live resin starts by using cannabis flowers that were frozen immediately after harvest. However, unlike live rosin, which is a solventless concentrate created by pressing dried full melt bubble hash, frozen flower is soaked in a solvent before undergoing the mechanical process that applies heat and pressure. Which causes the trichomes to release their cannabinoids/terpenes, resulting in a resinous concentrate called live resin. 

The distinction lies in the extraction method: live resin involves solvents while live rosin avoids them.

The Complex Process Behind Live Resin Extraction

Due to the need for advanced equipment when extracting, live resin is usually more difficult to make vs. live rosin. One reason alone is that the solvent will need to be removed before the product is safe to consume. It's important to note that handling solvents requires expertise and caution due to their flammability and potential toxicity if ingested. In fact, I pretty much never recommend them, because I don’t want to turn on the news to hear you blew up your kitchen. 

To remove any remaining solvents after extraction, specialized equipment such as vacuum ovens and rotary evaporators are used to eliminate all residual solvents from the final live resin product. But that’s not the only reason live resin is more tricky, as it requires cryogenic freezing where temperatures as low as -238°F(-150°C) are seen. 

Making full melt bubble hash is much easier as you just need to agitate frozen cannabis material in ice water to extract trichomes — which can be done with basic equipment like buckets, bags, and water.  

Comparing Live Rosin and Resin

Creating live rosin is generally simpler and safer compared to live resin due to its solventless extraction method and lack of cryogenic freezing. Live rosin involves pressing dried full melt bubble hash — created from frozen flower — resulting in a concentrate with a more distinct flavor profile. Creating full melt bubble hash is pretty simple too, as we just saw. 

Now, thanks to all that complex equipment live resin needs, these products potentially have higher cannabinoid content on average. But that will translate into higher costs compared to live rosin. Some will prefer that greater potency and change in flavor live resin can have while others will prefer live rosin for its purity and solvent-free nature. For me, if I'm in a dispensary, I lean to live resin since I can create live rosin at home. 

Can You Find CBD Live Rosin or From Other Cannabinoids?

Thanks to selective breeding, we can create endless cannabinoid strains that feature the cannabinoids and terpenes in various ratios. And some of those ratios won’t cause an intoxicating high. This means you can easily find live rosin and live resin that features an abundance of CBD and little THC. So, make sure to ask yourself what you are looking for from your cannabis item. And if you have any concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to a medical expert.

See also: Articles, Cannabis, CBD, Lifestyle, Vape

Nicholas McEnzie

Cannabis Expert EditorExpertise : Cannabis and Hemp Cultivation

Over the past decade, Nicholas McEnzie has dedicated himself to educating gardeners, enterprises, and enthusiasts on thriving in the dynamic cannabis industry. Whether he's actively involved in cultivation or conducting research on cannabinoids in the laboratory, Nicholas is committed to providing thoroughly researched, accurate, and clear information to a sector that greatly benefits from it.