Cannabis distillates are the latest craze among concentrate consumers. With so many extract types to choose from, marijuana users can experiment to find their ideal mix of potency, purity, and texture. Concentrate types include wax, shatter, budder, oil, crumble, and distillate. Compared to the average flower potency between 15% to 30% cannabinoid content, distillates offer consumers 90% and beyond of popular cannabinoids including THC and CBD.
What Is Distillate?
Cannabis distillate is a pure, clear, and refined concentrate that rivals other cannabis products in potency and quality. A high-quality distillate requires properly cultivated and cured cannabis flower. After the extraction and distillation process, consumers are left with an tasteless and odorless oil with a high concentration of therapeutic cannabinoid chemical compounds. The distillation process takes refines a cannabis extract into a pure product.
How Is Distillate Made?
Cannabis extracts contain high concentrations of cannabinoids without the plant material including lipids, waxes, chlorophyll, salts, and more. Extract producers can utilize a variety of solvents to remove unnecessary compounds from raw cannabis material. Solvents can range from carbon dioxide to butane to propane. A process called winterization uses alcohol and frozen buds to separate cannabinoids from plant material.
After the preliminary solvent extraction process, extracts contain a high concentration of cannabinoids. A process called short-path distillation removes all solvents leaving behind cannabinoid isolates containing up to 99% cannabinoids. Short-path distillation separates compounds by heating a flask at different boiling points to capture the vapor that contains the cannabinoids. Precise temperature control turns the vapor back into a liquid that is solvent-free.
Benefits of Distillate
Distillate contains pure and potent compounds that have been used by medical patients that require large amounts of cannabinoids. Although research on cannabis is limited, CBD and THC compounds can provide pain, inflammatory, and anxiety relief for many patients. Distillate can be infused into many products including vape pens, capsules, edibles, and more. Distillate is a great option for consumers who want the effects of specific cannabinoids like CBD and THC.
When vaped or smoked, distillate offers fast-acting and long-lasting effects. Cannabis distillate is usually odorless making it a functional addition to edibles. That means that the distillate won’t affect the flavor and taste of the infused meal or drink. Best of all, cannabis distillate removes all solvents and pesticides, if any were used, from the final product.
First-time cannabis users may want to steer clear of distillate until they’ve built up a tolerance to the specific cannabinoid distillate. THC and CBD distillates can be a strong and convenient way to access the unique therapeutic effects of each cannabinoid. For discerning cannabis connoisseurs, distillates are the new frontier among concentrates.