Live resin is a concentrate extracted with a solvent, most commonly a hydrocarbon such as butane or propane, from plants frozen right after harvest. Because the material skips drying and curing, a larger share of the volatile monoterpenes survives into the extract than when dried flower is used. The finished product often has a sauce, badder or sugar consistency.
In practice
Live resin is a product category on dispensary menus, and it is usually priced above cured resin. "Live" describes the starting material, not a method or a purity level. Extraction with solvents is a regulated industrial process that requires licensed, engineered equipment; it should never be attempted at home. GenetixBay defines the product and gives no extraction information.
Don't confuse with
- Live rosin: from the same type of starting material, but solventless.
- Cured resin: extracted from dried and cured material.
- Rosin: solventless; resin (as in live resin) is a solvent extract.
A monoterpene is a ten-carbon terpene made from geranyl pyrophosphate, such as myrcene, limonene, pinene or terpinolene; they are the most volatile terpenes and the first lost in drying.Badder is a soft, cake-batter-textured concentrate formed by whipping an extract so its cannabinoids crystallise finely; it can be solvent-based or, as rosin badder, solventless.Cured resin is a solvent-based extract made from dried and cured cannabis rather than fresh frozen material, typically with a more aged, less bright aroma than live resin.Live rosin is rosin pressed from ice water hash made from fresh frozen plants, preserving more of the volatile aroma of the living plant; it is solventless.Solventless describes cannabis concentrates made only by mechanical or physical separation, using screens, ice water, heat or pressure, without chemical solvents.Holding dried cannabis in sealed containers so its moisture declines slowly and evenly over weeks, improving smoothness and aroma.Rosin is a solventless concentrate: resin squeezed out of flower, kief or hash using heat and pressure, then collected as an oil free of plant material.A solvent-based extract is a cannabis concentrate made by dissolving cannabinoids and terpenes out of plant material with a solvent such as butane, propane, ethanol or CO2.Fresh frozen is cannabis frozen immediately after harvest without drying or curing, used as starting material for live resin and live rosin to keep more volatile aroma.Sauce is a runny, terpene-rich cannabis concentrate, usually the liquid fraction that separates when THCA crystallises out of an extract, often sold with diamonds.Diamonds are large crystals of THCA, typically grown out of a solvent extract and sold alone or in terpene-rich sauce; they are nearly pure THCA.
