As cannabis legalization grows and expands across the country, many consumers have found interest in procuring solventless extracts. To meet this need, we at MPX are proud to announce our newest product: Kief Rosin. While Rosin is a somewhat well known cannabis extract, Kief Rosin is a different entity in a few key ways. Keep reading below to find out what they are.
Solvent vs Solventless: What’s the Difference?
Simply put, the key difference in these two methods of extraction lies within how the product itself is made; one method uses a solvent, and one method does not.
In extraction terms, solvents are generally considered agents that aid in the separation of chemical material from the plant material of cannabis. Common extraction agents include hydrocarbons such as butane, propane, or a blend thereof. Many companies also use agents such as ethanol or CO2, though these extraction methods offer a different set of challenges than that of hydrocarbon extraction. For those interested, we offer a full array of premium quality hydrocarbon extracts with our Live Resin and Cured Resin product lines.
Solventless extractions however, rely solely on water, heat, pressure, or a combination thereof to separate plant material from chemical material. Examples of this type of extraction method include Rosin and it’s more refined cousin Live Rosin; click here to read more about our high quality Live Rosin if you’d like to learn more. Rosin can also made with the star of today’s blog post, Dry Sift.
Breaking Down Dry Sift Rosin
Rosin made from Dry Sift is among the most top of the line solventless extracts available.
To start our process, we freeze our premium cured flower, which helps the process in a couple ways. Firstly, it helps release the trichomes from the plant material, and can help promote higher yields of dry sift. Secondly, the freezing process helps preserve more volatile terpenes and cannabinoids, allowing us to procure the full profile of the strain from which we are extracting.
From here we introduce the frozen cured cannabis to a series of increasingly fine mesh screens in a cold environment, in order to separate the cannabis plant material from the crystalline trichomes that rest on the leaves and buds of cannabis; this slow and deliberate sifting process ensures that we can harvest the maximum amount of trichomes without compromising the delicate structure of the trichome, which contains the cannabinoids and terpenes that create the high of cannabis.
After the sifting process is finished, we further refine the dry sift by generating static electricity, which separates any remaining powdered plant material from the pure trichomes. The remaining material is soft with the texture and color of fine white sand, and fully melts into a liquid state when heat is applied. Sift captured with this method also has a much higher cannabinoid potency than that of flower cannabis.
This dry sift is then selected and scrutinized by our team of expert extractors who then select out only the highest quality sift for the final extraction process. Sift is then collected and set aside into very fine mesh bags that keep in lipids and other unwanted impurities, while allowing the heated oil from the trichome to ooze out.
These bags are then put into a rosin press, which is a machine that allows you to control the heat and pressure applied to the material loaded into it. Once loaded, the rosin bags have quick and gentle bursts of heat and pressure applied to them in order to “prime” the dry sift for extraction. The bags are heated to the optimal temperature (between 160-190 Fahrenheit), pressure is slowly but increasingly applied to the rosin bag. As the pressure builds, a heated, almost sap-like oil slowly starts oozing from the rosin bag; this oil is our finished product, known as rosin. This rosin is collected onto parchment paper, and then put into glass jars to allow the rosin to cure and firm up over the course of several days.
Once the curing is finished, we have a beautiful, almost translucent sap that is brimming with terpenes and highly concentrated cannabinoids. The final rosin can range from a very pale, almost white color, to a somewhat pale amber, depending on the terpene profile captured. It is then parceled out into singular containers and ready to be shipped to our discerning customers!
Our premium quality Dry Sift Rosin can be found on select shelves in dispensaries all across Massachusetts. We encourage you to find the strain you love, and let us know what you think!