If you are a small-mid sized producer it is easy to grow your Cannabis Brand with Solventless Products. Solventless products – including rosin carts, cold cured rosin and full melt – are the cream of the crop when it comes to cannabis extracts. Almost nothing is lost during isolation, capturing the full essence of the cannabis flower. Production of solventless products requires closely coordinating strain selection, grow method and harvest method/storage. Solventless extraction methods are typically labour intensive (unless you are using Hashtek equipment 😉 and require great care. For these reasons solventless products have gained notoriety among the headiest of cannabis users. It is difficult for large companies to make quality solventless products, because the process does not scale in the same way something like distillate production does. This means you won’t watch your margins erode in a bloody race to the bottom. If you are David battling Goliath – solventless is a smart play.
Adding solventless products helps boost your entire product line. Much how Porche has the 911 (solventless products) drive sales of their high margin vehicles such as the Cayenne (e.g pre rolls), having a robust solventless line can help you gain sales across all product lines. And similar to how the 911 used to be carried by the Cayenne, as consumers get more educated there will be a reversal and the solventless line will quickly become your volume driver as well.
Back in the 1990s, Porsche 911 sales were so slow that the German carmaker had to develop an SUV, the Cayenne, to return to profitability. Come 2020, and the Porsche 911 is the most profitable car in the world. According to Bloomberg, the 911 accounted for nearly 30 percent of total Porsche earnings in 2019, even though it made up only 11 percent of the company’s sales.
https://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/the-porsche-911-basically-prints-money-and-that-s-why-porsche-can-sell-the-taycan-at-a-loss-for-now-ar188741.html
Many of the licensed producers we work with have experienced the same phenomenon in a much more compressed time frame. Solventless was once their small fun project that now carries the profitability of the company. Once automated with our equipment and methods solventless extraction becomes an easy way to profit in an otherwise competitive market.
Solventless Product Catalogue
Below is a comprehensive list of items that can be made with Hashtek extraction equipment. Although our Ice water extractions machines produce the majority of the products in this list, Dry sift tumblers -which pump out traditional hash- are often even more lucrative for our customers, due to the insatiable amount of demand that exists for well produced traditional hash.
Hash Rosin
Hash rosin is my favourite extract, it is a true full spectrum extract and there is a wide catalogue of products you can make from hash rosin. To make hash rosin you first need to know how to make bubble hash (aka Ice Water Hash). You use Ice, Water, Agitation and 25 – 220 micron (μ) filter screens to separate plant matter from trichomes. The trichomes (often called bubble hash at this stage) are then dried and pressed into hash rosin.
The Hash rosin above is cold cured, and is used as a starting point in many of the extraction methods below.
Full Melt
Full melt (aka Ice Water Extract, Water hash, 5-star and 6-star hash) is a notch above hash rosin, and requires an even tighter cold supply chain from plant to dab. It is just bubble hash with a tighter fraction (e.g. 90-119u or sometimes even 160-189u depending on the cultivar) with no secondary refining process (pressing into rosin). Usually only the first or second pull. It is all heads, melty deliciousness. The true cream of the crop when it comes to cannabis extracts.
I argue that Hashtek machines are the only commercial machines capable of making full melt at scale due to the extremely gentle agitation our water agitators provide.
Full melt guide coming soon.
Rosin Carts
Rosin carts when done correctly are the best vape carts money can buy. Producers must be careful to only use hash rosin with very low lipid content to prevent a burning taste from the atomizer.
Solventless Creams
THCa has potent anti-inflammatory properties, and terpenes are powerful solvents that can help penetrate the transdermal layer. This makes solventless products an excellent base for making cannabis infused creams.
THCa
THCa is the distillate of solventless products. Good to know how to make and useful as a constituent to other products but not amazing on its own. It is the mechanical separation of THCa from terpenes and other compounds via cold pressure.
Rosin Jam
Rosin Jam is a very interesting product. Great consistency for cold weather and can help mellow out strong terps into something more manageable. I love having rosin jam on the go at all times.
THCa w/ Rosin Jam
THCa with Rosin Jam is perhaps best done by Eric Simpsons from Simpson Solventless with his delicious looking solventless donuts. This follows the same process as making THCa but you go one step further by putting the THCa in a mold. The sauce (which is a byproduct of THCa separation) is then drizzled overtop. Instructional post coming soon.
Flan (Deconstructed and Reconstructed Rosin)
Flan is a term coined by Blue River Terps. The name is proprietary but the method is not. The key behind flan is to deconstruct rosin using mechanical methods, and then reconstruct it in a high 12%+ terpene blend. Instructional post coming soon.
Dry Sift
Dry sift is extracted using a cannabis tumbler. It is typically processed into traditional hash (via hot wine bottle or meat grinder at scale). It can be sold on it its own though this is not a very useful product format. Typically further processing is required. Mixing dry sift into pre-rolls is a great way to boost cannabinoid percentage.
Traditional Hash
Traditional hash usually has a malleable texture that can be worked into snakes, temple balls and bots. Some varieties of hash are more crumbly than sticky, which can be a result of many different factors. If you want your hash to be more sticky use more heat during processing. This will decarb more of the THC and contribute to a stickier hash, VS one that is predominantly THC-A.
Freeze drying also contributes to crumbly hash, which is why tumbled dry sift can have advantages over ice water for traditional hash production.
Common processing methods are via Hot Wine Bottle or Meat Grinder.
