How To Smoke Live Resin; The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
Cannabis flowers, vapes, and gummies; the list goes on for popular cannabis products but, how much do you know about how to smoke live resin?
Our guess is not much, seeing as live resin is a recent addition to the growing catalog of cannabis products.
Introduced to the weed concentrates scene from the research and experimentation of a group of extractors in Colorado between 2011 to 2013, live resins are a unique type of concentrate that has fast gained popularity.
Why does everyone want a hit of the fancy-looking bong used to dab live resin? What makes the slightly gooey concentrate such a great hit? And how do you smoke live resins?
Here’s all the info you need for a great first hit with live resin.
But first, there is also something called ‘live rosin,’ are they the same thing with different spellings? Let’s find out.
What is Live Resin?
Live resin is also known as cannabis resin because they are a concentrate extracted from frozen cannabis plants. As opposed to cannabis flowers/buds, the flowers used in creating live resins are kept below freezing temperature immediately after harvesting to preserve their chemical content and terpene profiles.
That way, they maintain their high-inducing substances and bring a huge flavor hit with them, which is why a lot of stoners are trying out resins -to experience that next level hit from a more-intense concentrate.
As they are extracted from cannabis flowers, the strains for live resin are the same as the strains of cannabis.
You can check out the best cannabis strains for daytime use and get the live resin product of the strain on our online dispensary.
The concentrated level of live resin is also the main difference between live resin and other THC extracts, as well as the main similarity between live resin and live rosin (we’ll get back to this shortly).
Live resin is kept frozen throughout the extraction process, which is carried out by introducing a solvent chemical, either butane or propane, to extract the resin material to a sauce-like consistency without being too liquidy.
The extraction process is delicate and technical because any difference in consistency changes the outcome from a resin to something like sugar, hash, or sauce, which are other types of cannabis concentrates.
Extraction with Butane is also known as Butane Hash Oil or BHO, which is used to identify different types of live resins.
Now, What is Live Rosin?
Just like live resin, live rosin is cannabis-derived. They are pretty similar in that the freezing and maintenance are typically the same processes, but the difference sets in at the point of extraction.
Live resins are extracted with solvents (e.g Butane and Propane), while live rosins are solventless extracts.
Solventless extractions are derived by changing the temperature and physically manipulating the trichomes, which form resins, from the plant itself.
For live rosin, the frozen cannabis is pressed between heated plates to extract the oil content. Due to the natural and handmade process of live rosin extraction, they are considered cleaner and are more expensive than live resins.
Live resin and live rosin are called ‘live’ because the freezing process keeps their chemical content and terpene profiles intact, whereas resin and rosin made from dried cannabis plants are referred to as ‘simple.’
Now that we have covered this, and cleared any confusion, it is time to explore the pressing question of how exactly do you smoke live resin?
How To Smoke Live Resin – 4 Ways To Try
Before we get into the details and techniques of smoking live resins, it is important to note that live resins are only ideal for experienced stoners and people with a high THC tolerance level.
Smoking cannabis flowers gives you a THC potency of about 15% – 25%, whereas concentrates like live resins can pack a THC punch with about 60% – 90% potency, which is significantly higher per dose when compared to flowers.
Therefore, before you smoke live resins, you may want to build your tolerance or take a very small dose/hit for your first try to avoid a bad high.
Now that we have completed due caution, let’s get to the fun part.
Live resin can be consumed in various ways with dabbing and vaping as the most popular techniques. Other ways of consuming live resins include topping off -and of course, you can get creative with the technique as well.
The main point is to heat the substance enough to get the smoke content to inhale and consume.
Although, it is important to note that unlike the 350°F combustion temperature for smoking cannabis flowers, live resins vaporize at about 400°F – 600°F, which is significantly hotter so these techniques should be handled with caution.
1. Dabbing
If you’ve seen people smoking something that didn’t quite look like cannabis flowers in a bong that didn’t quite look like a bong, they were most likely dabbing.
Dabbing is the most common way to smoke live resin and it looks a lot like smoking with a bong -but there are some obvious differences.
Firstly, dabbing is used to smoke live resins and similar concentrate extracts like shatter, rosins, wax, and budder, among others.
Other things you need for dabbing include;
- A dab rig and banger, which look like a smaller version of the standard bong and bowl.
- A heating torch, for fast and controlled heat.
- Dab Tool or Small scoop that can handle the consistency of live resin.
- Carb Cap (optional), to cover the banger (bowl) and conserve heating while you inhale.
To dab, preheat the nail part of the dab rig, which is similar to the bowl on a bong, with the torch and then scoop a small dab (get it?) of live resin onto the heated surface.
The heating vaporizes the resins and activates the cannabinoids and terpenes for you to draw a hit from the mouthpiece of the banger.
This method, like using a bong for cannabis, gives you a relatively large amount of smoke and a fast hit, which is why it is advised to use a very small scoop to get a small dab and avoid getting too high, too fast.
2. Vaping With Live Resin Cartridges
Rather than an oil cartridge in regular vaping, the vape pen or dab pen is filled with live resin and activated with the heating button to activate the vaporizing.
This is an ideal way to smoke live resin for a solo or fast hit because it doesn’t involve the technical process of dabbing.
After the vaporizing is activated, simply inhale the resin smoke through the mouthpiece.
Like dabbing, and other forms of consuming live resins (except topping off), this is a non-combustible technique, which makes it safer and delivers better potency and flavor content.
3. Topping Off
To get a next level of high, you can top off your bowl, joint, blunt, or pipe of ground cannabis flower with live resin to get that heightened flavorful hit.
4. Knife Method
A less common technique of consuming live resins is the knife method, and that’s primarily because of all the risks that come with this method.
To use the knife method; heat two knives or metal blades and place a drop of live resin on the edge of one blade, ensuring that you are wearing heat-resistant gloves while handling the knives.
Place the second knife atop the first and inhale the smoke that is emitted.
This method is not advised for people smoking live resins for the first time because of the potential danger of burning your hands or lips in the process.
Why Smoke Live Resin? – Benefits of Cannabis Resin
After considering the long and technical process of smoking live resins, it is easy to conclude that it is more stressful than it is worth.
But, there are some major benefits to smoking cannabis live resins.
1. Higher Potency
The top reason for smoking live resins is the high level of intensity that they pack in every hit.
Buying the smallest gram of live resin from our online dispensary in Canada is enough to cover you for several hits. And with higher potency and flavor burst, there is a heightened effect to everything you get from that strain of cannabis.
You can check out a range of strains for live resins on our online shop to find the perfect choice for your next dab.
2. Health Benefits and Pain Relief
Health benefits and other associated positive effects of using cannabis are more powerful with live resins due to the potency of live resins.
Using live resins can be effective in reducing pain, alleviating stress and anxiety, and improving the quality of health in general.
Conclusion
Live Resins are an excellent cannabis product, and they are exquisite in their production and consumption processes.
Its distinguishing quality is the potency of highness and burst of flavor obtained from the unique extraction technique, making it different from other cannabis products, including cannabis flowers.
You can get an array of live resins including, the classic Grapefruit Live Resin and the fast high of Lemon Sour Diesel from our online extracts menu at Bud Express Now.
