What Are Full Melt Extracts?

If you dabble in the world of cannabis concentrates, you may have heard of full melt extracts. What are full melt extracts when compared to other cannabis concentrates? They’re solventless, so there’s no need to drown your precious nugs in butane to make concentrates. Not to mention, full melt dabs tend to be more potent than your average batch of hash oil. Here’s why full melt extracts are becoming one of the safest most potent extracts available today.

What Are Full Melt Extracts?

Full melt extracts have been around for a long time, and multiple ways of extracting full melt extracts have been discovered. None of them involve the introduction of any solvents like butane, propane or even CO2. So you can extract them without the fear of blowing yourself up.

Full melt can be extracted by dry sifting cannabis with screens or using ice water and bubble bags to make bubble hash. You’ll just need the right equipment and some elbow grease.

Before rosin tech dabs rose to popularity, the OG solventless extracts fell under the “melt” category. Full melt is solventless extraction with a focus on the best part of the plant. The goal in creating full melt is to isolate the trichome heads from the rest of the plant.

Trichome heads are chock full o’ cannabinoids like THC and CBD. Not to mention, there is a high concentration of terpenes in the trichome head. Terpenes are responsible for the aroma and flavor of various cannabis concentrates and flowers.

Melt Test

If you weren’t there to see the concentrate get extracted, there are still ways to tell whether or not what you’re looking at is full melt, half melt or worse.

Full melt should contain strictly trichome heads without any leftover contaminants. When you dab it, you should be able to see whether or not there were contaminants. Full melt will turn into a puddle and vaporize without extra residuals burning alongside it. Half melt has contaminants, so half of it will melt, hence the name. The other half contains unwanted residues and contaminants.

Star Rating System

When purchasing bubble hash or dry sift, it’s important to pay attention to the star rating to understand what you’re buying.

If your dispensary carries sifts and bubble hashes, they should have them labeled based on their quality.

For example, you might come across “6 star bubble hash” and wonder what the six stars stand for. The stars are a purity rating system from 1 to 6, with one being the poorest in quality.

Five to six star is what we would call full melt extracts, perfect for dabbing. Three to four stars is considered half melt and should be pressed into rosin before dabbing, or added to a blunt or bowl.

Dabbing lesser quality melts can “chaz” or stain your quartz banger. Additionally, the dab will taste more like you smoked a bowl of  flower or resin rather than the more flavorful terpenes you would find in live resin extracts. One to two star hash is better used for cooking. Smoking it won’t be anywhere near as pleasant or safe to dab as something with a six star rating.