What Is Live Rosin?

Live rosin is the latest craze to sweep the cannabis concentrate market. They tend to be the most expensive product per gram at dispensaries. Is it worth the hype? Well, there are absolutely no solvents involved. And producers make them with trichome and terpene-rich plants. Then, producers need to sift and press those plants for smaller, higher quality yields. So you pay for the amount of labor and the quality of the starting materials when compared to more massively produced butane hash oils.

Live rosin allows you to experience the purest flavors from some of the finest cannabis the market has to offer. As a result, true connoisseurs are picking up live rosin wherever they can find it. There’s some misinformation out there about what live rosin is and we’re here to help clear things up.

What Is Live Rosin?

If you keep up with trends in the cannabis concentrate space, you’ve probably come across the words “live” and “rosin.” However, we only started to see the two used together in recent years. Before that, the term was exclusively used to describe a type of cannabis concentrates called “live resin.” Live resin usually refers to butane hash oil (BHO) comprised of frozen flower or trim. Now, any products made with materials that were frozen immediately after harvest fall under the “live” category. The reason given for this has been to preserve the aromas of the live plant or the terpenes.

Rosin is something completely different. Rosin is a concentrate made with heat and pressure from a hair straightener, T-shirt press or something similar. One might assume that live rosin simply refers to freshly frozen plants that producers rosin press into concentrates. However, you don’t just pull a frozen plant out of the freezer and stick it in the press. There will still be moisture You’d be boiling water right alongside your cannabinoids and terpenes and destroying the quality of your final product.

So what’s the missing step? You need to make ice wax with quality freshly frozen material then allow that concentrate to dry before pressing it. Ice wax refers to a cannabis concentrate extracted without solvents. This is how producers made extracts without solvents before rosin presses or even BHO existed. Instead, producers use water and ice to agitate the trichomes off of the plant. Then, they collect it all with something flat like a credit card and allow it to cure. You can chop it up and spread it out so that the moisture can escape sooner. If you put your concentrate in a sealed jar immediately after extraction, the remaining water could form mold.

From Full Melt To Live Rosin

You won’t be able to use just any ice wax, though. The ice wax needs to have the qualities of a full melt extract if you’re going to use it to make live rosin. Full melt extracts are the highest quality of hash you can find. The name comes from the fact that it completely melts like a dab of BHO would even if it is in the form of a powder or solid. Experts rate hashes from one to six stars based on their quality. A full melt extract falls between the five and six-star hash rating.

Experts consider anything lower in quality a half melt or worse. A half melt will partially melt while the remaining plant matter and residuals will burn, making the smoke harsher and less flavorful. If you’re paying a hundred dollars or more per gram for non-solvent extracts and they’re not fully melting, you should take your money elsewhere.

Using freshly frozen material is better than dried when making full melt extracts because the fresh material won’t be dry and brittle. According to the legendary cultivator Kyle Kushman, “the main reason fresh trim is more likely than dried trim to yield full-melt is because it doesn’t disintegrate when agitated. You can get super clean full melt from dry trim. But you must be careful not to agitate it too hard.”

Once you’ve got your full melt ice wax, you can put it in a filter bag. Then, apply pressure at a low temperature to squeeze out some of the strongest, purest and most flavorful concentrates you’ve ever seen. The Bubbleman brand says their live rosin tests at about a 75 to 85 percent cannabinoid content with a 4 to 15 percent terpene content. They test both their flower and extracts for pesticides, potency and terpenes.

If you’re paying top dollar for live rosin you should get it from a reliable source. The most reliable sources provide lab testing from flower to sift to rosin to prove their product is safe, potent and as flavorful as possible.

Final Hit: Live Rosin

In short, live rosin is solventless hash oil made with full melt bubble hash that was made with freshly frozen materials. For the longest, full melt extracts have been some of the most sought-out,  highest quality non-solvent concentrates on the market. Live rosin takes things a step further by guaranteeing the use of freshly frozen materials. Pressing live rosin is fun to watch because producers make it with bubble hash and it squirts way more oil when pressed. Not to mention its much lighter in color than your average rosin. Most of the live rosin we’ve come across is bright yellow to off-white in color. Whenever we think concentrates can’t get any better artisan hash makers find a way to prove us wrong.