A Beginner’s Guide to Concentrates & Extracts

Crumble wax is often difficult to handle but ideal for vaporizers and on top of bowls of flower

Concentrates are now available to purchase by recreational users and their popularity only continues to grow. For newer users questions about the many forms that dabs can take sometimes come up. Below we will take a closer look at the main types of concentrates – Shatter, Crumble, Wax, and Oil.
Dabs, also referred to as cannabis concentrates, come in several different shapes, sizes and forms. Here are many different types of dabs that you’ll eventually come across.

Shatter

One form of BHO (butane hash oil), shatter is considered to be a fairly stable and glass like concentrate that most of the time will “shatter” into many pieces. Most shatter is smooth, clear, and solid, while other kinds will be slightly sticky. A lot of people do their best to >find shatter because it’s known to be the purest of all concentrates.

Crumble

During the creation process, when BHO is vacuumed or whipped the wax transforms into a soft and brittle substance that crumbles easily. Depending on how much it has been broken down, crumble should be able to break into suitable sized dabs before a session.

Wax

Typically a yellowish brown in color, a “dab” of wax is usually smoked using a water pipe or vaporizer. Waxis probably the stickiest form of concentrates that really should only handled with a dab tool. The word “dab” originates from wax concentrates, referring to smoking a “dab” of wax.

Oil

Sometimes concentrates are made with C02 instead of Butane. This usually produces a slightly runny oil that sometimes comes in a syringe or a container. There’s a pretty distinct difference when it comes to the taste in comparison to BHO, mostly it comes down to personal
preference.

Water Hash

Thereare tons of techniques used to produce water hash and as a result, products have many different forms (bubble hash, solventless wax, ice wax, and others). The basic rule of thumb is this: marijuana (either dry or fresh-frozen generally) is mixed with cold water and ice, then shifted manually or mechanically in order to break off the now-brittle trichome heads.

Rosin

Themost recent and most popular type of concentrate out right now, rosin is extracted from either dried marijuana buds, trim, or lower-grade water hash/kief. The unique thing about rosin is that it can be made with nothing more than a hair straightener, parchment paper and some hand-applied pressure. As a result it will resemble a golden shatter or oil-like extract that >looks similar to pressed high-quality water hash or even solvent-extracted shatter.