Chemistry

The Many Uses of Cannabis Distillate

distillates
Written by Cara Wietstock

Good for more than just a dab.

Sure most of us have heard of dabbing cannabis distillate by now. A distillate is generally one cannabinoid isolated from all other chemical compounds. These cannabis extractions are crafted using molecular distillation. Essentially, distillation takes an extracted form of cannabis and refines it even further.

Co2 or hydrocarbon extractions that have been purified and winterized are put through a Short Path/ Wiped-Film Still (WFS) and wiped film evaporator (WFE) to refine them even further. This can take a product that was testing in the 70-80% THC range up to 99% THC. At this point, everyone is surely asking why all of our extracts aren’t made this way. That is because the process kills off almost all of the terpene content.

Basically, these are a great tool for dabbing but need to be mixed with terpenes if we want any flavor. On the other hand, many segments of the industry are interested in distillates because they don’t have any terpenes. These products’ lack of flavor has been found to be especially helpful to the consumable cannabis industry.

Distillate and Edibles

Though I will note that I love the taste of cannabis, many patients that I’ve worked with in the past were specifically looking for edibles without “that weedy flavor”. At the time distillation techniques weren’t being used in the cannabis industry, but now edibles void of weed flavor profiles are readily available in medical and recreational states.

Precise Dosing

Cannabis distillates open the doors for more precise dosing in edible manufacturing. A distillate has a specific amount of THC milligrams per milliliter of distillate. Therefore when a specific amount of distillate is added to an edible it will be dosed with a precise amount of THC, THCA or CBD.

Infusing Liquids

Some edibles are harder to infuse than others. For example, liquids haven’t always been easy to dose with cannabis. Now though, we have liquid distillates that can easily be infused into any delicious soda, tea, or even kombucha that we might desire. Cannabis distillates have opened the door to entirely new edible cannabis enterprises.

Sure, some people find that distillates are great for dabbing, but distillates are worth so much more than that to society. In fact, many say that the future of medical cannabis is in distillates.

Image taken from Pope Scientific Inc.

About the author

Cara Wietstock

Cara began working in the retail cannabis industry of San Francisco, CA in 2011 and continued in that sector for years. In 2015 she dedicated herself to writing full-time. Her passion for the written word and deep respect for the healing properties of the plant have brought her to Terpenes and Testing magazine. She now helps keep us on the cutting edge of scientific cannabis discovery as the Editor-in-Chief of the print publication.

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