With so many different concentrates in the cannabis market in today’s world, it can be confusing for the average consumer on what each concentrate is exactly. Especially when it comes to terms like BHO vs rosin. Concentrates can come in many different forms like shatter, crumble, budder, sauces, and diamonds.
There’s also different types of runs to add onto that like trim, popcorn nugs, regular nugs, premium runs, and live resin. Even more, there are different extraction methods using solvents like butane, propane, ethanol, hydrocarbon, CO2. Then there is our most preferred cannabis concentrate, rosin, which is a solventless extraction by combining time, pressure, and heat on plant material. Needless to say, this can be a lot to take in and confusing.
Most cannabis concentrate consumers are used to dabbing on the most popular concentrates like shatter, budder, or crumble using an extraction and involving butane. This gives concentrated extracted with butane the label, BHO (butane hash oil). Even though these concentrates have been the most popular for quite some time since dabbing became popular, the equipment and process required to make these concentrates can be expensive and dangerous.
Rosin (SHO) on the other hand, has become increasingly popular because of its superior qualities to other concentrates plus it is very simple, safe, and affordable to make. This is why we came up with a BHO vs Rosin guide to help you understand the differences.
Table of Contents
BHO vs Rosin
We designed this easy to understand infograph to help show some of the main differences of BHO vs Rosin:
- Residuals
Residuals refer to the solvents used to make a concentrate like butane, propane, ethanol, etc. When making BHO concentrates, there is a chance your final product will have left over residuals of the solvent that was used to extract the cannabis oil. This can be undesirable to many knowing that they could be inhaling butane when taking their dabs. Since rosin is made using pressure and heat, it is a solventless extraction and there are no residuals. This makes for a much more desirable and clean final product.
2. Chemicals
Chemicals used during production of both BHO and rosin are in no way similar. When making BHO concentrates, you are experimenting with flammable chemicals such as butane and propane, which can be very dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. These flammable chemicals may cause fires and explosions when handled improperly. There is no use of flammable chemicals when making rosin so it is considered to be a very safe process.
3. Safety Measures
Since BHO concentrates are made with flammable chemicals, the safety measures required are very important to follow because it is dangerous to make. Because of this, it can be more time consuming to make BHO. While rosin is significantly safer to make because all you need is a rosin press to make it and there are zero flammable chemicals. Just watch out for the hot plates when pressing for rosin!
4. Time Till Consumption
After you are done pressing your precious rosin, the final product is ready for consumption in as little as an hour or two. This makes producing rosin even more simple and efficient to make. After you are done extraction BHO concentrates, you have to wait a long time for it to purge for being able to consume it. This purge can take up to 24 hours or longer to make some quality BHO.
5. Affordability
The equipment required to even be able to make BHO concentrates can be very expensive. So not everyone is able to produce it easily because not everyone can afford the equipment needed. Making rosin is very affordable. All you need is a rosin press, which is not too expensive. You can even press rosin the simplest way by using a hair straightener. Although more experienced rosin pressers will use a higher quality rosin press to make better rosin and produce a better yield.
Other BHO vs Rosin Notes From Experienced Pressers:
One very experienced rosin presser that goes by @desert.heat.extracts on Instagram has some great input. He mentioned that other noticeable differences between BHO and rosin include general yields, cannabinoid levels, and fats/lipids content. Flower rosin tends to have a higher amount of fats and lipids. Hash rosin does not typically have nearly as many fats/lipids as flower rosin, but still more than BHO concentrates. Also, rosin produces a much lesser yield compared to BHO when using the same material and amounts.
It is also good to note that rosin can be made from a wide variety of different cannabis material including flower, trim, hash, dry sift, and kief. Rosin can also be produced into different textures as well depending on the combination of pressure, time, heat, and curing implemented during pressing. Not nearly as many textures as BHO, but rosin is still in its early stages of development only being around for about 5 years.
BHO has around 10-15 years more of science and research behind it so BHO runs can be more precise and data driven when it comes to output of a run. Proper BHO will be clean, fully documented, professional/lab grade, and an exact percentage. More scientific.
Rosin runs compared to BHO runs tend to cost more as well due to it being done in smaller batches and lesser yields. This results in rosin being a more expensive concentrate on the market compared to BHO concentrates. However, it makes sense that you pay more for a higher quality product.
Even with the best of the best rosin in the world, there is still a lot to learn and advance in the rosin community. It also requires a lot of personal handling, meaning the chances of more contamination (bare, exposed hands, dirty “lab” settings and no real quality control/sanitary or safety requirements). While there’s a lot of facts and truth behind these statements, there is still much research to be done.
Another fantastic presser in the rosin community that goes by “The Rosinberg” (@therosinberg on Instagram) runs an amazing educational rosin website therosinberg.com. He mentions that it is important to note that BHO only being shatter and crumble is not entirely accurate. You are able to make many, if not all, the same types of end products from any of the extracts. Rosin, BHO, and PHO can all be made into shatter.
