The extraction process
Every cartridge, syringe and spray starts the same way: with cannabis, ice-cold alcohol and a lot of patience. Here’s how we get the THC out of the plant and into the product.
Ice-cold ethanol
We extract with drinkable grain alcohol, chilled to below −50 °C. Cold keeps the unwanted stuff in the plant.
Closed loop
The alcohol runs in a closed-loop system, so we recover it and use it again.
Then distillation
For most products we take one more step and distil the extract into a strong, clean THC oil.
What extraction is
Extraction is simply separating what you want from what you don’t. Cannabis holds THC and other cannabinoids next to chlorophyll, waxes, water and fibre. A good extraction takes the cannabinoids and leaves the rest behind.
How we do it
Our THC extracts are made with ice-cold ethanol: drinkable grain alcohol, in a closed-loop system so we can reuse it. Both the ethanol and the cannabis are cooled to below −50 °C in our laboratory freezer.
That cold is the trick. It keeps water-soluble compounds like chlorophyll and the plant’s lipids out of the extract. The frozen cannabis is soaked briefly in the ice-cold ethanol; how long depends on the material and how finely it’s ground. Then we evaporate the alcohol, filter, and what’s left is a beautifully potent THC extract.
Ethanol and cannabis, both chilled to
Cold keeps chlorophyll and lipids out of the extract.
From extract to product
THC sprays
Our THC sprays use the potent THC oil straight from the closed-loop ethanol extraction.
All other THC products
For every other THC product we go one step further: distillation, for the strongest and cleanest THC oil we can make. Read What is THC distillate?.