Live resin cartridges are gaining popularity for their rich terpene profiles and potent effects. However, producing them commercially requires more than just extracting high-potency oil. Without the right steps, you risk losing the delicate terpenes that give live resin its unique flavor and quality.
If you are a cannabis producer who’s looking to lead the market with top quality live resin carts, produced consistently and scalably, this step-by-step guide is for you. We will show you how to preserve flavor, maintain potency, and ensure consistency of the final product, in a scalable way by making your Live Resin Carts with Liquid Diamonds. From the initial extraction to filling the final cartridge, you’ll learn how to avoid common mistakes and produce a high-quality product.
Step 1: Initial Extraction
The foundation of high-quality live resin starts with the right extraction method. Here’s how to make sure your product retains its natural terpenes and potency from the very start:
Cold Extraction
Use a cold butane and propane extraction process, beginning with fresh frozen biomass. This ensures the plant’s natural terpene profile remains intact, as low extraction temperatures and the low boiling point of the solvent prevents the loss of these delicate compounds. Preserving terpenes at this stage is critical to delivering the aroma and flavor that distinguish live resin from other concentrates.Check out our Genome Hydrocarbon Extraction Platform, if you’re looking for extraction equipment that delivers market leading performance for producing your Live Resin Carts.
Step 2: THCa Crystallization
This step focuses on turning your extracted crude into THCa isolate, which also separates it from the High Terpene Extract.
- Collect the Crude in the Crystallization Reactor
Transfer the crude oil to a crystallization reactor, while its still dissolved in the solvent. This step can also be done at a smaller scale using a Diamond Miner. The Genome Controlled Crystallization Reactor allows for precise crystallization by controlling temperature, solubility and time, enabling batches up to 20kg per shift. These crystalline structures are what deliver the potent THC in your live resin.
- Wash the THCa using cold butane
By using cold butane to wash off the THCa isolate, the operator can optimize the potency of the THCa while simultaneously separating the High Terpene Extract into another collection vessel. The solvent can then be boiled off from the terpenes, resulting in a potent terpene concentrate with very little THCa remaining. Remember, since these terpene molecules are volatile and sensitive to heat, the separation of these compounds will help in the later THC decarboxylation process.
Step 3: THC Activation
Here’s where you finalize the potency while making sure the flavor remains spot-on. You’re looking for a complete decarboxylation of the THCa into THC, without subjecting the volatile terpenes to any heat. This is accomplished by having separated the terpenes in the last step. Only the THCa isolate is used in this step.
- THC Activation
- Start by loading your THCa into a decarboxylation reactor with an agitator for mixing. The reactor should be compatible with high temperatures and be connected to a temperature control device such as a heated circulator.
- Pull a vacuum on the vessel or replace the air inside it with an inert gas like nitrogen.
- Warm the vessel to the isolate’s melting point, around 50-70°C degrees, and use the mixer to stir until the isolate melts into a liquid.
- Now heat the liquid to the decarb temperature of 110 to 160°C, the warmer you conduct the reaction, the faster the isolate will decarb into liquid diamonds. The process should be complete in 1 to 4 hours.
- Complete decarboxylation
- The decarboxylation process is complete when there is no more carbon left in the THC to off gas. A simple trick to visually identify this is when the bubbles of carbon gas are no longer bubbling up in the crude oil.
- Nice, now your THCa is now fully converted into THC. This ensures the potency of the extract, and ensures consistency of your live resin vape carts. Now you’re ready to formulate the concentrate to be vape ready.
- Pro Tip: maintaining a pressurized environment inside the vessel during the process using nitrogen prevents oxidation of the THC, which leads to degradation. This is known as a nitrogen blanket.
Step 4: Formulation and Quality Control
At this stage, you’re bringing everything together, THC potency and terpenes, to create the perfect balance. Here’s how to ensure your live resin carts hit all the right notes.
- Consistency is Key
Before formulating your commercial batch of oil for your carts, make sure you test the formulation on a smaller batch, and fill a small sample lot of cartridges. Make sure to test the final mixture thoroughly. The goal here is to create a mix that perfectly balances flavor and strength. You’re checking for:- Potency: Does the THC content match your desired strength?
- Flavor: Is the terpene profile consistent with the experience your customers love?
- Viscosity: Ensure the final formula is the appropriate thickness for the cartridges you’re using. This could impact the vape experience.
- Pro Tip: Always keep detailed records during testing. This helps you replicate the process for future batches and ensures quality control remains high.
- Recombine the Terpenes and THC
Now that you’ve selected your final formula, it’s time to reintroduce the terpenes you separated earlier. You are going to combine High Terpene Extract with the decarbed THC, in this case known as Liquid Diamonds, to produce the oil that’s ready to go into your vape carts.- Measure the amount of THC in your mixing vessel. You can use the same vessel as the one you performed the decarb in.
- Measure the correct amount of High Terpene extract to add to the liquid THC, consistent with the ratio you settled on in your test batch.
- Adjust the temperature of the vessel to 50°C, ensuring it’s warm enough to keep the viscosity low for mixing, but not so warm that the terpenes could be degraded.
- Add the measured amount of High Terpene Extract and keep your mixer on until the terpenes are fully dissolved into the THC.
- Why this matters:
The terpenes are responsible for the taste, aroma, and subtle effects. They are also much lower viscosity than the THC. Blending them back with the THC in a repeatable formula ensures that your live resin carts deliver a consistent and enjoyable experience. Using THC isolate and Terpenes as separate ingredients ensures each batch is as consistent as possible, even when produced in a different facility, or from a different batch of biomass. Adding the terpenes after having separated them from the THC isolate also means that they were not heated in the decarb process. This ensures that they are optimal quality, since heating the terpenes degrades them. - Pro Tip: Each type of vape cart offers its best user experience with a specific oil viscosity. You can adjust how thick or fluid the oil is, based on the formulation you choose. This is called viscosity.
Step 5: Cartridge Filling and Final Quality Assurance
Now that your liquid live resin is ready, it’s time to fill the cartridges with precision.
1. Filling the Cartridges
Use specialized equipment to carefully fill each cartridge, ensuring no air bubbles or impurities. This guarantees a smooth, consistent vape experience.
- Why it matters:
Air pockets or impurities can ruin the user experience. Impurities could be introduced from the filling equipment. Particularly any rubber seals that can be dissolved by the terpenes. This can often be found in syringes, so avoid using those.
2. Final Quality Checks
Perform a thorough inspection before sealing:
- Leak Test: Ensure no leaks.
- Consistency Check: Ensure all cartridges are uniformly filled.
Step 6: Scaling Production
As demand grows, scaling your live resin production becomes essential. Here’s how to do it efficiently without losing quality:
- Increase Production Volume
Use multiple crystallization reactors, or a larger unit to handle larger batches of crude oil, allowing you to produce more without sacrificing the product’s integrity.
- Increase extraction throughput and efficiency.
Unlock greater production of THCa and HTE for your vape cartridges by scaling up your extraction process. You may consider improving solvent recovery and addressing other bottlenecks in your process.
Evolved’s engineering services and our Genome Hydrocarbon Extraction Platform have helped clients 3x their throughput and increase profitability by >400%. Scale Up with Genome
- Streamline Processes
Optimize each phase—from extraction to packaging—to ensure a smooth workflow. Automating certain tasks, like filling, can save time and reduce errors.- Why it matters:
Efficiency ensures you can keep up with demand while maintaining the high standards your customers expect.
- Why it matters:
Step 7: Market Readiness, Consumer Feedback and Continuous Improvement
With your live resin carts ready, it’s time to package and distribute them efficiently. After your product hits the shelves, continuous improvement is key to staying ahead.
- Packaging
Seal each cartridge in airtight, tamper-proof packaging to preserve quality and ensure freshness. Packaging should also be designed to appeal to consumers while protecting the product.
- Gather Feedback
Collect consumer reviews on flavor, potency, and overall satisfaction. Use surveys, direct feedback, or social media to understand how your live resin carts are performing in the market.
- Refine and Improve
Use the feedback to fine-tune your process. Adjust your terpene-THC ratios, enhance packaging, or streamline production based on what resonates with customers.
Conclusion
Making live resin carts requires precision at every stage, from terpene preservation to filling. Following these steps ensures a product that’s potent, flavourful, and consistent. As you scale and gather consumer feedback, you’ll refine your process, continually offering top-quality carts that stand out in a competitive market.
