Live resin is an up-and-coming concentrate that cannabis consumers new and old are turning to for a brand-new experience with weed. But, when it comes to buying live resin, it can feel overwhelming looking for the perfect options for you.
As one of the most aromatic concentrates on the market, you want to make sure your live resin tastes as delicious as possible. So, what marijuana strains make the best live resin? What strains should you look out for when buying this potent golden extract?
To answer all your questions about live resin’s properties and what to look out for when having your own, we have you covered. Below, we’ve discussed the various strains and flavors available that make some deliciously potent live resin.
Summary:
- Live resin is a form of cannabis concentrate known for its aromatic properties.
- Due to its flash-freezing extraction processes, live resin preserves more terpenes and flavonoids than your typical concentrate.
- The best marijuana strains for live resin are those that have pungent, distinct profiles.
- Strains like Sour Diesel, Gelato, and GSC are known for their pungent smells, creating great options for a smelly sesh.
- For a sleepy high, strains like Granddaddy Purp or Northern Lights are both pungent and relaxing.
- For a more uplifting high, strains like Sunset Sherbet produce delicious flavors and creative highs.
Look for the pungent strains
As Robbie Wroblewski, director of community outreach at Seed & Smith remarks, “Any strain can make live resin, it’s simply a matter of what we can yield from certain strains.” Some strains produce effects and yields that simply “make the work worth it,” while others just don’t provide what we need.
Always start by looking for live resin made from pungent cannabis strains. Strains like Sour Diesel, Ghost Train Haze, Gelato, and GSC are all known for their extremely distinct flavors and aromatic profiles, making them great for live resin. The flavors themselves get lost quite easily within other forms of concentrate, but live resin enhances them tenfold.
Best strains for live resin
1. Sour Diesel
Good for: Alleviating anxiety, boosting mood, mind and body relaxation.
With Sour Diesel, you’ll have no issue finding the skunky, cheesy notes you’ve loved for years. Gelato, on the other hand, will produce peppery and citrusy notes that we can almost guarantee you’ve never experienced from a dab before. Way more than just the taste of vaporized cannabis, any pungent strains will produce full-fledged flavor profiles that totally enhance your smoke session.
If you don’t recognize a strain, you can always ask your budtender or look up online to see if it produces the pungent effects you’re looking for. Typically, the skunkiest, cheesiest strains tend to be the most distinct, but, with so many different strains out there, you can easily find one that appeals to your pallet.
Our favorite sour diesel live resin product comes from Viola extracts. This sugary, juicy extract embraces the gassy aromas we love from the sour diesel strain.
2. Sunset Sherbet
Good for: Enhancing creativity, boosting mood, reducing anxiety and stress.
Sunset Sherbet, for example, is a perfect strain within live resin if you’re looking for an uplifting, sweet, and citrusy experience. This strain is known for producing more creativity-inducing properties, ideal for achieving a carefree, blissful mindset.
However, if you’re hoping to enjoy a few dabs before bed, a vibrant strain such as Sherbet may not be best.
For either a tasty dab or an uplifting puff off a vape, we suggest turning to Bobsled Extracts. They have both live resin in buckets and in cartridge form.
3. Northern Lights
Good for: Helping with sleep, muscle and joint relaxation, calming the mind.
This is exactly when you’d turn to a strain like Northern Lights to produce the sleepy effects and calming flavors you require. Northern Lights is a strain known for its full-body relaxation and soothing, gentle effects. Before bed, this strain is the absolute best to smoke on: once your head hits the pillow, it’s lights out for you.
While all of these strains are pungent and potent, they produce totally different experiences through their flavor profiles and unique properties. Every strain is different, and especially in a product like live resin, this is incredibly apparent; so, choose wisely.
Think about the experience you’re hoping to achieve and find a strain that produces effects that align with your thinking. We like K.I.N.D.’s northern lights live resin cartridges the most.
4. Yoda OG
Good for: Helping with sleep, boosting positivity, full-body relaxation.
Hailing from the famous OG Kush, Yoda OG is another great strain to utilize within live resin. This classic indica strain is known for its super-pungent citrusy notes, transferring wonderfully into each glob of live resin.
This strain will probably make you a little sleepy, but its relaxing benefits paired with euphoric effects makes for a perfect, balanced high. With each dab of this live resin, your pallet will be exploding with flavor and your mind will be bursting with bliss.
5. Chemdawg
Good for: Alleviating anxiety, pain relief, uplifting moods.
A great hybrid strain for live resin, Chemdawg has both pungent flavors and potent effects. Like Sour Diesel, Chemdawg has a strong diesel profile with skunk-like notes that you’ll find in every dab. Even as you exhale, this strain’s distinct aromas will hang in the air.
Being a hybrid, Chemdawg is neither too sedative nor too uplifting: it’s right in the middle. Chemdawg, especially within live resin, can help produce serious relaxation and cerebral effects. Euphoria galore. This strain will probably leave you feeling pretty glued to the couch, though, so make sure your schedule is clear for the day.
Mad Mark Farms makes the tastiest, most potent chemdawg live resin concentrate money can buy, no doubt.
Different scents make different experiences
When it comes to finding the best strains for live resin, it’s important to remember that different scents make different experiences. This may sound obvious, but for example, understanding that your Sunset Sherbet live resin is going to produce a totally different high than your Northern Lights live resin is crucial.
Live resin and its qualities
With other types of concentrates, paying close attention to marijuana strains doesn’t make that huge of a difference. Most concentrates are crafted using a drying and curing process prior to the extraction of oils.
This drying and curing process has been known to cause terpene degradation due to certain environmental exposures, creating a product that simply isn’t as flavorful or aromatic as the flower once was.
With live resin, however, the plant material is not dried or cured, but is instead frozen before and during the extraction process. The freezing temperatures utilized during this preserves the terpenes and flavonoids present in the flowers and leaves, creating a much more flavorful and aromatic product than you may be used to experiencing.
Because of these distinct profiles, paying attention to the strains used is important: they can completely influence your sesh!
The benefits of live resin compared to other concentrates
When comparing live resin to other cannabis concentrates, the benefits that this special form of cannabis extract brings is practically unheard of.
Cannabis is meant to be enjoyed as a whole: cannabinoids, flavonoids, terpenes and all. But, many other concentrates undergo such rigorous extractions that many of these phytochemicals are actually destroyed. Live resin, however, is crafted using the flash-frozen process we discussed earlier, which preserves all of these compounds.
Having such a full profile of phytochemicals results in something the cannabis world is calling the entourage effect. This is the idea that cannabis’ properties are meant to work synergistically; when they’re all paired together (versus being isolated or stripped) effects feel fuller, stronger, and all the more beneficial.
Essentially, live resin has the ability to enhance all of your favorite cannabis benefits, simply through its complex profiles.
Viscosity
Resin comes in various forms:
- Wax
- Jelly
- Shatter
- Butter
- Sap
Terpene profile & cannabinoids
Common cannabinoids and terpenes found in Live Resin are THC, CBN, CBD, Limonene, and Myrcene.
Looking for quality live resin comes with understanding both terpene profiles and cannabinoids. Terpenes and cannabinoids are key in making live resin what it is, so you always want to ensure that your product has both high terpene and cannabinoid percentages.
Typically, with flower, you’ll find terpene percentages around 2%, with anything more than 10% being practically unheard of. Some of the best live resin will have terpene percentages around 3 or 4%, and cannabinoid percentages being anywhere from 70-90%.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
THC is likely going to be the main cannabinoid you’ll find within live resin. This is the cannabinoid that causes the euphoric, cerebral highs you love. On the flip side, too much THC has shown to have adverse effects, especially for those who suffer from anxiety or panic disorders.
In general, THC is incredibly beneficial for both therapeutic values and euphoric effects. But, its potency is one to be wary of for some cannabis consumers.
Cannabinol (CBN)
For quality live resin, try looking for CBN profiles. CBN is a cannabinoid known for medicinal, therapeutic effects, from helping with inflammation to brain health.
This cannabinoid shows serious therapeutic potential, making it a wonderful addition within live resin’s composition. However, when combined with THC, CBN has shown “super-sedative” properties, resulting in drowsiness and even fatigue for some. So, if you’re enjoying CBN alongside THC in your live resin, prepare to feel a little sleepier than you normally would.
Limonene
Limonene is a citrus-based terpene that you should always look for in your live resin. This terpene boasts flavors of lemon, orange peel, lime, and other bright, refreshing notes. When in your live resin, every dab is tastier than the next with this citrusy terp.
The therapeutic benefits of limonene can’t be ignored, either. This terpene produces uplifting effects, antibacterial, and antifungal properties that make your live resin experience even more pleasant. Unfortunately, right now, we don’t have much information on this terp and cannot make definitive claims, however.
Myrcene
Another terpene to keep an eye out for when buying live resin is myrcene. Myrcene is a fragrant, hoppy terp that makes your live resin pop on the tongue. As one of the most common cannabis terpenes in the cannabis plant, you’re likely to come across this peppery terp in your dabs of live resin–and it’ll be quite tasty, too.
People turn to this terpene often for its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties, as well as its support for anxiety and stress relief. When it comes to its cons, myrcene doesn’t seem to have any, at least ones that are apparent. Right now, like other terpenes, we just don’t have enough research to tell.
How to consume live resin
Before we let you go, let’s talk briefly about consuming live resin. As appealing as it sounds, you’re probably left wondering how the heck you can get your hands on some, too. Well, you have a few options.
- The most popular method of enjoying live resin is through dabbing. Dabbing requires a dab rig, a torch, a dab tool, a carb cab, and, of course, some live resin. To enjoy, you simply heat up the banger on your dab rig (the protruding piece) using your torch. Heat up the banger until it is red hot, or about 550°F. Then, let it cool for about 30 seconds, and grab a glob of live resin on your dab tool. Then, put your mouth on the mouthpiece, drop the dab in, and start inhaling.
- If you don’t like the prospect of dabbing, live resin vape cartridges are also incredibly popular. With these, all you have to do is twist on the live resin cartridge to your favorite CCELL battery. Then, you just inhale and take a few puffs off your tasty live resin cart whenever your heart desires.
Final Thoughts: It’s Up to You!
Whether you turn to Grandaddy Purp for your favorite deep grape flavor and relaxing effects, or you indulge in a dab of Gorilla Glue #4 for its sour aromas and cerebral euphoria is entirely up to you. That’s the beauty of concentrates like live resin! With its preservation of such pungent properties, you can enjoy practically any flavor profile on the planet. As long as your strain is potent and is known for producing distinct flavors, that’s all that matters.
Think about your ideal cannabis experience, and see what kind of flavors and smells pop into your mind. Then, find a marijuana strain that matches that profile, and go from there. When you do this, you will experience the smoke sesh of your dreams, all thanks to live resin and its aromatic properties.