Respect My Region and friends gathered to celebrate the art of cannabis extraction on 7/10, the official oil and concentrate holiday.
Haze was rolling through the house, smoke rushing out of the back and front door. Blunt wraps and jars of weed in all sizes litter the front table. Scattered bits of weed and hints of swisher tobacco fall on a rolling tray as another blunt nears completion.
The second dab bar is set up right as Justin and Stuart from Oleum Extracts walked through the door. After introductions, Justin and Stuart got down to business, opening the brief case they brought with them.
First, pulling out a dab rig with golden-yellow accouterments, hanging from the mouthpiece like stalactites. Next, the Fort Knox like stash of concentrates: Blue Dream Sauce, Wizard Stones, Romulan Honey Crystal, Cinex, White Walker just to name a few.
Of course, we celebrated properly, putting all three dab rigs though their paces, blowing clouds and chopping it up about why we love concentrates.
The festivities didn’t keep Respect My Region from putting our game face on and listening to Stuart and Justin drop knowledge about Oleum, and the science of extraction.
The Oleum Team
Justin and Stuart are the marketing and sales portion of the Oleum team. Both we’re fortunate to work with the lab technicians behind Oleum’s cannabis extraction process. Being hands on with the product gave them unique insights into what makes a quality concentrate. Giving them an advantage over marketing teams lacking behind the scene experience.
“Now we have a chance through 502 to bring you guys a bunch of cool products,” Stuart said.
A reoccurring theme of our conversation was the individuality and organic nature of their team, something Justin mentioned as a strength and weakness of the team.
“When you get a lot of passionate individuals together and you don’t communicate well and you don’t know how to let things go, it can be difficult, Justin said.
At the end of the day, the passion they share for Oleum puts out the fires. They just smoke a lot of weed and learn how to work within every one’s unique boundaries.
Oleum’s Cannabis Extraction Process
Another blunt is sparked and enters rotation as Stuart and Justin describe the differences between Oleum’s Sugar Resin and Honey Crystal.
Sugar Resin is what Justin called a “blast and bake product.” After quality flower is sourced from growers, it’s ran through Oleum’s extraction system and from there, it’s purged and vacuumed. That raw product is the Sugar Resin.
Honey Crystal goes through different steps after it’s ran through their system. Instead of the oven, it goes into a cold ethanol bath before being cooled even further in a freezer.
“The cold temperatures are important to preserving not only the colors, but the flavors,” Justin explained.
That product goes through more filtration to remove the fats, lipids, waxes, chlorophyll and all the other impurities remaining from the flower. From there, the Honey Crystal will go into the oven to pressurize it and initiate a phase Stuart called pseudo-polymorphism.
“It’s a technical term for essentially solidifying a liquid,” Stuart continued, “The best way to put it is to turn a liquid into a solid, without freezing it,” Stuart explained.
It’s that process that gives the Honey Crystal’s their sweet flavor and unique consistency.
Dope Cup Winners
Oleum had three concentrates win at Dope Cup 2017: Magneto Honey Crystal won best live resin, White Walker took home best wax and the THCA Crystalline won best distillate.
The Magneto Honey Crystal was made with a home-grown plant to have the most control possible over growing and curing conditions. The best concentrates are made from flower grown specifically for extraction. They conducted longer flushing periods to wash out more plant material and quicker curing cycles.
“We did the Honey Crystal method and it just turned out a phenomenal product,” Justin exclaimed.
Oleum’s THCA Crystalline is a true THCA isolate. Many brands’ THCA will have a powder consistency. It’s like that because there are still materials like terpenes connected to the THCA. Oleum puts this powder into a solution and lets it set in a dark room for about a month. This allows the large-form and small-form structures to grow. From there, they conduct another full bake and purge to ensure the purity.
“It’s like putting a turbo in your car. If your car’s fast, cool, but, if you put a turbo in it, you’re a bit faster. That’s kinda what the THCA does,” Justin said.
Celebration’s Conclusion
With the conclusion of the interview, we sampled every flavor Justin and Stuart brought. Their Dope Cup winners are obviously great, but the White Walker was a personal favorite for its creamy flavor and consistency.
You can taste the passion in every dab of an Oleum concentrate. That passion is expanding their business across the country, with potential contracts in Maine and Florida on the horizon. Oleum is making a lot of noise with their product quality, but they aren’t getting ahead of themselves.
“We have a lot of opportunities right now, but the important thing for us is to make sure this one works first, get this one down and just take our time,” Justin explained.
It’s clear that the future of cannabis extraction lies with Oleum and other companies that share their passion for hard work and quality. The art of cannabis extraction is about results, the cleanest concentrate possible. Companies who start extracting for a cash grab are completely missing the point of why Oleum is successful in the first place. It’s exciting to watch Oleum elevate cannabis extraction to new levels.
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