‘Beyond Buds’: A Look Into Ed Rosenthal’s New Guide to Cannabis Extracts

When you first beheld the beautiful liquid gold that is butane hash oil, you probably wondered what the heck it was and what skilled mystic could have conjured such a substance. Or maybe your curiosity was caught on smoke-free methods of consumption, like cannabis tinctures and edibles. The world of cannabis concentrates is expanding, and if you have any interest in exploring this new frontier, we’ve got a reading recommendation for you.

Beyond Buds is another handy guidebook written by cannabis aficionado Ed Rosenthal; you might already have in your literature collection his Marijuana Grower’s Handbook or Big Book of Buds. This newest book, however, treads where no book has tread before as it walks you through the many different types of cannabis extracts and how they are made. For those of you with piqued interest, we’d like to give you a glimpse into the book’s contents, along with the many questions it helps to answer.

Hash

It can be hard to believe that hash-making goes back a millennia, and many of those same production techniques are still preserved today. Old-school hash enthusiasts will appreciate the coverage this book devotes to the ancient practice, as it dives into techniques both primitive and modern. Got questions about hash? Here are just a few Beyond Buds aims to answer:

• What are the different production techniques for hash?
• What material and tools are needed to make hash?
• What is pressed hash? Water hash? Solventless hash?

Dabbing and Hash Oil

As the cannabis intrigue of our era, dabbing and its affiliate oils/waxes are given quite the spotlight in Beyond Buds. Dabbing, the process of flash vaporizing cannabis concentrates using hot metal in a glass dome, has come under some fire as “the crack of marijuana.” In reality, dabs are analogous to a shot of espresso or liquor: it’s simply a concentration of what we’ve already been consuming, minus the extra plant material. In addition to clearing questions about what dabbing is, Beyond Buds also addresses:

• What gear/tool options exist for dabbing?
• Is dabbing safe?
• How are BHO and CO₂ extracts made?
• What separates professional production from at-home blasting?
• What is purging? Decarboxylation? Winterization?

Tinctures

Tinctures were among the most popular forms of consumption in America before cannabis prohibition, and with legal restrictions loosening over marijuana’s medical use, they’re making their return to patients’ daily regimens. Alcohol- and glycerin-based tinctures are covered in Beyond Buds, providing insight for both production-focused and consumer-curious readers. Beyond explaining the concept of a tincture, here are a few questions this chapter aims to answer:

• What types of alcohol/solvents can be used to make tinctures?
• How do different cannabis strains and alcohol types affect the tincture?
• What does the production process look like?
• How do you go from liquid to oil with alcohol extraction?
• How will tinctures affect me?

Edibles

Few products can match the popularity of infused delicacies, whose effects are unlike that of any other form of marijuana. Because of the way they are metabolized, edibles can hit a whole lot harder than anything else your dispensary offers. As a result, Beyond Buds offers guidance not only to edible production, but to consumption as well.

• How does cooking with cannabis work?
• How do I prepare the ingredients necessary for edible production?
• How does cooking with cannabis oils or hash differ from flower preparation?
• What is the right dose with edibles, and how do I deal with an “overdose”?

Other subjects explored include topicals, capsules, vaporizers, kief, cannabinoids and terpenes, and more. Beyond Buds is available for purchase here on Amazon.