How is CBD oil Made? A General Guide
CBD is practically difficult to miss, from store shelves to Instagram advertising. Despite the fact that more individuals are testing CBD products every day, one of the most often asked questions is, “How is CBD oil made?”
However, addressing that question is not as straightforward as it may appear. Many CBD suppliers utilize a variety of methods at various stages of manufacturing, and factors such as the CBD extraction process and the type of CBD used to manufacture a CBD oil tincture are important to consider when deciding who to trust.
Do you want to buy CBD oil, or do you already use CBD oil and are you interested in how the product is made? In this article we will tell you all about how CBD oil is made.
How Hemp is Grown for CBD Production
Before anything, the soil is prepped and checked for herbicides before the hemp seeds are sown into the earth. At Pure Organic CBD, we are Bio-Suisse Certified, meaning chemicals are not allowed to be used on the soil dating back 15 years! This guarantees the cleanest product possible free from chemicals and pesticides.
Hemp is a fantastic plant since it allows each crop to be planted as near as four inches apart! This provides for a higher yield while using less land. Hemp may be utilized in crop rotation to help return nutrients to the soil, making it a good resource for regenerative agriculture. Hemp generates a large amount of biomass, a matter which returns to the soil where it will decompose, feeding nutrients back into the ground.
According to Farm Journal, the best time to plant hemp outdoors is between the first and third weeks of May. Hemp grows quickly once sown, sprouting in 60 days.
How are Hemp Plants Harvested for CBD?
It all starts with the hemp plant’s flowers or “buds”.
The resin glands of the plant’s trichomes are the most prevalent source of cannabinoids.
Depending on the climate, the plants are normally harvested around October. This coincides with the reduction in the amount of daylight per day. This reduction is Nature’s way of signaling to the cannabis plant to start budding.
We, as a company, are very fortunate to have some of the most knowledgeable organic farmers in the business. We can fully trust them to cultivate the best crops for our products. Each individual bottle of CBD can be traced to the patch of land and the group of seeds used by utilizing block-chain technology.
Once harvested, we trim the plant to only allow the best part of it to be used. At Pure Organic CBD, this process is entirely done by hand in the cleanest environment and using the proper PPE to protect our customers from any contamination.
How to extract the CBD from the Hemp flower?
CO2 extraction
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is one of the most widely used extraction processes for CBD oil. This system makes use of CO2’s ability to behave as a gas, a solid, and a liquid. CO2 extraction is most typically done with closed-loop extractors.
The procedure begins with a solid chunk of CO2 being pushed into a second container holding the cannabis material. The CO2 in the second chamber is kept at a pressure that allows it to remain liquid-like and absorb the plant’s oils and tastes. The CO2-cannabinoid combination is then poured into a third chamber, where the CO2 is converted back to a gas, leaving the plant’s oil and flavors behind. When done correctly, CO2 extraction can provide some of the cleanest cannabis extracts. However, given the expensive cost of equipment and the steep learning curve, this is not always the case.
CO2 extracted CBD oil is some of the cleanest in the world when done correctly, but there is plenty of possibility for error when done under less-than-ideal conditions. Subcritical CO2 extraction is mostly employed by more “boutique” CBD manufacturers due to the risk of mistakes.
Other Extraction Methods
We only use CO2 extraction at Pure Organic CBD as we feel that it yields the best products. It is the only way to ensure the end product is clean and contains no chemicals.
There are other extraction methods out there commonly being used. Here is a short list of the most popular and our opinion about them.
Alcohol extraction
Alcohol extraction is used in the production of a variety of CBD products. It is a very inexpensive and straightforward approach to extracting CBD from the hemp plant when compared to CO2 extraction.
Typically, only the hemp buds are used. After that, they are steeped in alcohol for a period of time. The CBD dissolves in the alcohol over time. Then, the alcohol is removed. The end result is a sticky CBD paste.
There are a few positives about alcohol extraction, but unfortunately not for the customer. Producers use alcohol extraction because it is cheap and does not require specialized equipment.
For customers, the end product contains residue from the alcohol and cleaning agent used to remove it. Always avoid products that use alcohol extraction as they are introducing chemicals into your body.
Chemical and Liquid Solvents
CO2 or alcohol is not the only liquid that may be used to extract CBD oil from the cannabis plant. Butane, hexane, and isopropyl alcohol are examples of liquid compounds.
In this extraction method, a liquid solvent is poured through decarboxylated hemp to remove cannabinoids and terpenes, similar to the alcohol extraction method.
Liquid solvent extraction is a less expensive and easier approach to extracting CBD oil, and it is simple to scale up for commercial production, but it is not without its drawbacks.
Because not all solvents can remove all contaminants, the oil may retain some of the plant’s chlorophyll, giving it a greenish tint and an unpleasant flavor. To avoid contaminants, a CBD manufacturer must adapt the procedure as needed.
This procedure is potentially more harmful than others since many of the liquid solvents employed are very flammable.
The obvious answer here is to avoid chemicals at all costs. This extraction method is very low cost and products are low quality to say the least.
Oil extraction
Oil infusion is one of the oldest methods for obtaining CBD oil, and it is still used by many home growers and producers today. It is one of the easiest methods, but it has a few disadvantages.
The plant material must first be decarboxylated or heated to a precise temperature to activate the chemicals before beginning oil infusion.
The plant material is mixed with olive oil or another carrier oil and cooked for a few hours at 100 degrees Celsius.
Because the olive oil cannot evaporate from the CBD oil, one of the main disadvantages is that a lot more oil is consumed in their procedures compared to the number of liquid solvents.
Because some of the preceding methods produce impure CBD oil, many producers choose for one or both of the secondary processes listed below to purify their product even further.
Secondary process
Distillation
A procedure known as short route distillation is used to purify CBD oil even more. The fact that various CBD oil components have varied boiling points is used in this application. Short route distillation begins by gently heating the CBD oil until unwanted chemicals like terpenoids, flavonoids, and impurities boil away. A vacuum is sometimes employed to separate vapors with lower boiling points.
The resulting vapors pass via a distillation tube until they reach cooling coils, where they condense and drip into a separate collection container. The procedure is repeated until the original container contains just pure CBD oil.
Winterization
Winterization is the process of eliminating unwanted compounds from the oil in order to produce pure CBD. Following extraction, the oil is blended with 200 percent alcohol and aggressively swirled until well mixed. The alcohol thins the crude oil by letting the desired components dissolve in the alcohol while the undesirable components congeal and freeze, allowing them to be filtered out.
The combination is then frozen to below-zero temperatures in a deep freezer. It will seem hazy and suitable for filtration after it has been allowed to freeze overnight. The lipids and other materials are removed by the filter. The oil and alcohol combination is poured into paper-filtering containers. The CBD oil itself remains in the alcohol solution and flows through the filter, catching the undesirable frozen portions. When the oil has reached the required quality, it may be heated to the boiling point of alcohol, which is lower than that of CBD oil, to remove the alcohol. The alcohol dissipates, leaving the CBD oil behind.
How the Different Types of CBD Oil are Made
How is full spectrum CBD oil made?
Full Spectrum CBD oils are the complete extract from the hemp plant. They include all of the additional cannabinoids like CBC, CBG and CBN. They also include a small and legal amount of THC. They are called full spectrum simply because they include the full scope of ingredients from the hemp plant.
Full spectrum CBD oil is the least refined type of CBD because the extraction and mixing with carrier oil has relatively few steps in between. These types of products are tested for compliance to make sure they are legal for sale in the UK and EU market. The THC levels must be below 0.2% by volume.
Our company prefers to recommend full spectrum CBD oils because they are very effective in all of the classic CBD use cases. Remember, the quality of your CBD oil will be dictated by the quality of the plants it is extracted from. That is precisely why we source all of our products from an organic farm in Switzerland.
How is isolate CBD oil made?
CBD isolation is the “purest” form of CBD available. Because isolates solely contain CBD, this is the case. This implies that all other cannabinoids and terpenes are weeded out (pun intended) during the CBD extraction process, leaving only CBD molecules.
These isolates are then utilized to make a range of CBD oil products, including CBD tinctures, CBD gummies, and other CBD-infused treats. People who are new to the world of cannabis-related products, as well as those who cannot take any risks when it comes to THC levels, choose isolate-based products.
Pure isolates, on the other hand, lack other possibly beneficial cannabinoids and terpenes. Full-spectrum and broad-spectrum solutions can help in this situation.
How is broad-spectrum CBD oil made?
If isolates are on one end of the CBD spectrum and full-spectrum CBD is on the other, broad-spectrum products are in the center. With broad-spectrum CBD products, the premise is that by making a full-spectrum solution and then eliminating only the THC molecules from the mix, a perfect hybrid may be developed.
Broad-spectrum products, on the other hand, are prone to many of the same hazards as full-spectrum treatments. For starters, because most broad-spectrum is simply “full-spectrum minus THC,” there’s always the risk that some THC hasn’t been completely eliminated, resulting in a buildup of THC in your system and comparable “false positive” test results.
Furthermore, consistency is a concern since, although one batch may include more of the secondary cannabinoid CBG, the next batch may contain more of the primary cannabinoid CBN. That is why some firms have appropriated the term “broad-spectrum” and developed specific formulae that include the greatest features of both broad-spectrum and isolate-based medicines.
Conclusion
To conclude, there are many ways to make CBD oil and there are also different types of CBD oil. Therefore, it is important to do a little research about the oil you like to buy, to know how it is made and what is in there. Interested in buying CBD oil? Take a look at our webshop!