Have you ever held up your dab rig to give it a better look and realized you waited too long to give it a deep cleaning? All of that sticky gold colored gunk covering the inside of your glassware is called cannabis reclaim. If left too long inside your dab rig, the buildup will begin to make your dabs less tasty and your glassware less effective. But don’t just fill up your dab rig with a bong cleaning solution and wash it all down the drain. With just a few simple steps, cannabis reclaim can be collected and smoked, so you get the absolute most out of your expensive cannabis concentrates.
What is cannabis reclaim?
Ever wonder about that sticky build up that forms in your dab rig, pipe, or water bong? This leftover substance is called cannabis reclaim when it’s dealing with concentrates or resin when speaking about the residue from smoking dry herb. This byproduct is simply heated cannabis concentrates that have been recondensed. You can find cannabis reclaim solidified in the water and along the inside walls of the dab rig and banger.
Can you smoke cannabis reclaim?
If you have your rig set up and ready to go, but realize you ran out of concentrates, you may be wondering if you can smoke the cannabis reclaim that’s sitting inside your dab rig. The quick answer is yes, you can smoke cannabis reclaim, but you may want to do it only as a last resort if you’re truly out of fresh smoking material. Cannabis concentrates are vaporized instead of burned, so instead of the ashy, smelly residue from combusted dry herb, reclaim is a cleaner build up that hasn’t lost its cannabinoids and terpenes. This means that it will get you high, though it won’t be as flavorful or potent as actual dabs. To preserve as much of the compounds and flavor as possible, always use low-temp dabbing. Leftover resin from smoking cannabis flower in a pipe or water bong should never be smoked again since it has gone through combustion and will be filled with ash and other contaminants like carcinogens.
Some potheads prefer to err on the safe side and save up their cannabis reclaim to use it for homemade edibles. Reclaim has already been vaporized, so it doesn’t need to be decarbed. This allows you to skip the most time consuming step in making weed edibles and go straight to the recipe. Just remember that the potency of your reclaim and finished edibles will be very difficult to calculate, so always start out slow when testing your edibles for the first time. One thing you will know for certain is that your collected cannabis reclaim will be less potent than the original dabs.
Quick Facts: cannabis reclaim vs concentrates
- Even if the reclaim was produced from a top shelf concentrate, it will never be the same quality or potency.
- You can collect and smoke reclaim from cannabis concentrates, but not resin from dry herb.
- Reclaim will get you high since it still contains cannabinoids and terpenes, though not as high as dabs.
- Always use low-temperature dabbing when smoking reclaim.
How to collect reclaim
The collection process is straightforward and takes just a few minutes to do. It’s most convenient to collect reclaim when it’s time to clean your dab rig, that way you can combine the two processes.
Equipment
- Used dab rig and banger
- Bowl or sieve
- Scorch torch
- Wax paper
Steps to collect cannabis reclaim
- Begin by dumping out the water from your dab rig into a bowl or sieve and picking out the small yellowish or brownish solid pieces of reclaim. There shouldn’t be too much to collect during this step.
- Set your dab rig out to dry. Be sure that the entire inside of the dab rig is dry.
- Place a piece of wax paper on a table and begin heating up any gunk you see inside the banger and dab rig. Tilt the dab rig so the liquified reclaim drips down onto the wax paper. It’s key to only heat the reclaim enough that it turns to liquid. If you heat it too much, the cannabinoids will begin to burn off and you’ll lose potency.
- Let the liquified reclaim harden on the wax paper. You can store it within the wax paper as well.
Once you collect all the reclaim you can from your dab rig, give it a thorough cleaning using a banger cleaner and a non-toxic bong cleaning solution so you have full-flavored dabs during your next session.
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