The Process
From Plant to Purity
Every kilogram we ship begins in a field and ends as a documented, lab-verified raw material. Scroll to follow the journey — from hemp plant to biomass, through extraction and distillation, to the fork in the road where distillate becomes broad spectrum or crystalline isolate.
The Hemp Plant
It starts with genetics. Non-GMO hemp cultivars are bred for cannabinoid-rich flower and grown under 2018 Farm Bill licensing. Inside the plant’s glittering trichomes, cannabinoids are synthesized in their acidic forms — primarily CBDa — alongside terpenes and minor cannabinoids. Pre-harvest compliance sampling confirms the crop stays at or below 0.3% Delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis.
Biomass
After harvest, the plant is dried to roughly 10% moisture, then milled and homogenized to a consistent particle size — now called biomass. Every lot is potency-tested and screened before it enters the lab, because clean extraction starts with clean, well-characterized input. Typical CBD content at this stage runs 8–12%.
Cryo-Ethanol Extraction
The biomass is washed with ethanol chilled to around −40°C. At cryogenic temperatures, ethanol dissolves cannabinoids efficiently while leaving most waxes, lipids, and chlorophyll behind — cold is the first purification step. The rich solution (“miscella”) is filtered, and the ethanol is recovered by falling-film evaporation — more than 95% of the solvent is captured and reused.
Crude Oil
What remains after solvent recovery is crude — a dark, viscous oil carrying 60–80% total cannabinoids. It is winterized (chilled in solvent so residual fats and waxes precipitate and are filtered out) and then decarboxylated: gentle heat converts acidic CBDa into active CBD, releasing CO₂ in the process. Crude is the first sellable raw material on the journey.
Full Spectrum Distillate
Crude enters wiped-film, short-path distillation under deep vacuum. With pressure reduced, the cannabinoid fraction evaporates at lower temperature and is condensed separately from terpenes, pigments, and heavy residues — separation by boiling point, molecule by molecule. Out comes the golden standard: full spectrum distillate at 80–90%+ total cannabinoids, minors intact, and compliant at ≤0.3% Delta-9 THC.
The Fork in the Road
One Distillate. Two Destinations.
From full spectrum distillate, the process splits. One path removes THC to non-detect while keeping the minor cannabinoids. The other pushes purity to its ceiling — crystallizing CBD out of solution until nothing else remains.
Broad Spectrum Distillate
The distillate passes through preparative chromatography, where Delta-9 THC is selectively separated from the cannabinoid stream and removed to non-detect levels. Everything worth keeping — CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC and the minor profile — stays. The result: THC-free broad spectrum distillate, the choice for brands that need a full minor profile with zero THC exposure.
CBD Isolate — “The Crash”
Distillate is dissolved in a solvent such as pentane and brought to saturation. As the solution is slowly cooled under precise agitation, CBD molecules begin to nucleate — and then they crash out of solution as crystals, leaving impurities dissolved behind. The crystals are washed, dried, and milled into 99%+ pure crystalline CBD isolate — the purest form of CBD there is.
Source Any Stage
Every Step Ships With a COA
Crude, full spectrum distillate, broad spectrum, or crystalline isolate — we supply verified material from every stage of this process, in kilograms to tonnes, with current third-party lab results on every lot.