What Is Hemp Crude Oil and What Is It Used For?

When it comes to creating products intended for consumption or topical use, most companies will use filtration during the process. After all, they want to make sure that they only expose customers to beneficial compounds and ingredients. But in some cases, doing without filtration can offer unique benefits.

Extracting CBD from hemp is one such instance. You can find out how by answering the question “What is hemp crude oil and what is it used for?”

What Is Hemp Crude Oil?

When people extract CBD from hemp, they usually don’t set it aside for immediate consumption. It usually goes through a filtration process which removes the plant matter from the oil. Hemp crude oil is oil that has been extracted from hemp but hasn’t gone through this additional refinement process.

Ingredients in Hemp Crude Oil

As mentioned, hemp crude oil still contains all the plant matter that is normally filtered out. This includes plant lipids and chlorophyll, which gives the oil a grassy taste when consumed. Along with the plant matter, crude oil contains the full range of cannabinoids from the hemp strain you are extracting, as well as a host of minerals, such as:

• Zinc
• Magnesium
• Iron
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Potassium

Benefits of Hemp Crude Oil

Highest Number of Cannabinoids

When you don’t put an extract through additional filtration, the extract retains all the cannabinoids available in that hemp strain. This typically gives you the highest amount of benefits resulting from the cannabinoids working together.

We refer to the latter idea as the entourage effect. When multiple cannabinoids are present together, they work synergistically, and their effects are enhanced. Since hemp crude oil has the most cannabinoids, it can offer the entourage effect.

Simpler Extraction Process

Filtration is a large step in extraction, and it takes time, energy, and equipment. While this process may change depending on the desired end product, it usually includes processes such as winterization. Because hemp crude oil doesn’t require the same degree of filtration, this expedites the entire process.

Drawbacks of Hemp Crude Oil

“Rougher” Taste

The presence of plant matter in CBD doesn’t render it ineffective or poisonous. However, it will certainly alter the taste. Typically, CBD with chlorophyll and similar substances tastes grassy, which many users find unpleasant. This often makes it less ideal for oral or sublingual consumption, though you can still take it by mouth.

Differences Between Hemp Crude Oil and Full-Spectrum Distillate

At first glance, many users confuse hemp crude oil with full-spectrum tinctures available on the market. While both products provide a wide range of cannabinoids, you can mark some key differences. The most significant is filtration. Typical full-spectrum tinctures are distillates that have gone through filtration to remove all plant matter, while crude hasn’t. This gives the products a few distinctions, such as:

Texture and Color

Most users will compare full-spectrum distillate to honey. It has a warm, semi-translucent brown color and a similar sticky, free-flowing consistency. When extracted using ethanol extraction methods, crude oil is much darker brown—almost black. It also has a thick, tar-like consistency.

Taste

As mentioned, hemp crude oil tends to have a rougher, grassier taste because of the presence of plant matter in the product. Since distillate has filtered out the plant matter, it tends to have a milder taste than its crude oil counterpart. This makes it more appealing for oral consumption or use in flavored CBD tinctures.

How Is Hemp Crude Oil Used?

Direct Consumption

Oral Consumption

Even though hemp crude oil has such a distinct taste, you can take it orally the same way you would take a distillate tincture. Most users who consume it this way choose to mask the flavor by using the oil in food or drink. Baked goods, dressings, sauces, and dips tend to make good choices for this method, since sauteing cannabinoids at high temperatures tends to degrade them.

Topically

The other option is to avoid taste altogether and use hemp crude oil as part of a topical product. This helps avoid the potentially degrading effects of cooking to help your body receive the full impact of the product. Additionally, the plant matter, fats, and many of the minerals contained in the crude oil offer a number of benefits for the skin, such as helping in skin cell regeneration.

Further Processing

Of course, in most instances, people extract hemp crude oil for the purpose of filtering it to turn it into other CBD related products, such as:

• Full-spectrum tinctures
• Broad-spectrum tinctures
• Vape cartridges
• Edibles and gummies

Winterization

You must put oil through a winterization process to filter it. This involves combining the crude oil with ethanol and agitating it. From here, you put it into a deep freeze, anywhere from -112 degrees to -4 degrees Fahrenheit. The extract remains in the freezer for 24 hours. After that, you put it through a filter, which removes the waxes from the oils and ethanol.

Additional filters

Afterward, the hemp goes through other filters to remove other plant matter, like chlorophyll. Our hemp oil processing equipment includes a four-stage filtration skid that includes a bag, cellulose, active carbon, and cartridge filters. Depending on your purposes for the extract, you can elect to use one or all of these filters to achieve the desired result.

Along with this, you must filter the ethanol you used for the extraction and filtration out of the extract. This involves a process known as short-path distillation. During this, operators place extract in a vacuum chamber where the solution gets separated from the ethanol. You can recycle it for reuse.

Every CBD manufacturer is different. But whether your business specializes in edibles or vape cartridges, chances are, you will run into hemp crude oil. So, having an understanding of what hemp crude oil is and what it does is useful for exploring your current processes and looking into future product options. And whatever products you envision, Cedarstone Industry is here to help bring them to life. Reach out to us today to learn more.