The Best BHO Extractor for Making Wax, Shatter, Oil & Budder

Wax, shatter, budder, butane honey oil or whatever you prefer, smoking concentrates has blown up in popularity.

With DIY culture growing through recent generations, people like to make everything at home from soap to beer to their own concentrates. 

Making your own BHO has become increasingly common in the cannabis community.

As cannabusiness continues to prosper, BHO extractors have evolved into safer and customizable products, making DIY dabs easier.

Here’s our take on the best BHO extractor, and a few more that stall pretty tall too.

Quick Top 5 BHO Extractors:

The Dangers of BHO

Before I begin, I must warn you about the dangers of extracting BHO at home.

For one, you're allowing vapors to enter into your living space—not vood.

That means something as minuscule as static electricity may spark a blast—reeeallly not good.

Also, there’s a perception that smoking BHO is healthier than smoking flower.

You're taking all the extra plant matter out of the scenario and getting to the THC.

Flower or wax, nothing is better for your lungs than purified air.

However, any form of smoking is still hazardous to your health because you are inhaling carcinogens.

Be sure to go with a more refined butane oil such as Isobutane and N-Butane.

While Isobutane is cheaper, N-Butane is less dangerous to your long-term health.

It's recommended that you only make concentrates in a lab setting with proper safety measures and supervision in place.

Properly Handling Butane

Whenever you're working with a combustible element, it's good practice to go outdoors on in a lab with good ventilation.

That way, if there is an explosion, your home (or you) shouldn't catch on fire.

Secondly, whenever you're working with butane, you might want to wear gloves.

The butane is compressed into a can.

When it is released, it comes out very cold.

As it's released into the tube, whether the tube is made out of stainless steel or glass, it will hold the temperature of the released butane.

So you can expect that it will be very cold to your touch.

However, if you're extracting BHO at own home, then the oil is typically obtained through either open blast or closed column extraction.

How to Open Blast BHO

There isn’t much of a difference between open blast and closed column extraction other than yield, flavor and when to hook up a vacuum.

Monetarily speaking, open blasting your wax is the cheapest bet, but it’s also the most dangerous.

In the open blast process, you attach a butane can into a nozzle on top of a tube filled with marijuana.

The THC from the product will soak in with the solvent (butane).

With a Pyrex dish underneath, open the bottom valve to release the butane soaked THC oil.

From there, take the liquid and put it in a vacuum purge.

How to Close Column Extract BHO

This is mostly the same process as an open blast.

The significant difference is that instead of leaking the THC-enriched butane into a Pyrex dish, you hook up a vacuum onto the tube.

Here you want to suck out as much butane as possible.

Running the vacuum at this point decreases the amount of flammable butane released into the atmosphere.

Many insist that this method also makes for a larger yield and better flavor.

How to Set Up a BHO Extractor

While specifics may vary from product to product, but setting up a BHO extractor is pretty easy across the board.

The centerpiece of the extractor is the tube.

You attach a micron to the bottom of the tube, followed by a rubber gasket and attach it to a tripod.

At this point, stick your bud into the tube.

Be sure not to pack too tight, or you will end up with a smaller yield.

Butane- the in B in BHO

From there, you can attach the butane to the top of the tube.

Make sure the bottom valve is closed if you're doing a closed column extraction.

If not, continue onward.

Open up the top valve and insert the nozzle of the butane can.

Here, gravity takes over, and the tube fills with butane.

Once that can is empty, close the top valve.

If you’re doing a closed column extraction, let it sit.

The longer the bud marinates in the butane, the more terpenes and cannabinoids are extracted from the plant.

When ready, attach a vacuum to the bottom to draw out excess butane.

For open blast extractions, place your Pyrex dish under the tripod to catch the THC butane oil and vacuum purge it.

Which method you do depends on the BHO extractor you have, and that is where we're here to help.

This BHO extractor is ideal for the advanced wax maker because it allows you to change up your dab game.

Ablaze Closed Column is a dual-purpose extractor.

It has the capabilities for an open blast or closed column extraction.

A nice little perk is that they give you two-micron filters to put over the tube.

However, they are both 150.

So, if you are looking for something a little more fine like a 75, you would have to buy an attachment.

They also provide you with additional gaskets, which is a nice extra seeing as those little suckers are pretty easy to lose.

Another bonus to this extractor is that it also comes with a heavy-duty silicone mat.

This ensures that the tripod stays put, which is important when you are dealing with combustible vapors.

And it gives you a place to handle your concentrate.

Ablaze provides a clamp for you to place on top of the tube.

However, the bottom clamp is attached to the tripod.

Therefore, you're free to use the tube and top clamp with a different tripod, but you would need to get yourself a different bottom clamp.

The biggest this that standouts with this extractor is the name.

This open blast extractor comes with a quadpod.

While many can argue a tripod is just as effective, I’d rather stand on two feet than one.

On top of the extra leg, it also comes with a silicone pad.

While the pad doesn't extend past the legs for additional support, it's non-slip grip is handy for the Pyrex dish underneath.

Best Value Vacs claims that this can fit up to 90 grams of bud, but it’s a bit of a tight fit.

If you put in less than what they recommend, you will end up a better yield.

Speaking of smaller yields, this Ablaze Closed Column Tube with Tripod is just like the one above, but with a smaller tube.

The case for this tube is a lot like the Better Value Vacs, where it’s a tight fit.

Therefore, if you are looking to do 45 grams, you might end up with less yield than you anticipated.

This is ideal for someone who wants to closed column extract small amounts of BHO at a time.

However, if you build up shake quickly, you might want to opt for the bigger extractor by Ablaze.

You'll get all the same amenities at this tiny one, but will end up saving more time with the larger version.

All of the tubes that I've been discussing are stainless steel.

However, some dab extractors prefer the use of a glass tube.

Ablaze also offers that option as a separate attachment.

For one, people prefer glass for health reasons.

Glass is 100% chemically innate.

Therefore, no pollutants are created by the glass through this process.

However, if you are using 304 stainless steel (which all the above-mentioned products are), then those metal tubes will be chemically innate as well.

All other types of metal may affect the chemical composition of your dabs.

The only perk to having a glass extractor tube is that you can see what is going on inside.

However, glass is more prone to breaking than stainless steel.

With the stainless steel, you can pack it as full as you want and not have to worry about an explosion.

Also, with a stainless steel tube, you can use a screwdriver to tighten the clamps.

This will ensure that butane isn’t leaking into the atmosphere.

However, if you were to crank a clamp without abandon onto a glass tube, it could cause the glass to break.

But this 5mm thick glass is made to handle the pressure of BHO extraction.

You can also customize this tube to fit gaskets, filters and vacuums.

The Ablaze Glass Extractor comes in an either a 8 inch or 12-inch circumference.