What Is Kratom Extract and How Is It Made?

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Liquid and powdered kratom extract in bowls and spoons on a wooden table.

One of the most concentrated forms of kratom is kratom extract. There are a few different ways to make kratom extract, all varying in difficulty, but nearly all the methods deliver a product that is more potent (containing a higher concentration of alkaloids — the main active component of kratom) than leaves or powder alone. 

What Is Kratom Extract?

Kratom extract is made up of concentrated alkaloids distilled from either kratom leaves or kratom powder. There are a few ways to synthesize kratom extract, some of which are time-consuming but easy, and others which are quick but much harder to do correctly. The goal is to extract kratom alkaloids from the crushed kratom leaf powder. Ultimately, kratom extract contains very little more than the kratom-based alkaloids desired from the extraction-process — and a much higher concentration of these alkaloids than other kratom products. 

Kratom Extract vs. Kratom Powder

Kratom powder and kratom extract may look similar, but kratom powder is usually just made up of dried and crushed kratom leaves that have not undergone any extraction or fortification processes. This is what Kratom Spot sells — all-natural, crushed and dried kratom leaves. While kratom extract also comes in a powdered form, it takes quite a bit more work to create the final product.

Kratom extract is usually listed with a ratio, such as 2x or 2:1, meaning an equal amount of kratom extract to powder is twice as concentrated. 

Making Kratom Extract

There are three major ways of making kratom extract. While tea is the easiest to make, it also produces the least concentrated extract. Making kratom resin, on the other hand, is a lot harder, but usually results in the most concentrated form of extract. This, of course, is generalized information — a sort of rule-of-thumb. The actual concentration of any final extract will depend on how much kratom is used in the extraction process. When making kratom extract, higher amounts of material makes it possible to make an extremely concentrated tea that is more potent than a typical resin extract, or vice versa. 

Tea

The tea method of making kratom extract is essentially what it sounds like, and the process is mechanically identical to how you’d make any other kind of tea beverage. It starts with kratom powder or whole leaves, which are boiled into a tea-like liquid, strained, and simmered to a paste. This is dried and ground up into a powder, resulting in a concentrated kratom extract. 

Liquid Extract

Liquid extract, also known as water-based extraction, requires dissolving whole leaves in water, or a mixture of water and ethanol as a means to extract kratom alkaloids. Citric acid is often also used as a preservative. The mixture is shaken and left to steep. Finally, it is strained and partly evaporated, leaving behind a concentrated extract. 

Resin

Unlike the other two methods of making kratom extract, resin extraction leaves behind a semi-solid extract instead of a liquid or powder. This makes it very concentrated but also difficult to make. It is, however, faster to make an extract this way compared to the liquid-based extracts. We’ll quickly cover how to make kratom resin. 

For this method, a small amount of water is added to kratom powder and mixed, an acid like lemon juice is added afterward. This is then steeped and frozen. The frozen kratom is put in boiling water, with more acid added and reduced. After straining, it is partially evaporated, and simmered with water or acid again. After a trip to the oven to evaporate the water, a thick resin of concentrated alkaloids is all that is left. 

What is the Strongest Kratom Extract?

Enhanced kratom is the strongest type of extract. It’s technically not a “true-blue” extract but is prepared by soaking kratom leaves in one of the previously mentioned extracts. The leaves are then ground into a fine powder. In theory, after soaking and grinding, the powder will be highly concentrated and considered the strongest kratom extract.