Step By Step 100% Solventless Vape Cartridges
🇺🇸 Retired veteran, father, rock-climbing expert & rosin connoisseur
What Type of Rosin Works Best for Making Solventless Vape Cartridges?
One of the biggest challenges in using solventless extracts for vape carts is the wax content present in rosin. When pressing rosin, some of the cannabis plant’s fats, lipids, and waxes naturally find their way into the product. Even when pressing with lower temperatures and using quality filter bags, it’s normal to have these excess plant materials end up in rosin. Waxes tend to increase the viscosity of rosin and make it less suitable for vaping. More fats, lipids, and waxes inside cartridges can impede vaporization, minimize proper functioning of the heating element, and make the cartridges more prone to clogging.
Hash rosin tends to contain significantly less waxes than flower rosin. Therefore, hash rosin pressed from a high-grade bubble hash is the ideal type of solventless concentrate to use for vape cartridges. Starting with a pure and high-quality rosin, you can expect success with this method.
Supplies You Need
- High-quality hash rosin
- Sealable glass jar (total volume of jar should be at least double the starting volume of rosin)
- Oven
- Glass syringe with metal needle
- Vape cartridges (preferably with ceramic wicks)
- Heat-resistant holding tray to keep cartridges upright
The Process
1. Heating the Rosin
Fill your glass jar with rosin. Make sure the rosin doesn’t take up more than half of the space in the jar, in order to allow for expansion during the heating process.
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place the sealed jar in the oven for 24-48 hours. Leave the lid completely sealed for the duration. Opening the lid will release precious terpenes.
2. Checking the Viscosity
We’re aiming for a very low viscosity, almost like water.
While the rosin is in the early stages of heating, you’ll notice rising bubbles. Once the bubbling has slowed and there are very few bubbles rising, the rosin should be ready.
When the rosin is runny like water and has only a few bubbles remaining, it’s fully decarbed and ready to go.
3. Filling the Syringe
When the rosin is super runny like water and has only a few bubbles, unscrew the lid (and not before it’s ready, as terpenes will escape every time the lid is opened).
Lift the plunger of the glass syringe to fill it with rosin.
Once it’s filled, invert it so that the needle is pointing upwards. Then depress the plunger to eliminate the empty space in the barrel, so that the rosin comes up all the way to the hub of the needle. Apply enough pressure to squeeze out the air bubbles that form at the top of the rosin.
4. Filling the Cartridges
Carefully fill each cartridge, but don’t overfill. The rosin may not completely fill in at the bottom of the cartridge yet, but that’s okay. We’ll take care of that in the next step.
5. Wicking the Cartridges
Once the carts are filled, it’s time to reheat them so that the rosin can settle into the bottom of the carts, into the ceramic wicks. This is called “wicking” the carts.
Make sure the tray that’s holding the carts can withstand heat.
Lower the temperature in the oven to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the cartridges in the oven again for about 5 minutes.
You’ll see the level of rosin in the carts decrease as the rosin settles into the wick at the bottom of the cart.
6. Topping Off and Capping
Refill each cart again to top them off, but go easy! No need to overfill and potentially waste rosin.
Replace the caps on each cart and they’re ready to enjoy.
Conclusion
Making cartridges with your rosin is easy as long as you’re starting with a high-quality hash rosin with plenty of terpenes. Low temp dabs with a quartz bowl is the best way to enjoy the explosive flavor of premium rosin, but you can’t beat the convenience and discreteness of hitting a vape pen.
Avoid leaving the cartridges in cold temperatures, as the rosin will have a greater likelihood to crystallize and then clog in the wick. Warmer room temperatures are better conditions for rosin carts, as they are generally less stable than distillate carts. But this is a tradeoff we’ll take any day!
What’s your experience with rosin vape carts? Let us know in the comments!
Thoughts? Let us know by joining our secret Facebook group. Hang out with a community of like-minded solventless heads like yourself. Ask our head extractor questions, share your latest press and learn from hobbyists and experts in the industry.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What type of cartridges do I use?
Ceramic wick cartridges are better than cotton wick cartridges.
How much rosin do I need to make vape carts?
You can make cartridges with as little as a couple grams of rosin.
Why did my rosin cart crash out (crystallize)?
It could be due to high levels of THC and lower levels of terpenes, or that the cartridge was exposed to colder temperatures.
Can I use a plastic syringe to fill the carts?
No, glass syringes should be used for filling rosin carts.
Does flower rosin work for vape carts?
Flower rosin is not as good for vape carts as hash rosin. Flower rosin often won't attain the consistency needed for carts.
3 comments
Very excited to try this … thanks! Too cheap/poor to buy even a low-end rosin press, I was happy to learn about the bubble-hash process. But I far prefer the convenience of vaping.
A bunch of things:
1. Home ovens rarely go as low as 150F, let alone 100F. Given that the jar needs to remain sealed anyway, I’m going to use my sous vide circulator with a folded-up towel beneath the jar to prevent any bouncing from breaking the jar.
2. Why the glass-only syringe? Is it because the product is still hot at that point? Or…?
3. I’ll be using the final of 8 bubble bags for my hash and then for this, but would you advise doing a vape batch with the stuff caught in the second-to-last or even third-to-last bag?
4. To wick the carts, I’m thinking of sealing them upright in a taller mason jar and sousviding them again … maybe for longer than 5 minutes because heat will penetrate differently to heat up the juice. What do you think?
5. Once the finished carts cool to room temperature, should the juice in them have the viscosity of commercially-bought vape cartridges?
Does this work for BHO concentrates?
Instead of baking for 24-48hrs. To Liquefy rosin for vape… have you tried adding terpenes and microwave 15 sec to make vape juice