The Ultimate Solventless Rosin Pressing Resource
What Is Zombie Bubble Hash?
Somewhere between the living and the dead, the world of zombies exists in an enigmatic limbo. While much less dramatic than the creatures popularized in contemporary culture, zombie bubble hash is definitely worth the attention of discerning cannabis connoisseurs. But how can hash be a little bit living and a little bit dead?
Bubble hash, or ice water hash as it’s also called, is made with a solventless extraction method that involves mixing ice, water, and cannabis. Agitating cannabis and ice water together knocks trichomes free from the plant material on which they grow.
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What Is WPFF?
There are several ways to prepare cannabis material for ice water extraction, or washing bubble hash. Traditionally, hash makers hung cannabis upside down to fully dry, prior to extracting the resin. Drying cannabis flowers, and then subsequently curing in glass jars, is the same preparation for smoking them as well. But throughout this process, exposure to the open air (even inside an environmentally-controlled drying room) leads to terpene loss and oxidation.
But there’s another way to prepare cannabis right after harvest, that can minimize oxidation and also preserve the abundance of terpenes locked inside the plant trichomes.
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What's The Problem with Using 2-Way Humidity Packs To Rehydrate Cannabis Flowers?
2-way humidity packs are thin pouches that contain water vapor, natural salts, and food-grade thickeners which help regulate humidity levels within airtight spaces. Traditionally used by cigar aficionados to preserve moisture levels inside humidors, 2-way humidity packs have been adopted by the cannabis industry to keep flowers at just the right humidity. Relative Humidity, or RH, is a measurement of moisture in the air (given as a percentage), and helps us aim for the right amount of moisture within cannabis flowers.
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Cleaning Dry Sift with Rubber Glove Static Tech
Dry sift is a form of solventless cannabis concentrate that’s made by sieving dried cannabis through a series of nylon screens. This sieving, also referred to as sifting, separates trichome heads from the plant material on which they grow during the plant’s flowering cycle. Trichome heads contain significant amounts of therapeutic compounds like cannabinoids and terpenes that we seek from the cannabis plant. The overall quality of a batch of dry sift is measured in part by the ratio of trichome heads to plant material.
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Buchner Funnel Tech for Drying Bubble Hash
We are fortunate to host Tyler Markwart in our lab today to talk about his experience developing and using the Buchner Funnel Tech for air drying bubble hash. Tyler is a cannabis activist, farmer, hash maker, syndicated journalist, and consultant with over 25 years of experience. It's an honor to have him here with us.
No budget for a freeze dryer? No problem.
Let's start with a note from Tyler about how he came upon the use of this technology for drying bubble hash.
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How To Make Rosin Jam
Making Rosin Jam, also called Rosin Jam Tech, is a way to transform freshly-pressed hash rosin into a jam-like consistency. It’s not a complicated process, but it can yield some truly stunning results. All we need for making rosin jam is heat and pressure inside of a glass jar, and we let chemistry do all the work.
While there’s nothing wrong with dabbing fresh rosin, there’s a strong case to be made for curing rosin to enhance flavor, increase smoothness, and optimize consistency. Jam Tech is a form of curing, and it’s the main way that extractors
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Why Is Micron Accuracy Important for Solventless Extractions?
Bubble wash bags, rosin filter bags, and dry sifting screens are various types of filters that allow extractors to mechanically separate pure, unblemished cannabis resin from the cannabis plant. It’s thanks to these nylon filters that we can collect high purity cannabis concentrates without the use of solvents.
Solventless cannabis extracts exist in a variety of premium forms, including bubble hash, rosin, and dry sift. Thanks to quality bubble wash bags, rosin filter bags, and dry sifting screens
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What is Homogenization in Solventless Extracts?
Homogenization means combining different consistencies into one uniform consistency. In terms of cannabis concentrates, homogenization is creating a substance of the same texture throughout, as opposed to solid forms and liquid forms that exist together. For example, hash rosin often separates into solid crystalline structures surrounded by pools of liquid terpenes. Different methods can be used to combine these two distinct components of rosin into one uniform consistency.
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The Endocannabinoid System and Cannabis
Humans have been using cannabis for thousands of years. The history of human experience has included cannabis for health and wellness and recreation. It’s been a love affair that’s not going away, and for good reason. In some ways, it seems that humans and the cannabis plant were made for each other. The active compounds in cannabis called cannabinoids fit like a hand in glove with a system of receptors in our bodies known as the Endocannabinoid System.
So what exactly are cannabinoids? Cannabinoids are the naturally occurring compounds
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How To Use a Freeze Dryer To Dry and Cure Cannabis Flowers
In the past few years, using freeze dryers to dry bubble hash has become commonplace for commercial extractors and even in-home hobbyists. Freeze drying hash not only speeds up the drying process, it also ensures a consistent and thorough removal of moisture, preventing mold growth and preserving terpenes. Freeze dryers may currently be associated mostly with bubble hash, but the technology can also be applied to drying and curing cannabis flowers.
So what is freeze drying? Freeze drying involves removing water moisture through sublimation
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Difference between Pillow Tech, Bottle Tech, and Chottle Tech
In the art of rosin extraction, there are several different methods that extractors can use to accomplish the same goal. For example, all rosin extraction involves pressing cannabis material between heated plates, but there are a variety of ways to pack the starting material into filter bags and position it between the plates. These different approaches are referred to as techniques, or “tech” for short. Pillow Tech, Bottle Tech, and Chottle Tech are different ways that rosin filter bags can be used to hold starting material, and how that material is oriented between rosin plates for extraction.
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What's The Problem with Using Dry Ice for Dry Sifting?
Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide, capable of achieving temperatures much lower than that of regular ice. Unlike water ice that changes from a solid to a liquid when it melts, dry ice sublimates as it warms up, meaning it changes from a solid directly into a gas vapor. This vapor cools the surrounding environment, which makes dry ice an effective cooling agent. At more than 100 degrees below zero, dry ice gets so cold that it can actually damage unprotected skin.
One of the mantras often heard when working with solventless cannabis extracts like bubble hash and dry sift is “keep tools and environment cold”.
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Top 5 Bubble Hash Drying Tips
Ice water extraction is the ideal method used to create high quality bubble hash. While other methods like dry sifting can produce excellent solventless concentrates, ice water offers extractors greater control over isolating trichomes and removing plant contaminants. But after extraction is complete a lot of water still remains, leaving a totally saturated patty of cannabis trichomes. Not only is the hash unusable in this state, but it’s vulnerable to microbial growth like mold.
Just like fruits and other foods, bubble hash can invite microbial growth if there’s sufficient moisture present.
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Aging Bubble Hash Temple Balls 101
There’s much more to aging bubble hash than simply the passage of time. Without proper preparations and a controlled environment, hash is just getting older in long term storage, not really aging like a fine wine, tobacco, or cheese. There isn’t yet much scientific research that gives us a clear understanding of the chemistry behind the magic of aging bubble hash, but we still have data. That data comes from human experience, passed down through the traditions developed over thousands of years in hash producing regions of the world.
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How To Change the Drainage Hose in a Bubble Hash Washing Machine
Compact washing machines like the kind sold for cleaning mini loads of laundry make the perfect mixers for ice water hash extraction. Their 5-gallon capacity is just the right size for mixing together several ounces of cannabis material and ice water, and their portability and simplicity of use makes them one of the most popular appliances to easily repurpose for bubble hash production. With a few ounces of good cannabis, clean water, ice, a washing machine, and a set of quality bubble wash bags
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Rosin Press Hand Pump Modifications
There are several types of rosin presses capable of producing high quality rosin, spanning the range between hair straighteners and fully automated pneumatic presses. Hair straighteners are the most manual of all presses, which require all the pressure to come directly from the weight of the extractor pressing down on the plates. Pneumatic presses are the most automated, using compressed air to generate internal pressure which is controlled by the simple push of a button
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Step By Step 100% Solventless Vape Cartridges
High-quality, terpene-rich rosin plus a heat source is all you need to make a solventless cannabis concentrate fit for vape cartridges. While there are other approaches to conditioning rosin in preparation for vape pens, such as adding terpenes, winterizing (to remove excess waxes), or using synthetic liquidizers, we’re going to show you our absolute favorite way to make our vape cartridges. This is a great way to combine the purity and potency of rosin with the ease and convenience of vape pens. When you want the flavor and the head change of a dab without breaking out your rig, take a solid rip from the vape and you’re on your way!
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How Does a Freeze Dryer Work?
Freeze dryers have grown in popularity in recent years, as solventless extraction artists are constantly improving on the quest to produce the world’s best bubble hash. For commercial and craft producers alike, freeze dryers present the most optimum solution to quickly and thoroughly dry fresh ice water hash. For decades, other methods have been successfully used to dry wet bubble hash, but in terms of overall quality and terpene preservation freeze dryers offer a better solution than the other approaches.
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How To Make Cannabis Gummies
Infused edibles have been getting better and better in recent years thanks to favorable regulatory environments, endless creativity, and constant innovation in the cannabis industry. Today, gummies are one of the most popular types of cannabis edibles available. Gummies are a type of soft, chewy jelly candies that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes commonly seen as small teddy bears, worms, or simple squares. Their gelatin base makes them a perfect candy to create and customize easily from your home kitchen.
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What Is Tissue Culture Propagation?
Tissue culture propagation is a way to copy and preserve cannabis genetics, similar to traditional cloning methods in some ways but different in others. Tissue culture propagation, or TC, is a technique that involves cutting small pieces of plant tissue and placing it in meticulously controlled growing environments where both roots and stems can develop. Essentially, TC is like growing cannabis in a test tube. The process looks more like something you’d see in a scientific lab rather than a greenhouse. Dedication to cleanliness and attention to detail are both prerequisites to a successful micropropagation program.
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What Is Ice Nucleation in Fresh Frozen Cannabis?
Like humans, living cannabis plants are composed mostly of water. At around 80% of their total weight, water accounts for the bulk of a cannabis plant’s biomass. After harvest, water slowly evaporates during the drying and curing process. But cannabis doesn’t have to be air dried in preparation for hash production.
Fresh frozen cannabis has become the predominant source material for creating bubble hash and hash rosin. Freezing cannabis immediately after harvest allows us to capture and preserve the high terpene content that’s present in the living plant
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