The Ultimate Solventless Rosin Pressing Resource
Work Cube vs. No Work Cube for Washing Bubble Hash
A work cube is a type of work bag used for washing bubble hash. Work bags are made with 220 micron nylon filters and hold the cannabis material while it's mixed with ice water. Although work bags are traditionally in the same open bucket-like shape as the other wash bags in the set, work cubes are made with 90 degree edges and are closable with a zipper around the top. Work cubes are also constructed using only 220 micron mesh, so the entire container acts as a filter allowing trichomes to pass through, while the bulk of the cannabis material remains inside.
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How To Smoke Bubble Hash
Bubble hash is one of the most spectacular forms of cannabis and possibly the most coveted type of solventless extract. Bubble hash can be used to make edibles, pressed into rosin, or consumed by itself. It’s rare to find true 6-star bubble hash in dispensaries, because the best of the best doesn’t normally stray too far from the extractors who are skilled enough to produce it!
While a 1 or 2-star hash is great for edibles, and a 3 or 4-star hash is good for pressing rosin, the premium product is normally smoked in its unmodified form.
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What Is Full Spectrum Bubble Hash and Why Does it Matter?
Full spectrum refers to the array of cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids present in a cannabis extract. Solventless methods like ice water extraction, which is used to make bubble hash, and pressing rosin capture all of the active ingredients within the cannabis resin. What you get is the full experience of the plant, the full spectrum of what it has to offer.
More broadly, full spectrum can refer to cannabis products that contain all the therapeutic compounds produced by the source plant.
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How To Use a Wine Cooler To Dry Bubble Hash
A wine cooler, or wine chiller, is an appliance designed to generate and maintain the ideal environment for storing bottles of wine. It turns out that these specialized refrigerators are also useful for hash makers to dry bubble hash. But how is a wine fridge different from regular refrigerators, and what makes them useful for drying bubble hash?
Many wine coolers look like mini refrigerators with a glass door, but they are built with features that differ from traditional refrigerators.
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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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Do I Need To Freeze Fresh or Cured Material Before Washing?
We know that cold temperatures are a necessity for producing high quality bubble hash with the ice water extraction method. Cold temperatures make trichomes on the cannabis material brittle enough to fall away from their stalks, while also minimizing terpene loss and helping to keep resin contained within the trichomes. But do we have to actually freeze cannabis material before beginning the process of washing hash?
First, let’s look at the different preparations possible for cannabis material used for washing bubble hash.
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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 Pre Soak Fresh or Cured Material Before Washing for Ice Water Extraction
For thousands of years hash producers have been extracting resin-filled trichomes from cannabis flowers, creating a pure and potent concentrate that captures the most desirable qualities of the plant. The first hash was collected directly by hand from mature flowers, creating a smear of resin by rubbing open palms across the plants. The hash was then peeled away and rolled into balls, called charas.
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What Is the Difference Between Microplaning and Sieving for Air Drying Bubble Hash?
Drying your freshly made bubble hash is the final step of the ice water extraction method of solventless extraction, and it’s a make or break process. Get it right and you’ll have an evenly-dried batch of bubble that’s ready for rosin production or enjoyment just as it is. Get it wrong and you can invite microbial growth and end up with a mildew-riddled product that’s only good for the trash bin. Drying is critical, but it can also be a bit tricky if you’re not familiar with the methods.
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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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Top 5 Common Mistakes When Washing Hash
One of the things we love most about our work in the solventless community is sharing the tips and tricks we’ve picked up over the years in working with the cannabis plant. Solventless extraction requires knowledge of cannabis, its trichomes, and the techniques and best practices required to isolate, collect, and process them. The resulting concentrates, when made with care and intention, capture the essence of the cannabis plant better than anything else available.
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Bubble Hash Washing Vessel Insulation Guide
If you want to wash bubble hash there’s one thing you need without question, and that’s ice cold water. In addition to a set of quality bubble wash bags, frigid water is central to the process of creating solventless hash. Mixing cannabis flowers or trim leaves and ice water together in a wash bucket allows trichome heads to fall away from their stalks and separate from the unwanted plant material. The cold temperature of the water makes the trichome stalks brittle enough to break, and also minimizes the likelihood that the heads will rupture and leak their valuable resin.
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Top 5 Ways to Keep Your Water Cold for Ice Water Extraction
Cold water is essential to the ice water extraction method of making bubble hash. Cold temperatures allow for the trichome heads to break free from their stalks and the rest of the plant material, while remaining intact at the same time. Warmer water creates an environment where the trichome heads can more easily rupture, stick together, and become difficult or impossible to collect. Without cold water, you’re left with drastically less trichomes to sieve out of the water and what you attempt to collect will be a greasy mess.
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Top 5 Reasons to Use All Mesh Bubble Wash Bags
All bubble wash bags utilize the same basic technology, but not all wash bags are created equal. Although every wash bag incorporates mesh sieving screens into a bag-shaped design, the actual construction and materials of wash bags can differ. Traditionally, bubble wash bags were made with waterproof nylon side walls attached to a mesh screen at the base of the bag. Water can only pass through the mesh screens at the bottom of these bags, essentially limiting the surface area through which the ice water extraction actually takes place.
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What Is Bubble Hash?
Bubble hash is a type of cannabis concentrate, a collection of the plant’s most potent attributes, made using a simple and chemical-free extraction process. Bubble hash, or simply “bubble” is a pure and potent form of cannabis medicine, perfect to consume by itself or to use as a starting material for other forms of cannabis concentrates. Bubble is not only incredibly powerful and effective, but it’s clean as well.
Bubble hash is referred to as a solventless cannabis product, since no solvents are used to create it.
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How To Use a Work Cube for Washing Bubble Hash
Work cubes are enclosed mesh filter bags used to hold cannabis starting material during the mixing phase of ice water extraction. Work cubes are similar to regular open-ended work bags in that they utilize the 220-micron filter screen size, however they’re designed to fully contain the cannabis material with a top lid that zips closed. Cube work bags are also made entirely with 220-micron mesh so that the total surface area acts as a filter.
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Q&A with Ryan from Terpy Highs
One of the benefits to working in the cannabis industry is the opportunity to connect with a community of growers and extractors who work tirelessly to produce the cleanest, most effective medicine on the planet. Recently we met with Ryan from Terpy Highs to talk about washing hash, pressing rosin, and growing premium cannabis flowers. Ryan is a ACMPR Licensed Medical Patient based in Ontario, Canada, who’s been on the quest for years to create solventless medicine for himself while helping to educate others on how to get started.
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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 Long to Mix Cannabis and Ice Water for Washing Bubble Hash
Washing hash involves mixing ice water and cannabis material together in order to separate trichome heads and isolate them through a series of mesh filter bags. The same material can be washed multiple times, and for varying lengths of time with each round of washing. The length of washing time impacts the number of trichomes released from the material, as well as the amount of plant contaminant that may end up in your hash.
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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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Why Is My Water Purple with Anthocyanins When Washing Hash?
Cannabis material that’s properly washed for bubble hash often imparts a cloudy appearance in the wash due to thousands of trichome heads released into the ice water and cannabis mixture. It’s common to see an off-white color in the hash water, indicative of the resin that’s been effectively separated and left suspended in the water. In addition to the cloudy, creamy look of hash water, a greenish hue is also common.
Green water is a sign of plant contamination and an early indicator that the quality of your hash may be compromised.
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