What Is a Bubble Hash Temple Ball?
🇺🇸 Retired veteran, father, rock-climbing expert & rosin connoisseur
✅ Updated 8/30/21
Temple Balls are objects of hash-making lore, originating long before modern methods of ice water extraction and bubble bags. The first temple balls were made from hand-collected cannabis trichomes (which is known as charas), or from dry sift made by separating trichomes from the plant using screens. Temple balls are the original solventless cannabis concentrate.
Temple balls give hash makers a way to store and preserve precious trichome heads for the long-term. Frenchy Cannoli helped bring temple balls into the spotlight in recent years, teaching us how to create these beautiful and practical forms of bubble hash. His lifelong passion was learning how to create hash and better understand cannabis trichomes, including how to preserve hash in the form of Temple Balls.
Simply put, temple balls are a collection of trichome heads, isolated from the plant using the ice water extraction method, gathered together and hand-rolled into a spherical mass. Traditionally, temple balls were made by hand-rubbing ripe cannabis flowers and collecting the trichomes that stuck to the skin. Now, ice water extraction has become the standard, blending the old and the new.
What Are the Benefits of Making a Bubble Hash Temple Ball?
Two main benefits of forming temple balls with your bubble hash include preservation and decarboxylation (activation).
Preservation
The outer layer of a temple ball creates a protective crust around the trichomes heads in the center of the sphere. This outer layer of protection keeps oxidation inside to a minimum, thereby maintaining the color, consistency, and potency of the resin wrapped inside the ball.
Activation
Preparing the temple ball involves exposing the hash to heat, which causes decarboxylation to occur. This is a chemical process that transforms cannabinoids like THC from their acid form into a non-acid form. It’s this non-acid form that unlocks the therapeutic effects of cannabis, so exposure to heat gives temple balls exceptional medicinal efficacy.
How To Make a Bubble Hash Temple Ball
The way to make a great temple ball is to start with great bubble hash. Learn how to wash bubble hash here.
Ensure the bubble hash is dried. Moisture can be a big problem in hash preservation, so don’t rush a proper drying process.
You’ll need a heat-resistant nylon wrapping (turkey bags work great), a wine bottle with cork, hot water, and the bubble hash.
Place the hash in between two layers of heat-resistant wrapping, and fill the wine bottle with hot water. Seal the bottle. Using your open palms, roll the bottle over the hash, thinning it out into a pancake shape. Move back and forth over the hash, thinning it out as you go. Turn the hash around and do the same on the other side.
Next, remove the hash from it's wrapping, fold it in half, and roll again. Once it’s been rolled a couple times on both sides, take the hash out of the wrapping. Using gloves during this process is helpful!
Fold this sheet of hash multiple times in the palm of your hand until it’s in a cube shape. Squeeze firmly either side of the cube and rotate between the fingers, removing any air pockets and folds on the surface. This is the time to work out most of the inconsistencies in the material.
Clasp your hands together and roll the cube back and forth between the palms. Continue this rolling until the cube is transformed into a glistening ball. Behold, your temple ball!
Conclusion
Temple balls give extractors an elegant and effective way to preserve the trichome heads we work so hard to isolate and collect. Their soft and luscious interior is truly a thing of beauty. Their glistening surface seems mystical.
Temple balls represent a blending of the old and the new, with modern solventless techniques like ice water extraction meeting age-old knowledge and practices for optimizing hash with only some heat and human hands.
A majestic marble, a globe of pure goodness, the temple ball is calling your name. Will you answer?
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 is a Temple Ball?
A temple ball is a form of hashish, or solventless cannabis concentrate.
What is a Temple Ball made of?
A Temple Ball is made with hash, which is form of cannabis extract that's composed almost entirely of trichome heads with very little plant material.
How is a Temple Ball made?
A Temple Ball is made by heating and pressing freshly dried hash and then rolling it in between the hands in the form of a sphere.
The term "Temple Ball" refers to the spherical-shape of these ancient forms of cannabis concentrate, originally crafted by monks and who used them in their places of meditation, or temples.
What is the benefit of shaping hash into a Temple Ball?
A Temple Ball preserves the hash in the middle of the ball for long term storage and aging, while the outer layer becomes oxidizes and forms a protective membrane.
4 comments
How should temple balls be stored long term at room temperature in a dark room or in the refrigerator? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Why does my hash turn crumbly after a week or two? I have been making it the frenchy way but after I have rolled it with the bottle of hot water and made it in to a temple ball that has the perfect gold seal like texture and look and seems to be perfect, then a week or two later if I squeeze the ball it cracks and is crumbly and the inside looks like it has turned a lighter brown color. I can’t seem to figure out what is causing this any insight would be greatly appreciated
What is the best way to cut the hash ball to smoke in a pipe, thanks Doug
Temple ball. Lol I have one as we speak. It’s flat at the moment but when it drys in 6 more days I will then heat roll it with a hot glass bottle of water. Then I will roll it into a Temple ball/ hummmmmmmmmmmmm