The Hash Club

So got about 150g I grew....don't care for it much kind of made a big mistake curing it(it dried too fast) so not a big fan of the smell/taste.....however, it grew wonderfully, is loaded with trichs and was very resinous.

So I saw a video yesterday about making bubble hash using the different bags with ice & water and read through here. Still have only a very basic understanding of what needs to be done.

I see you all freeze it first, and you also crumble it all by hand....my bud is in jars, been jarred since Nov....is it best to crumble it(break it up) before freezing it or after freezing it? Does the length or time in the freezer matter at all? I probably won't get to doing this for another couple weeks, so I have the option to put it in the freezer now if it's best.

These are the steps to the process as I understand it;
1. Put 220 micron bag in bucket add a little water + ice then some of the weed & start softly mixing it with your hands, continue doing this until all your weed is in and the 5 gal bucket is about 4gal full
2. Take blender and blend for 15 min
3. Let settle for 15 min
4. Repeat step 2+3 for 1-2 hours adding a little more ice every time
5. Slowly lift 220 micron bag out letting all the water drip into the bucket(will I be re-using the contents in this bag again in different water?)
6. Put remaining micron bags in 2nd 5gal bucket
7. Dump water from 1st 5gal bucket into 2nd bucket
8. Start pulling bags out 1 by one....letting each drip dry(for how long?) back into the bucket before moving on to the next bag.
9. Scrape bottom of each bag off
10. Kind of lost what happens beyond this point

I see you mention re-washing it, is that taking what was left in the 220 bag and putting it through that entire process again? I want the best final product I can get without investing $$$(still have needs first for the grow room) but I'm willing to put the labor hours them self into it, very patient and by no means lazy, you all say it takes 'time' to make the final product better, what time though? Is it one of steps 1-10 I need to be patient with?

Any advice would be awesome, like if using something then a blender is better I'm all ears, if doing any of the steps differently gives better results I'm open to learning :Namaste:
Just to think about. When I ran buds that weren’t ground up I got a 50% decrease in potency when I grinned it into powder first. Way more contamination made it into each layer of bag decreasing my nice bubble I get from more bud like product in the ice water.
 
So what is ideal humidity when you're curing your hash in your jars? Can you use a Boveda to manage it?
 
Hi fellow 420'ers:welcome:



I thought I'd devote a thread to discussing and reviewing hash.
Feel free to contribute with a review of your own homemade hash or your import hash





A little background story


I love ganja, but I really really love hash and it was the first type of cannabis I tried and the type I have smoked the most. First the local way where it's mixed with tobacco that has been toasted to heat out some nicotine tar and additives which makes it a lot less harsh and the hash taste really stands out. I think this practice is unique to Denmark and maybe some of the other scandinavian countries have adopted the technique.

I stopped smoking tobacco years ago, so I needed something new to mix the hash with so it would burn and weed was the obvious choice, so now I have a dedicated room with 2 tents running:)
So I hopefully won't have to buy commercial weed and I'll know it's organic, washed and smooth to smoke;)


I know many of you guys from the new world haven't seen much import hash, but around these parts it's the most popular and available form of cannabis and nothing special, weed is usually more expensive.
You sure make up for the lack of import hash with some killer concentrates and homemade hash:thumb:


Sadly the authorities have been increasing their effort against cannabis and a lot of the very nice stuff is no longer available.
Maroccan hash is usually the only available, I think the link to the east(India, Nepal, Pakistan, Nepal) has been busted.


I'm going to rate the hash on a 1-10 scale, evaluating; smell, taste, effect and how easy it is to pick apart.
On the first 3 I don't think anything will be rated above 8, 9 and 10 is reserved for true Kashmir, Creme, Temple Ball etc. which I probably won't find anyway...




--------------



First review:


I recently bought 50g of a blonde Maroccan hash for ~ 6,5 USD / 5,9 Euro per gram.

Smell: Sour, earthy, not so hashy 4/10
Taste: Decent classic Maroc taste 7/10
Effect: Decent relaxing high, no raised heart beat 7/10
Handling: Slightly crumbly and very easy to pick apart 8/10


Overall: Decent smoke but nothing special, reasonably priced 6/10



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:Namaste:
hello friend, I fully share your speech, from what I understand live in Europe, we are close the culture of hash has more extensive and deep roots in Europe than the rest of the world will be because it is close to Afghanistan and all big producer countries ..... here you can find a good product if you know or should you auto produce in my parts 100 g. hash in a 7/8 scale you pay also € 2,5 to gr. . it is useless to be here to list all the risks that a person can go to buy a product from those who do not know beyond the risk of being caught. you have a nice quality product ✌️ peace € love
 
So what is ideal humidity when you're curing your hash in your jars? Can you use a Boveda to manage it?

Good questions. I don't know what the ideal humidity would be, but I do know that, in my experience, moisture has led to mold. And the jars I use are much too small to put a boveda pack into. This round, I let the hash get pretty much bone dry before I put it into the jars, then I opened the jars daily for a while to make sure mold would not be an issue. It's about 3 months in the jars now.

Here's a photo of the jars:

full


I've been noticing something odd in my jars. There are little hash chips forming spontaneously. Here's a look inside the 73 micron and 25 micron jars. The little ball in the 73 I rolled myself, but the other dark chips are just forming on their own. We tried smoking one and it was very good.

73 micron - about 8 grams:

full


25 micron - about 4 grams:

full
 
Alright awesome, thanks for the advice. I can't wait to have enough bud to try making some hash. I looked at a trim table the other day with a 220 micron base screen......great idea!
So I was watching an episode of Strain Hunters on YouTube the other day and I saw when they were in Morocco that they basically beat the kief inside a bag with wooden sledgehammers to get it to mold into shape.... It's amazing how primitive the tools are....but man those 5lb blocks looked INCREDIBLE! Check it out......
 
Break up some but if too fine i found it to mess with the end product.

Yeah I found that when I broke my buds up into about pea-sized chunks it really got more than when I left them kind of pop-corn sized or chunkier, but I broke them up by hand so as to not break any leaves and let chlorophyll leach out. It was sticky but worth it!


I just did a run recently, and what I can basically recommend is to forego gentle agitation, and do multiple runs. I can't believe how much material I threw away not doing multiple runs! Meanwhile, I've tried the gentle agitation multiple times, and in my opinion it doesn't increase product quality, but just reduces yield. This time around I had about 2 ounces of nug ground up in a bucket quite finely, and I used my paint stir drill to heavily agitate for 15 minutes. I did two runs and didn't really measure how much hash I got, but if I had to estimate it was almost 20 grams between both runs and all grades. The first run netted 6 ~1 gram sized hash coins of 73 micron grade alone. Didn't get pics of any of it this time because it was bone chillingly cold and I didn't want to have my hands out of my pockets any longer than I needed to.

Honestly I don't know what the attraction with the bubble machines are. Do they really make it easier? Seems like just sitting with a drill in a bucket for 15 minutes isn't that much work, it's all the filtering of the bags that comes next that's the hard part.
 
Yeah I found that when I broke my buds up into about pea-sized chunks it really got more than when I left them kind of pop-corn sized or chunkier, but I broke them up by hand so as to not break any leaves and let chlorophyll leach out. It was sticky but worth it!


I just did a run recently, and what I can basically recommend is to forego gentle agitation, and do multiple runs. I can't believe how much material I threw away not doing multiple runs! Meanwhile, I've tried the gentle agitation multiple times, and in my opinion it doesn't increase product quality, but just reduces yield. This time around I had about 2 ounces of nug ground up in a bucket quite finely, and I used my paint stir drill to heavily agitate for 15 minutes. I did two runs and didn't really measure how much hash I got, but if I had to estimate it was almost 20 grams between both runs and all grades. The first run netted 6 ~1 gram sized hash coins of 73 micron grade alone. Didn't get pics of any of it this time because it was bone chillingly cold and I didn't want to have my hands out of my pockets any longer than I needed to.

Honestly I don't know what the attraction with the bubble machines are. Do they really make it easier? Seems like just sitting with a drill in a bucket for 15 minutes isn't that much work, it's all the filtering of the bags that comes next that's the hard part.
Smaller pieces made for higher yield but lower quality. You will see when it’s ready to smoke and there is no melt. That’s the difference of being gentle too. Quality not quantity
 
Smaller pieces made for higher yield but lower quality. You will see when it’s ready to smoke and there is no melt. That’s the difference of being gentle too. Quality not quantity
Oh it melted just fine. I don't know if it would dab, but I like to smoke my hash so that's fine if it wouldn't.

This is the stuff from the first run, but I'm not sure what grade. My buddy had me run it for him, and I told him about the quality vs quantity idea and he just told me to go for yield. It turned out way better than I expected because everyone told me heavy agitation would be "low quality".


Meanwhile this is what I got from gentle agitation on my first run, and it doesn't seem much better. Maybe I haven't done it gentle enough yet?




 
Maybe just my luck ??
I dunno man, I mean, I'm not entirely sure the "best" stuff I've made is even that good y'know. No frame of reference.

But so far, I mean, I really like the yields and the quality of the stuff I got with the heavy mixing. But honestly the stupidest thing I did was not do multiple runs. Maybe next time I'll try a first run with like, just barely any mixing at all... Like just moving the spoon through it like I was trying to stir some soup on the stove. After that I'll do the heavy mix on the second run to compare. I think @madframermrc was telling me to do it like that, but I didn't really understand how gentle he meant.
 
I dunno man, I mean, I'm not entirely sure the "best" stuff I've made is even that good y'know. No frame of reference.

But so far, I mean, I really like the yields and the quality of the stuff I got with the heavy mixing. But honestly the stupidest thing I did was not do multiple runs. Maybe next time I'll try a first run with like, just barely any mixing at all... Like just moving the spoon through it like I was trying to stir some soup on the stove. After that I'll do the heavy mix on the second run to compare. I think @madframermrc was telling me to do it like that, but I didn't really understand how gentle he meant.
The best I’ve made so far was with fresh frozen and very little agitated. It didn’t burn it just melted and bubbled and a bowl lasted the day. I havnt been able to get the quality by other methods yet. I always do 3 runs keeping each separated. I’ve tried freezing cured buds and made real fine. Got amazing yield but quality sucked. I’ll be harvesting in next few weeks so I’ll give the fresh frozen trim another go.
 
What is light agitation? My grandma stirring with a tea spoon?
Surely some violence is required for the trichomes to fall off.

If there's only little foam the product will be cleaner, and if there's a lot of foam there will be more contaminants in it.
I do 3 runs where first run is 3 minutes and second and third are 15 minutes each, might try a fourth run :)
 
What is light agitation? My grandma stirring with a tea spoon?
Surely some violence is required for the trichomes to fall off.

If there's only little foam the product will be cleaner, and if there's a lot of foam there will be more contaminants in it.
I do 3 runs where first run is 3 minutes and second and third are 15 minutes each, might try a fourth run :)
Lol yeah that's the idea I'm getting

I like the idea of measuring it by foam. I think the very last one I did, I only drilled it for like 4 or 5 minutes before it was very foamy, and then the rest of the 15 minutes was just churning a froth. So probably overdid it. I noticed that the sides of the bags had foamy mess and tons of trichomes stuck to them I had to wash off carefully.

I wonder how much good stuff I'm throwing out only doing 1 or 2 runs.
 
I agree with T Fertilizer re the mixing.
After many years of pussy-footing around mixing gently, and constantly having to scold and coach my ornery grandma on how to do it just right, I've evolved away into a process that's easier and yields better hash. So now I pretty much just beat the crap out of it.
I usually use wet trim- pre-frozen and then crumbled up by hand before mixing.
I just clamp my electric drill in place, with a paint mixer attachment on the end and another clamp or a wrap of tape around the trigger. I leave it on full throttle for about 20 minutes. I do three or sometimes four runs with the material, and usually mix all the final product into one blend. Pics below are of a four-run blend.
When it gets too foamy I dump the water and start with fresh water.

It's likely that I could get even better hash if I pussy-footed around more but I'm just taking the upper/middle road in terms of time and effort.

:passitleft:




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Maybe some of you have some thoughts on an issue I've been wondering about for years. I'll see if I can articulate it. It's about how bubble hash is made.

The conventional story is that the cold temps make the trichomes brittle, and their stalks break off from the agitation and contact with the ice chunks, and being heavier than the rest of the material- sink to the bottom.
Sounds reasonable- sort of, and I've been making the stuff for over twenty years so I know it somehow works. Before I got the bubble bags I would just make it in a mason jar with ice and let it settle- then strain, siphon and skim off the water to collect the hash.

But- here's the question.
I mostly use trimmings for making hash. And if I look at my trimmings, or a trimmed bud, through a magnifying glass - I see very few intact trichomes. They're all destroyed and smeared around from being handled during the harvest.
Now I appreciate that buds actually have a huge surface area, with many internal folds that are covered in trichomes, and maybe there are many undamaged trichs hiding in there. But pretty much all the ones I see through the scope are destroyed and smeared over the bud, my scissors, fingers... This concept of a nice intact resin blob on the end of a stalk - breaking off and sinking - it's not an option.
I'm thinking that either the damaged trichomes are completely wasted- meaning that the ice-hash process is very inefficient and leaves a lot behind.
Or, possibly, the damaged resin glands still harden, separate and sink even if they've been previously smeared flat.
If I had the technology I would try to take some before and after pics of a bud that's been through the process. But I don't.

Any thoughts from the hash club? Thanks guys. :passitleft:
 
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