Ideas for pressing hash

[PaleSun]

A couple months ago I turned a lot of 'production grade' bud into kief. Broke it all down, used dry ice to extract, and sieved it through a 120 micron screen. I got a little over 120 grams of kief. It smokes great, tastes like hash, and gives a nice buzz, but it doesn't stick together the way I thought it would.

Under the pressure of one of those T-handle screw presses and some heat in a double-boiler I can press 4 or 5 grams into coins and small cylinders, but how can I press larger amounts? I've tried The Frenchman's recommendation using parchment paper and boiling water in a wine bottle. Didn't work for me, it crumbled right away.

Anybody have any ideas how to press about 100g? Cheers everybody

 

[Weaselcracker]

When I get kief that won’t glom together, I usually try to make it more gooey so it will. I take About 1/4 of it out, mix with alcohol (the purest ethylene you can get, or iso if you have to), mix and let sit a while, strain the results and reduce over low heat till you have honey oil, then mix it back in with the kief on low heat.

 

[PaleSun]

Not sure if I can get high test ethanol here. Some silly laws still exist here - kinda like the cannabis laws in the US Isopropyl 97% I can definitely get. @Weaselcracker How much Isopropyl do you normally start with? I like your idea.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah I can’t get it here either, unless I buy a still I guess. Which I do dream about getting. Anyway, I use 99% iso.
Re how much iso, I use maybe double the amount of iso to kief, stick it in a jar and shake it around a bunch- leave it sit awhile.
Normally when people make iso extractions from bud they do it quickly ( quick wash iso aka QWISO) to avoid getting much chlorophyll in the mix. Using kief it’s not something I worry about because I figure there’s not much chlorophyll in there anyway. Probably you don’t need to take longer than a few minutes to dissolve the good stuff out- but I often leave it in for an hour or more anyway. You may want to do less/more. Not sure it will make much difference.

Make sure to evaporate all the iso out of the oil. I put it in a stainless pot or bowl and put it somewhere warm to evaporate. Somewhere I don’t have to breathe the fines and it can’t catch a spark.

It takes mild heat to purge all the iso out at the end. An oven on low would work. I just put it on a corner of my wood stove and let it get warm enough to bubble slightly until the bubbles stop and I can’t smell iso anymore.

 

[PaleSun]

Ah, a fellow wood stove guy. Nothing like it. It's all I heat with in the winter. Thanks for all the info. Cheers!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Ha ha. Awesome. Sometimes seems like I’m the only one on the forum who isn’t living in the city .

 

[Joe Brewster]

Anybody have any ideas how to press about 100g? Cheers everybody

Ah, a fellow wood stove guy. Nothing like it. It's all I heat with in the winter. Thanks for all the info. Cheers!

Hey PaleSun
I put my kief in a ss steamer pan & put it on my wood stove just keep stirring it till it starts to melt & get sticky .The more you heat it the darker it will get. Melt it to much you will have to scrape it off with a razor blade Then I just push it into the corner & keep kneading it till it comes together, . with a gloved hand, keep squeezing into a ball. When it cools it will harden
I even got, big leaf kief to stick together. tasted like blonde Lebanese

Back is aching from moving a cord of wood into my greenhouse for winter .Ash is King

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes as Brewster says, try heat first. Mild heat will make the more resinous material glom together. But if not, there’s a method I should have also mentioned- a point just within vaping temps where even the most stubborn material usually melts and sticks together. I’ve posted about it in my journal a couple times. Heat the kief to about 150° C/ 300 F in the oven. Use the oven thermometer so you know when it gets up to around 150C.
When it attains that temp it starts to brown slightly and your entire house basically becomes a large vape chamber. You’ll start getting stoned, especially if you go outside and get involved in a phone conversation and forget to take it out after a couple minutes and return 30 minutes later to a house full of mind warping fumes. Ask me how I know....
Be careful handling the container and the kief as it’s very hot. Ask me how I know....
After heating like that it (usually) becomes permanently gooey even after it cools. Worth a try with a small amount if less drastic strategies don’t work.

 

[PaleSun]

Thanks @Brewsterman and @Weaselcracker I'm thinking I'll need to carefully monitor the temperature if using the oven. No accounting for accuracy of the oven's thermostat. 150c is getting close to THC vapour point. As you say, try it with a smaller amount first. Perhaps 95-100c is just not hot enough when using boiling water in a wine bottle.

Question: Is there a downside to using a solvent like Isopropyl alcohol? Other than flammability and noxious vapours. It seems like it's a sure way to get the oil into solution. Will it leave an aroma in the hash? I have a small hotplate and double boiler I can use to evaporate.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes try boiling temps first.

It won’t leave an aroma in the hash if you evaporate it all out as I described. It does need to be heated to get the last bit out.

Honestly I prefer not to use the iso if I can avoid it. Most people consider it safe. I haven’t found any horror stories about ill effects or toxic residue. Smoking itself is toxic as we know. But yeah, I prefer to just use straight bubble hash or kief when I can. Someday I’ll get a still and see if I can make hash oil using ethyl alcohol instead. Because ethyl alcohol is totally safe, right..?

 

[PaleSun]

Well I'm looking forward to trying it. As well as making some more bubble hash from this year's production-grade buds. This summer I grew some nice Sour Diesel and White Widow photos. I could never smoke as much as you can grow. A lot gets gifted out, and I still have too much. The result, experiments making low dose Chocolates, infused oil and hash. All this enjoyment will have to wait 2 weeks. Like you @Weaselcracker I work away, near the top of Baffin Island. For now I plan and scheme for next summer's garden - like some DWC

 

[Joe Brewster]

hey PaleSun try this way to make kief

First time making Hash!

So I made some hash today out of sugar trim and larfs from a big blue cookie I had going. The plant had a lot of popcorn as I hadn't trimmed it as hard as I could have, but it appears to have made good trim. From the Blue cookies, which gave me about 250 grams of great buds, I got a 8.2 gram of...

www.420magazine.com

Buzz62 documented it for me
much easier than bubble hash or dry ice method
Any questions ask away
Oh & I make my hash on the wood stove , so I can watch it turn (start to melt) & I can pull it away quick if it gets to hot

 

[PaleSun]

@Brewsterman I think a nice wood fire in the country winter months is almost heaven. For my first try, maybe 10g I'll start with the double boiler so I don't burn it. Then more heat if i get the hang of it. Does the flavour change when you let it darken on the heat? Is that the difference between black and brown/blonde? Heating during the press?

 

[Joe Brewster]

@Brewsterman I think a nice wood fire in the country winter months is almost heaven. For my first try, maybe 10g I'll start with the double boiler so I don't burn it. Then more heat if i get the hang of it. Does the flavour change when you let it darken on the heat? Is that the difference between black and brown/blonde? Heating during the press?

try just using a single edge razor blade, heat with flame, pass it thru your kief, it will stick to blade, pass it quickly back & forth over flame & watch it melt. use a second blade to scrape it off, roll in fingers, add more heat if needed & then smoke it
best in my mod box
I always cut up, roll or fill pipe on glass Then heat blade & scrape it
Trichome hash are great evening blasts

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sounds like we’re doing the same thing, with different methods. Here’s my post where I first accidentally discovered the results of overheating the kief. Actually in that case it was bubble hash but since then I’ve always used it for either, when I want to make it extra gooey.

Weasel Forges Ahead

Perhaps it's because I can't drive my COBs hard enough, but I've never been able to get either of the PC's I had to fill out like any of yours. Are all of your PCs bloomed outside? Either way, they sure look super frosty and stacked very well. That's all I want from a strain right now.

www.420magazine.com

 

[bluter]

Not sure if I can get high test ethanol here.

Yeah I can’t get it here either, unless I buy a still I guess.

pick up some "craft alcohol hand sanitizer". local distilling companies in canada have begun producing 70 - 75% neutral grain alcohol for use as hand sanitizer. loads and loads of them are doing it. we get it in 20L pails.

sometimes it's coloured, usually it isn't. it's basically high test vodka. we can't sell it as consumable alcohol. but i know it's happening. i brought a bunch home to clean out my water pipe.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Surely it’s had something added to make it unpalatable?

 

[bluter]

Surely it’s had something added to make it unpalatable?

could probably find out. it wouldn't surprise me if it had to have a bittering agent.

i just checked with a local distiller on hand and they describe it as an 80% (160 proof) food grade ethanol with no bittering agent. they call it "emergency vodka" on their website.

 

[greenjeans]

who isn’t living in the city

No city life for me - I love it in the middle of my 87 acres of trees!!

 

[PaleSun]

No city life for me

Sounds like we're all cut from the same cloth. BTW @greenjeans Odd coincidence. I have exactly 87 acres here too. Bard owls, coy-wolves, plenty deer and fox, but noooo neighbours lol

@bluter There's a craft distiller in town near here. I'll check and see if they'll sell me a couple litres of high grade ethanol. BTW are you a land medic? That's what I did long ago.