Smokin Moose
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
Bubble hash is a relatively new term given to pressed hash made from pure trichomes. When you fire up traditional hashish, impurities in the resin will burn. Pure, unadulterated cannabis-trichome resin will bubble and melt like butter when flame is applied. As my friend Bubbleman says, "if it don't bubble, it ain't worth the trouble."
I met him while visiting Breeder Steve's (Spice of Life Seeds) garden in Europe. Bubbleman is the inventor of the Bubblebag, unequivocally the best water-hash-making kit you can buy. The extraction technique is not new, but the six-screen system gives you control over your quality and quantity ratios, allowing you to isolate the best of the best. Oh yes, there's much more life than just smoking kif.
Collected trichomes, also called kif or resin powder, easily press into solid pieces of hash. This can be done many ways. The finished product, in my opinion, ranks among the world's greatest hashish. This smoke is truly fit for kings. Potency can be more than 50%, dare I say 75%, THC! The health benefits are tremendous--your lungs will thank you. Take away all that vegetable matter, and all you inhale is THC and the pure essence of the plant. Since you remove the trichome heads intact, oils containing the essences that carry the taste to your palate are also captured.
Producing this royal hash from your leaf trimmings and subpar buds is very easy. Each bag in the Bubblebag kit has a screen sewn into the bottom, each with a different size mesh (holes) measured in microns. The six sizes are 220U, 190U, 160U, 73U, 45U and 25U. Depending on how much material you're working with, use either a 1, 5 or 20-gallon bucket.
The bags go inside one another smallest to largest. First, place the 25U into the bucket, then the 45U, and so on until the last bag, the 220U. The 220U bag is the work bag where the material is placed for blending, so it's considerably stronger than the others. Now add water and ice to your bucket and bags, to a level just above the screen. This will keep your materials from falling through the dry screen. Keep in mind that water is our friend through all of this; it keeps most contaminants afloat. Ice is very important to the process, because it's the icy-cold water that makes the glands brittle for easy separation from the plant matter.
Now add your materials--which should be leaf and/or bud, but no branches--on top of the water. Add lots more ice and top off with water. Now you're ready for blending. Using a hand mixer, blend 1-gallon kits for 10 minutes, 5-gallon kits for 15 minutes, and 20-gallon kits for 20 minutes. Then let them settle, 20 minutes for the 1-gallon, 30 minutes for the 5-gallon, and 45 minutes for the 20-gallon kit. This allows all the tiny heads you've dislodged from the plant matter to sink and fall through the screens.
Best results can only be achieved by ensuring there's still ice left when you reach this point. After the brew is allowed to settle, you can start to pull the bags, one by one. First remove the 220U bag that's holding all the plant matter. Immediately turn it inside out, dispose of the material and clean the bag with cold water. This is the best way to clean and preserve your Bubblebags. Now you're ready to pull the bags holding the real booty.
The material from the next bag, the 190U, may contain some contaminant, but still is good hash. Remove it from the screen, and place it on its corresponding pressing screen, included in the kit for the water-removal process. Remove the material that's been captured in each of the other bags, the 160U, the 73U, the 45U and finally, the 25U. Place the material on separate pressing screens provided. Each grade will have unique qualities. You're looking for the full melt.
To remove the majority of the remaining water, use a rolling pin. Place the pressing screen on a towel and place another towel on top of it. Then lightly press with the rolling pin. Like with buds, drying the resin should not be rushed. "This is where many people make a mistake," says Bubbleman. "They take the final product that's only been mildly pressed, and press it in their fingers while it's still wet, resulting in moldy bubble hash in most every case."
Using the 25U pressing screen removes most, but not all of the water. Take the wet patties and break them up into fine powder over a piece of thick cardboard. This will pull all the water out over the course of a few days, leaving you with a final product that is bone-dry and ready to be stored. In an unpressed state, your bubble hash will smoke like a bowl of trichomes; pressing and curing it will enhance taste and potency even further. "This is where the magic begins," Bubbleman tells me.
This mostly pertains to getting the water out, which is the reason for using cardboard for drying. Bubbleman says, "There are nonactive chemicals that lay dormant as carboxylic-acid chains, which react and turn active once time, oxidation or pressing with heat occurs. By losing the carboxylic acid ring, you activate previously nonactive cannabinoids. You'll get a much darker color as this happens, as the layer that contains the oils and cannabinoid profile in the head breaks and mixes together." Basically, this means you have to apply heat and pressure. The simplest way to do this is to use your hands or to place it in your shoe to press the resin into a patty.
Bubbleman is a true hash guru who suggests everyone read Robert Connell Clarke's book Hashish. If you're a ganja purist like me, you'll be amazed by cannabinoid worlds you've yet to explore. Every grower can utilize bubble bags to turn trash into stash, without having to coat your lungs black from poisonous impurities. I can envision a time when everyone smokes pure, healthful bubble hash.
Kyle Kushman
I met him while visiting Breeder Steve's (Spice of Life Seeds) garden in Europe. Bubbleman is the inventor of the Bubblebag, unequivocally the best water-hash-making kit you can buy. The extraction technique is not new, but the six-screen system gives you control over your quality and quantity ratios, allowing you to isolate the best of the best. Oh yes, there's much more life than just smoking kif.
Collected trichomes, also called kif or resin powder, easily press into solid pieces of hash. This can be done many ways. The finished product, in my opinion, ranks among the world's greatest hashish. This smoke is truly fit for kings. Potency can be more than 50%, dare I say 75%, THC! The health benefits are tremendous--your lungs will thank you. Take away all that vegetable matter, and all you inhale is THC and the pure essence of the plant. Since you remove the trichome heads intact, oils containing the essences that carry the taste to your palate are also captured.
Producing this royal hash from your leaf trimmings and subpar buds is very easy. Each bag in the Bubblebag kit has a screen sewn into the bottom, each with a different size mesh (holes) measured in microns. The six sizes are 220U, 190U, 160U, 73U, 45U and 25U. Depending on how much material you're working with, use either a 1, 5 or 20-gallon bucket.
The bags go inside one another smallest to largest. First, place the 25U into the bucket, then the 45U, and so on until the last bag, the 220U. The 220U bag is the work bag where the material is placed for blending, so it's considerably stronger than the others. Now add water and ice to your bucket and bags, to a level just above the screen. This will keep your materials from falling through the dry screen. Keep in mind that water is our friend through all of this; it keeps most contaminants afloat. Ice is very important to the process, because it's the icy-cold water that makes the glands brittle for easy separation from the plant matter.
Now add your materials--which should be leaf and/or bud, but no branches--on top of the water. Add lots more ice and top off with water. Now you're ready for blending. Using a hand mixer, blend 1-gallon kits for 10 minutes, 5-gallon kits for 15 minutes, and 20-gallon kits for 20 minutes. Then let them settle, 20 minutes for the 1-gallon, 30 minutes for the 5-gallon, and 45 minutes for the 20-gallon kit. This allows all the tiny heads you've dislodged from the plant matter to sink and fall through the screens.
Best results can only be achieved by ensuring there's still ice left when you reach this point. After the brew is allowed to settle, you can start to pull the bags, one by one. First remove the 220U bag that's holding all the plant matter. Immediately turn it inside out, dispose of the material and clean the bag with cold water. This is the best way to clean and preserve your Bubblebags. Now you're ready to pull the bags holding the real booty.
The material from the next bag, the 190U, may contain some contaminant, but still is good hash. Remove it from the screen, and place it on its corresponding pressing screen, included in the kit for the water-removal process. Remove the material that's been captured in each of the other bags, the 160U, the 73U, the 45U and finally, the 25U. Place the material on separate pressing screens provided. Each grade will have unique qualities. You're looking for the full melt.
To remove the majority of the remaining water, use a rolling pin. Place the pressing screen on a towel and place another towel on top of it. Then lightly press with the rolling pin. Like with buds, drying the resin should not be rushed. "This is where many people make a mistake," says Bubbleman. "They take the final product that's only been mildly pressed, and press it in their fingers while it's still wet, resulting in moldy bubble hash in most every case."
Using the 25U pressing screen removes most, but not all of the water. Take the wet patties and break them up into fine powder over a piece of thick cardboard. This will pull all the water out over the course of a few days, leaving you with a final product that is bone-dry and ready to be stored. In an unpressed state, your bubble hash will smoke like a bowl of trichomes; pressing and curing it will enhance taste and potency even further. "This is where the magic begins," Bubbleman tells me.
This mostly pertains to getting the water out, which is the reason for using cardboard for drying. Bubbleman says, "There are nonactive chemicals that lay dormant as carboxylic-acid chains, which react and turn active once time, oxidation or pressing with heat occurs. By losing the carboxylic acid ring, you activate previously nonactive cannabinoids. You'll get a much darker color as this happens, as the layer that contains the oils and cannabinoid profile in the head breaks and mixes together." Basically, this means you have to apply heat and pressure. The simplest way to do this is to use your hands or to place it in your shoe to press the resin into a patty.
Bubbleman is a true hash guru who suggests everyone read Robert Connell Clarke's book Hashish. If you're a ganja purist like me, you'll be amazed by cannabinoid worlds you've yet to explore. Every grower can utilize bubble bags to turn trash into stash, without having to coat your lungs black from poisonous impurities. I can envision a time when everyone smokes pure, healthful bubble hash.
Kyle Kushman
We didn't weigh how much leaf trim we used, but it was about 1 1/2 to 2 standard bucket-fulls 
That ain't a legit unit of measure for sure!
this is just how I feel.
