The Hash Club

Thanks for the answer PGR.

I still have my doubts. You could be completely right, and I realize the question is sort of pointless since the process does work.
It's just sort of counterintuitive to think that the ice hash method would get most of the damaged resin.
The resin is generally smeared around in a thin layer of goo, and as far as I can see, completely stuck on to whatever it has touched. Freezing it will make it brittle yes, but I wouldn't expect much of it to come off. When I wear gloves for trimming sometimes I throw them in the freezer after to help get the resin off. As you probably know, it helps, but it's not like the resin just falls off. In fact most of it stays stuck on the gloves.
In the other hand FWIW, wet, nearly frozen bud isn't the same surface texture as a glove and might interact differently.
Yes I t's possible that in the hash process this resin does separate and fall off in a billion pieces and sink, like tiny shards of a broken mirror.
I'll see if I can get any glimpse of the mystery through my microscopes. It's something I've been meaning to get to the bottom of for a long time.
Another idea is to take the used bubble hash making material and use it for QWISO and see what I get from it.
Not that I expect much return, or that it will really help answer my question

- which is basically - how exactly does the Ice hash process work?

I have the material and the ISO in my freezer already just haven't gotten around to it.

Something to think about, anyway. :thanks:
 
Weaselcracker said:
Thanks for the answer PGR.

I still have my doubts. You could be completely right, and I realize the question is sort of pointless since the process does work.
It's just sort of counterintuitive to think that the ice hash method would get most of the damaged resin.
The resin is generally smeared around in a thin layer of goo, and as far as I can see, completely stuck on to whatever it has touched. Freezing it will make it brittle yes, but I wouldn't expect much of it to come off. When I wear gloves for trimming sometimes I throw them in the freezer after to help get the resin off. As you probably know, it helps, but it's not like the resin just falls off. In fact most of it stays stuck on the gloves.
In the other hand FWIW, wet, nearly frozen bud isn't the same surface texture as a glove and might interact differently.
Yes I t's possible that in the hash process this resin does separate and fall off in a billion pieces and sink, like tiny shards of a broken mirror.
I'll see if I can get any glimpse of the mystery through my microscopes. It's something I've been meaning to get to the bottom of for a long time.
Another idea is to take the used bubble hash making material and use it for QWISO and see what I get from it.
Not that I expect much return, or that it will really help answer my question

- which is basically - how exactly does the Ice hash process work?

I have the material and the ISO in my freezer already just haven't gotten around to it.

Something to think about, anyway. :thanks:
Click to expand...
I read a book once from Robert C. Clarke that claimed the part of the trichome that had the THC wasn't even the glandular head or stalks like I've seen claimed in most hash making guides. Granted this book is from 1981 and the study he was citing was from even earlier.

My guess is that even broken, there's still some THC and that in the cold and agitation the waxy/oily "smear" must break up and allow it through the micron sieve. You can't have smoke without fire right, so the THC has got through somehow.

There's also the likelihood that while you think you've destroyed all, or nearly all, of the trichomes, you might have simply just smeared them out a little bit and they're just there, still solid, in a layer of trichome resin/oil. Kind of like spreading chunky peanut butter, the peanuts just get kind of enveloped in the butter. So think of your scissors as creating and spreading trichome butter over your other trichomes. Then your cold water and agitation comes along, washes/disintegrates this hash butter, and frees up the trichomes that were buried within.

So essentially my theory is two pronged... 1. There's more THC in the smeared contents than expected and 2. This smeared THC or "trichome butter" is hiding intact trichomes like it was chunky peanut butter.

Then at the end of it your question of how the frigid water helps break it down... Well that's a mystery, but again, where there's smoke there's fire right? The process worked to extract the THC somehow. All I've got figured is how the THC is still there. My best guess as to why the frigid water helps break it up, is that perhaps the "trichome butter" is only being held together by merits of the stickyness, and in my experience at least, the adhesive nature of the resin is a lot less so when it's cold. Couple that with the agitation, it might be breaking the bonds of it and turning it from a grease like sticky paste, into more of a gritty powder that will easily sieve just like trichomes would.

I think he fact that oil and water don't get along also must have something to do with this.
 
Thanks TF I was hoping you'd come along. I think I have that same book- Marijuana Botany. I'm not sure I believe that part about the resin though...
I've had that book for twenty years. I confess I haven't read it all that much because most of the material isn't stuff I really need day to day, but it looks like it will be gold if I ever get into breeding.

Basically- I think I'll have to get a decent microscope that attaches to my phone/camera and check this out further. I have a feeling it will always be a mystery until it can be seen. If it even can.

I never presumed that the ice hash process separates the THC in any way- just the resin. And most people do think the resin is our main target, nothing else.
So the story as I've read it is that all these little round resin globs, which are delicate globes of syrup-like stuff perched on stalks, become more like little hard balls when they're chilled, and snap off of the stalks and sink.

Another tangent...
As I understand it- and this topic has been hashed out on the forum many times if you'll excuse the pun- the stated THC content of buds that we read is an actual percentage of the bud.
By weight or by volume I can't remember which.
But a lot of members, such as Graytail and a bunch of others, who are better growers than me and probably smarter than me too- have stated this fact. Though I still have my doubts about it too...
So- say a bud tests at 20% THC. That supposedly means the dried bud is actually composed of 20% THC. Which is an almost outrageously high number really when you think about it.
The reason given that this could be even possible is that buds actually have a massive amount of surface area, due to the many folds of leaves and calyxes hidden within them. I'm wondering if it's all that hidden surface area that's saving the day in the hash making process.

When I look at a roughly handled bud through a microscope I see very few intact resin glands on the outside. Some look like a crushed and melted ice cream cone. Most look like water balloons that have popped and spilt. Possibly all the internal ones have fared better though.
I can see a couple possibilities. Either the damaged resin is separating and sinking in productive quantities, or it's mostly not, in which case our bubble hash is mainly coming from undamaged glands.
Which means it would make sense for me to start treating the process differently to try and waste less. I can think of a few experiments to test the ideas- but all quite unscientific ones.
Like for example- making hash from a batch of untrimmed bud vs an equal size batch of trimmed bud and trimmings.
And/or running some alcohol through the leftovers.

Pissing rain today and unless it stops so I can do the work I have to do- I may just smoke one and go do some of that experimenting.

Really- seeing the process through a microscope would be the best way.
Thanks a lot for the replies guys! :passitleft:
 
Weaselcracker said:
Thanks TF I was hoping you'd come along. I think I have that same book- Marijuana Botany. I'm not sure I believe that part about the resin though...
I've had that book for twenty years. I confess I haven't read it all that much because most of the material isn't stuff I really need day to day, but it looks like it will be gold if I ever get into breeding.

Basically- I think I'll have to get a decent microscope that attaches to my phone/camera and check this out further. I have a feeling it will always be a mystery until it can be seen. If it even can.

I never presumed that the ice hash process separates the THC in any way- just the resin. And most people do think the resin is our main target, nothing else.
So the story as I've read it is that all these little round resin globs, which are delicate globes of syrup-like stuff perched on stalks, become more like little hard balls when they're chilled, and snap off of the stalks and sink.

Another tangent...
As I understand it- and this topic has been hashed out on the forum many times if you'll excuse the pun- the stated THC content of buds that we read is an actual percentage of the bud.
By weight or by volume I can't remember which.
But a lot of members, such as Graytail and a bunch of others, who are better growers than me and probably smarter than me too- have stated this fact. Though I still have my doubts about it too...
So- say a bud tests at 20% THC. That supposedly means the dried bud is actually composed of 20% THC. Which is an almost outrageously high number really when you think about it.
The reason given that this could be even possible is that buds actually have a massive amount of surface area, due to the many folds of leaves and calyxes hidden within them. I'm wondering if it's all that hidden surface area that's saving the day in the hash making process.

When I look at a roughly handled bud through a microscope I see very few intact resin glands on the outside. Some look like a crushed and melted ice cream cone. Most look like water balloons that have popped and spilt. Possibly all the internal ones have fared better though.
I can see a couple possibilities. Either the damaged resin is separating and sinking in productive quantities, or it's mostly not, in which case our bubble hash is mainly coming from undamaged glands.
Which means it would make sense for me to start treating the process differently to try and waste less. I can think of a few experiments to test the ideas- but all quite unscientific ones.
Like for example- making hash from a batch of untrimmed bud vs an equal size batch of trimmed bud and trimmings.
And/or running some alcohol through the leftovers.

Pissing rain today and unless it stops so I can do the work I have to do- I may just smoke one and go do some of that experimenting.

Really- seeing the process through a microscope would be the best way.
Thanks a lot for the replies guys! :passitleft:
Click to expand...

I think one thing to consider in relation to the amount of surface area hiding trichomes, is just the amount of trichomes that are really all over a plant that we don't really consider because we're usually talking about one specific kind.

sessile_glands.png

sessile_glands.png


Most hash making seems to focus on the stalked glandular trichome, but there are also these other types of trichomes that are quite numerous on the plant as well. Plus as you can see, sessile trichomes are much smaller and harder to see.

I first became aware of these types of trichomes because I saw them in a 120x scope and thought they were mite eggs. When I would try to wipe/smear them off the leaf surface, it was pretty remarkable to me how well in tact they would stay. They have kind of a plastic malleability, but they would still smear if disturbed enough. However still under the misconception they were mite eggs, I'd look again to check and see I'd only removed a small portion with all my tweezering and scraping.

I discovered them because I was so convinced they were mite eggs and not trichomes because the plants were in early veg. after having been cloned, and I'd never seen trichomes not on stalks, so just by luck someone asked if I was sure they weren't sessile trichomes and I found that picture. Now I'm not surprised when I see these types of trichomes developing only a few short weeks after sexual maturity, or on already sexually mature plants. Plus they're on more surfaces than bud and calyx, and build up on leaves. (easy to see why I thought they were eggs)

So anyway not to blab, but I think that in conjunction with your ideas on surface area, there are also a diversity of trichomes that we don't consider because they're so much smaller. Those are some BIG trichome heads on that picture, but if you check out the size of the sessile glands in comparison, they're about 1/2 - 1/4 the size, and in my experience more resistant to damage than you might expect.

Have you ever looked at kief out of the bottom of a grinder? The big glandular trichome heads get pretty roughed up, but there's lots of "stalks", and also some of those cystolithic ones. Well, I wonder how many sessile glands also get into the mix, and just look like smaller glandular trichome heads that were broken off.

Hope to see your pics when you get your microscope! What magnification were you thinking of getting? I need to invest in one eventually too, I think I've seen ones going up to 300x that are reasonably priced. I know that looking at my hash at 120x as been pretty revealing.
 
Thank you. I'm digesting your post ;) .
At this point the microscope is just an idea in my head and I haven't done the searching to find it. Of course I do have several microscopes - but not one that adapts to my phone/camera worth a shit.
Yes I'm aware of the different trichomes and the huge numbers of them. And I was actually thinking about this a few days ago when harvesting a plant. The outer trichs were pretty trashed- but many of the small ones and the somewhat protected ones were still intact.
However- the actual trimmings fared quite a bit worse than the bud- as they have a lot more exposed surface area.
l feel like I need to spend more time and have a better overall look and see whether I'm just talking shit about the amount of destroyed trichomes.
I was shocked the first time I took a microscope to a plant in veg and realized how complicated the plant surfaces are. And how many trichomes they have even at that stage. And so many little spikes and what I presume to be insect defences. I ended up spending what felt like hours just tripping out in micro-land.
 
Wow. As Guy said, this looks like something you would see out in a paddock where cattle graze. Having said that though I bet it smells and tastes amazing. Its been many years since I had some hash probably about 30 in fact so I'm totally green with envy. The things dreams are made of.



Weaselcracker said:
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:




IMG_088040.JPG



IMG_088149.JPG



IMG_088436.JPG



IMG_088335.JPG



IMG_088540.JPG
Click to expand...
 
TheFertilizer said:
I think one thing to consider in relation to the amount of surface area hiding trichomes, is just the amount of trichomes that are really all over a plant that we don't really consider because we're usually talking about one specific kind.

sessile_glands.png

sessile_glands.png


Most hash making seems to focus on the stalked glandular trichome, but there are also these other types of trichomes that are quite numerous on the plant as well. Plus as you can see, sessile trichomes are much smaller and harder to see.

I first became aware of these types of trichomes because I saw them in a 120x scope and thought they were mite eggs. When I would try to wipe/smear them off the leaf surface, it was pretty remarkable to me how well in tact they would stay. They have kind of a plastic malleability, but they would still smear if disturbed enough. However still under the misconception they were mite eggs, I'd look again to check and see I'd only removed a small portion with all my tweezering and scraping.

I discovered them because I was so convinced they were mite eggs and not trichomes because the plants were in early veg. after having been cloned, and I'd never seen trichomes not on stalks, so just by luck someone asked if I was sure they weren't sessile trichomes and I found that picture. Now I'm not surprised when I see these types of trichomes developing only a few short weeks after sexual maturity, or on already sexually mature plants. Plus they're on more surfaces than bud and calyx, and build up on leaves. (easy to see why I thought they were eggs)

So anyway not to blab, but I think that in conjunction with your ideas on surface area, there are also a diversity of trichomes that we don't consider because they're so much smaller. Those are some BIG trichome heads on that picture, but if you check out the size of the sessile glands in comparison, they're about 1/2 - 1/4 the size, and in my experience more resistant to damage than you might expect.

Have you ever looked at kief out of the bottom of a grinder? The big glandular trichome heads get pretty roughed up, but there's lots of "stalks", and also some of those cystolithic ones. Well, I wonder how many sessile glands also get into the mix, and just look like smaller glandular trichome heads that were broken off.

Hope to see your pics when you get your microscope! What magnification were you thinking of getting? I need to invest in one eventually too, I think I've seen ones going up to 300x that are reasonably priced. I know that looking at my hash at 120x as been pretty revealing.
Click to expand...
You're a lifesaver Fert..... just like you said that you happened upon the sessile trichomes accidentally. I have been looking for information on mites and came across this post because I frequent the Hash Club. Those sessile trichomes are exactly what I'm looking at through my 100 x scope.....thinking they were mite eggs.

Interesting conversation you guys are having, I'm not that experienced in hash making but I can certainly see the trichomes flattening out on a surface of a leaf when you think about how brittle and Tiny they are. I can also see the leaf surface acting like a piece of wax paper though when you think about how water beads off it when a plant gets wet. If in fact plant leaf does have waxy or oily properties like a piece of wax paper, it doesn't matter whether the trichomes frozen or not, it should just peel right off kind of like a piece of Frozen bubble gum on a piece of wax paper. It would stick when it's warm, but when it's frozen it would just fall right off......my .02 worth.
 
I learned of the other types of glands because I thought they were eggs also! Loads of plants have em.
On a positive note I have the weekend off and will be doing a fresh frozen run. Will do a trial with a paint mixer and drill compared to gentle stirring I usually do. First run I may not use it though. I’m still conflicted. Happy 420. Maybe have to re read the thread
 
I'm not sure what the difference in potency is, if any. That being said, I have to say that I really enjoyed making the dry ice kief method, although I haven't done any "pot crafts" that I don't like LOL.
 
Guy Cavallero said:
I'm not sure what the difference in potency is, if any. That being said, I have to say that I really enjoyed making the dry ice kief method, although I haven't done any "pot crafts" that I don't like LOL.
Click to expand...

Was just wondering what floating it in water would gain. Maybe as a solvent and or filter for better purity’s? I know good kief has no trouble melting and they are both tricome heads. Just curious was going to look into the dry ice method.
 
Honestly, it doesn't look like there is a huge difference in the materials that you need in order to do either method. When I bought my bags off a guy online, he included the mixer, mixing spoon and another couple of items. I have yet to touch those, I guess these bags were intended to be used with a mixer, I just seem to prefer the dry ice method because I find it cleaner. @Scrogdawg , what do you think about @Advocate420 s question? Is there an advantage to one method over the other?
 
Advocate420 said:
As far as product and potency what is the difference between ice water hash and Kief ?
Click to expand...

You get a higher return with the bubble method because less trichs are still on the plant, but you can use the leftovers from dry sift for oils, edibles etc.

Potency depends on strain(s) used and mesh size, whether wet or dry ''00'' is ''00'' :)
 
That looks like candy PGR.

By the way I noticed another recent reference by Graytail here Doc Bud - High Brix Q&A With Pictures re the THC content of bud (as I was blathering about previously) and he says;

"Isn't it astounding that 20+% of that entire budlet is THC? And not resin ... THC itself. One fifth of the weight of that mass is THC.

:bongrip:"

Yeah I do find that hard to believe
That would mean that, on the bud he mentions, we could be getting 20% returns by weight of pure THC.
I feel like when I make hash I'm always impressed by how little i get back.
I guess I'll have to go ask him about this.
 
Weaselcracker said:
That looks like candy PGR.

By the way I noticed another recent reference by Graytail here Doc Bud - High Brix Q&A With Pictures re the THC content of bud (as I was blathering about previously) and he says;

"Isn't it astounding that 20+% of that entire budlet is THC? And not resin ... THC itself. One fifth of the weight of that mass is THC.

:bongrip:"

Yeah I do find that hard to believe
That would mean that, on the bud he mentions, we could be getting 20% returns by weight of pure THC.
I feel like when I make hash I'm always impressed by how little i get back.
I guess I'll have to go ask him about this.
Click to expand...

I've thought about this in terms of bubblehash because I don't believe a trichome is 100% THC itself. There's some other compounds that form the cellular structure of the trichome other than THC or cannabinoids in general. So even if after a bublehash extraction you get 100% of those trichomes, with no plant matter ( some magic ) then it may not be 100% because the trichomes themselves aren't actually 100% THC.

I was actually thinking about this because I've got some access to some weed that's really crummy. It got badly cured or dried or something, in any case it's super harsh and unsmokeable. I'm figuring that it might be salvageable by making bubblehash with it, but I would be depending on the filtration of the plant matter to remove the nasty taste.

I thought about alcohol extraction because I feel like that is a more efficient method in terms of both the potency and yield of the end product, but I also knew that the alcohol would dissolve more of those terpenes and other such compounds that would be contributing to the poor taste.
 
Another option might be to make skin cream with it. I've used up quite a few jars of my failures making experimental stews. The cream really does work for pain.

Or if you're really keen you could make bubble hash with it, then run alcohol through that afterward to make oil, and by then you should have filtered it about as well as possible.

Graytail and Nekodog said yes the lab results are a % of total by weight and so yes it means it's theoretically possible to get that weight back in extractions.
 
Back
Top Bottom