HASH IS A COMPRESSED FORM OF herb, but it isn't just compressed bud. In fact, contrary to what many people think, compressed bud has nothing to do with how to make hash.
Earlier in this book, we discussed capitates trichomes and how these tiny stalked resin glands contain cannabinoids — the major compounds produced by the herb plant, which include the THC. THC is found in the male marijuana leaf, but the female produces THC in her leaves, trichomes and calyx. THC is rarely extracted from the male marijuana leaf because it is contained inside the herb leaf but since the resin glands can be wiped from the female plant it is much easier to perform THC extraction from a female. The gland heads, or rounded tips of the trichomes, secrete the major cannabinoids in an oil-like substance, often referred to as resin, in order to gather fallen pollen from the male plant. This resin can be removed by rubbing your fingers over the bud.

The stalks that support the gland heads are second to the gland heads in the amount of cannabinoids produced. Under certain conditions, the glands and stalks can burst. In the case of a strain like Afghani that is thick with resin, this explosive action of the gland is automatic. Strains that are prone to bursting their trichomes form ball-shaped pistil clusters rather than the usual straight or curled pistil shapes. These ball-shaped clusters are a good indication that a strain is a suitable candidate for resin extraction.

GATHERING THE STALKED CAPITATE TRICHOMES
Hash is made primarily from the collection of the stalked capitates trichomes. When the collected trichomes are compressed, they form the blocky mass that is referred to as hashish. There are many ways to do this, ranging from bulk hash production to rolling small finger-size quantities. Each method produces a different quality or grade of hashish. Some methods gather only the trichomes, while other methods gather trichomes and other subsidiary elements like herb leaf particles and branch shavings.

Water extraction is the best way to achieve trichomes-only extraction. We won't discuss older methods used for mass production, as these are somewhat substandard to the home methods mentioned below. The quality of your hashish is determined to a large degree by the genetics you started with in the first place. If you used plants that weren't very potent, don't expect to produce very potent hash.

SKUFF
When you harvest your bud you will have trimmed the leaves away from the bud. This trim is referred to as skuff. Skuff should be sticky; so whether it's on the stem, branch, herb leaf or bud; if it feels sticky then you can use it to extract the resin. If you really want to be a connoisseur, then you should examine your skuff for trichomes with a microscope. If none of the skuff parts have trichomes, discard them. You must take the remaining skuff and store this for 3 to 6 weeks, in much the same way as you would canned bud, before using the basic and advanced extraction methods detailed below.

SCREENING
BASIC METHODS Flat Silk Screening
Screening is a process much like grating cheese, but on a far finer level. A silk screen is stretched across a square wooden frame and nailed tightly to it. The screen typically has a pore size of between 120 and 180 microns. The smaller the microns, the higher the quality, but the less you will produce. Larger micron pores will result in larger sieved amounts but will allow some marijuana leaf matter and branch trim to drop through, degrading the quality of hash you smoke. Typical street hash is not nearly as fine or high in quality as the large pore screening method.

Here's how it's done: The bud is placed over the screen and can either be dragged across the screen manually or using a roller. Manual screening is much easier if you're using smaller quantities of bud, but for large quantities you should consider another method, like automatic tumbling in a drum machine. A sheet of glass placed under the screen is the best way to catch the matter that falls through. After the screening process is complete, the screen can be patted down to shake off any powder that sticks in the pores.

Flat Metal Screening
This is done much like the flat silk screening method but before the flat silk is used, the bud is subjected to a grating process. The grate is usually made from tough nylon or stainless steel and is of equal proportion in pore size to the silk screen. By first using the metal grate, you can remove more matter from the bud than the single silk screen would. The bud matter that passes through the metal screen can then be sieved through the silk screen by shaking the screen back and forth over a glass surface. You end up with two grades of sieved bud residue this way.

Multiple Screening Method
This is a refined version of the above two methods. Any number of screens can be used in this method but the average is four or five. Each screen running from start to finish should have a different micron measurement starting from the largest and running down to the smallest silk screen. The bud matter is sieved through the first screen, then down onto the second screen. The process is repeated with each new screen until most of the matter has passed through. You should end up with several screens that contain bud matter running down to the finer trichomes on the last screen. This is an excellent way to achieve the best results. You end up with several screens each containing different qualities of herb residue.

Advanced Screening
Now that you have an idea of what screening is about, we can look at it in closer detail. The following advanced technique can be applied to all of the above screening methods.
We stated that a metal or nylon screen could be used first, followed by a silk screen. Nowadays steel fabrics can be bought in sizes that have much smaller pores than even the finest silk screen. You should typically look for a metal or nylon screen that ranges somewhere between 100 to 140 lines per inch. The screen most commonly used by home hash makers has 120 lines per inch. A wooden frame is constructed to hold the screen in place and can be glued or nailed into position.
Take four small wooden blocks and place them over a sheet of glass or a mirror.

Place the screen over the blocks, leaving a gap of an inch between the mirror and the screen. Place a small amount of skuff on the screen and gently role it back and forth across the screen using a credit card or similar object. Do this very gently, over and back, over and back and over and back with very little pressure. You may have to push the skuff as many as a hundred times before you can see the tiny resin glands gather on the mirror below.

Once you have collected as many resin glands as possible, use the card to sweep them off the mirror and onto another surface. Take the used skuff and, this time; apply a bit more pressure as you roll it back and forth across the screen. With this little bit of extra force you'll be able to remove any resin glands that didn't fall through the first time, but you may also push through some material, such as branch shavings and herb leaf particles. This second round of pressing will result in a lower quality grade of skuff.
Skuff is skuff; from the time you cure your trim to the point where you sieve it through, it is still skuff. Your objective is to try and collect as much resin from the skuff as possible. You won't end up with hash, but you will end up with different grades of skuff that can be used to make hash later.

You can smoke the different grades of skuff there and then, but you may notice that it's hard to do so. Since this powder is so fine, it will easily fall from a joint or pass through the pores of a pipe screen. In order to solve this problem you must compress the skuff into hashish. This is covered later in the Chapter, after we've outlined three other advanced extraction techniques.