20 Ton Rosin

DemonTrich

Well-Known Member
The trim was frozen solid due to it being cut fresh off the plant, then frozen. The water molecules in the fresh cut trim all froze together. Dry ice won't thaw the trim out, so it was bouncing around in super big ass chunks in my 5 gal bucket with the dry ice.

Back to doing what I know for sure works, running dry ice with dry trim.
 

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
That's a good approach that I have not tried. I compress my kief into pellets and then put in a screen. This causes a lot of ripped screens. Will try your method next go around! Not sure anyone needs 20 tons to press kief! Just big plates. It presses out with low pressure compared to buds.
Can a person press buds?
 

tstick

Well-Known Member
Yeah check YouTube out for MANY rosin press videos with the hair straightener technique....

I've made rosin from ice wax before. It turned out great. When I do runs of ice wax, I much prefer using my lower grades of to make into rosin. I used to only use the lower grades of ice wax to cook with....but since I'm not really into edibles, making it into rosin was the best solution to not wasting it, for me. I took hash that was no where near melt-grade and turned it all into completely full-melt rosin that tastes delicious! Rosin tech is the shit, man! :)
 

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
You can easily squish rosin from bud, with an electric hair straightener & some parchment paper..
Ill check a video or two out.

On your setup, You converted the jack to pneumatic? I've done similar with larger hydraulics to make homemade metal brake. Worked pretty good for stuff up to about 1/4 steel or a little bigger. Some materials up to 3/8.
 

Mountain High7

Active Member
Hey DoubleJJ. I like what you've done here.:clap: I'm all about getting some fine solventless extracts. In the winter I've been making some killer ice wax and now I can't wait to try my hand at rosin. If you can answer some questions to help me out, I'd be forever grateful.

When you converted your jack to air, did you just buy the Air/Hydraulic bottle Jack from Harbor Freight and swap it out with the jack that came with the press? Did it just bolt right on easily?

Also, how do you know how much pressure you are applying with each press? Do you just press until you see it squish out or here it sizzle? I imagine too much pressure might cause the bags to blowout.

You use the 5x7 low temp plates. Is there any reason why you use the smaller 4.5x2" rosin evolution bags? Shobags makes 6.5x4.5" bags that would fit nicely with those low temp plates. I was thinking of ordering a few bags of each to compare.

You fit about 7g kief into those 4.5x2" bags correct? Would you still use the 25mic or 37 mic bags with some super fine kiefy shake or maybe go up to 56 or 90mic? Would the higher micron bags increase yield by making it easier for the rosin to press through the bag and onto the parchment paper, maybe at the expense of purity since other material might also escape the bag?

Anyways, thanks for putting all this info out there for people to learn from. I'm sure there is a lot of experimenting that still needs to be done. You are a true Rosineer. Press on!
 

doublejj

Well-Known Member
Hey DoubleJJ. I like what you've done here.:clap: I'm all about getting some fine solventless extracts. In the winter I've been making some killer ice wax and now I can't wait to try my hand at rosin. If you can answer some questions to help me out, I'd be forever grateful.

When you converted your jack to air, did you just buy the Air/Hydraulic bottle Jack from Harbor Freight and swap it out with the jack that came with the press? Did it just bolt right on easily?

Also, how do you know how much pressure you are applying with each press? Do you just press until you see it squish out or here it sizzle? I imagine too much pressure might cause the bags to blowout.

You use the 5x7 low temp plates. Is there any reason why you use the smaller 4.5x2" rosin evolution bags? Shobags makes 6.5x4.5" bags that would fit nicely with those low temp plates. I was thinking of ordering a few bags of each to compare.

You fit about 7g kief into those 4.5x2" bags correct? Would you still use the 25mic or 37 mic bags with some super fine kiefy shake or maybe go up to 56 or 90mic? Would the higher micron bags increase yield by making it easier for the rosin to press through the bag and onto the parchment paper, maybe at the expense of purity since other material might also escape the bag?

Anyways, thanks for putting all this info out there for people to learn from. I'm sure there is a lot of experimenting that still needs to be done. You are a true Rosineer. Press on!
Thanks bro..but be careful, making this stuff is addicting...:roll:
Yes I bought a 20ton air jack from Harbor Freight & swapped them. I had to drill holes in the air jack base & used the already tapped holes & bolts in the press frame to secure the air jack.
Using the smaller bags is a matter of convience. When your ram comes down & starts to apply pressure the rosin will go every direction. If I used a bigger squish bag the rosin would quickly be running over the plates in every direction. I use 12x16 pre cut sheets of parchment paper for squishing & they easily capture a 7gr squish. anything larger would have rosin running all over the place. How much would you squish in the larger bag? I was getting regular blowouts using 25mic bags with kief. the 37's work every time, never a blowout. I think the finest screen & still get the job done gives the best final product. No sense using any larger size than necessary, the bags are cheap. it cost me $1.50 to squish 7g of kief onto a sheet of parchment paper. Larger bags would only save a few pennies per gr & I'm not sure it would get a full squish in a 20 ton press.
I have been bringing the ram down with air & then applying the final squish by hand with a jack handle. I can get a better feel for haow much pressure I'm applying. I usually just bring the plates together & stop for 10-15sec until I start to see the oooz, then I start applying pressure. No blowouts this way.
 

Mountain High7

Active Member
Whats one more addiction? I'm already addicted to growing the stuff :weed:. Good to know about the blowouts with 25 mic bags too. I'll give the 37's a try.

I was thinking you'd be able to do at least 14gr with the bigger 6.5x4.5 bags since you would be pressing a bag with over twice the surface area as the 4.5x2, but if it makes a mess and squirts rosin off the press plates, its probably not worth it. I guess sitting there a pre packing a bunch of 7gr bags doesn't take too long comparatively. Just trying to get the most out of each press with the 20 ton and 5x7 plates. I emailed low temp plates and they said you want 1000-2000psi of pressure and that more then that is not beneficial. Should be getting that with the 20 ton and 5x7's.

Where did you get the grade 8 hardware? I was able to get the smaller bolts from home depot, but they didn't have the 4 large M-16 bolts in the same length as the originals.

So if you lowered the press too fast, you were getting blowouts? Interesting. I guess the heat is needed to lower the viscosity of the rosin so it can flow through the screen easier.

Doing some research on cannabis terpene boiling points. Apparently you lose Cannabigerol CBG at around 125F but the next lowest terpene boiling point is 246.2F. So as long as you stay below 245F, you should be preserving most of the terpenes. Although SteepHillLabs says THC-A boils at 220F and doesn't list a boiling point for CBG. Seems there's a bit of a range. There's a chart on projectcbd.org that list boiling points and has a range for THC-A, CBD-A, and CBD-A. of 140F-293F. Maybe the lower end is when it starts to decarboxylate? Has anyone tried super low temp presses at say 120F or lower? Might have to press real slow to avoid any blowouts.
 

doublejj

Well-Known Member
Whats one more addiction? I'm already addicted to growing the stuff :weed:. Good to know about the blowouts with 25 mic bags too. I'll give the 37's a try.

I was thinking you'd be able to do at least 14gr with the bigger 6.5x4.5 bags since you would be pressing a bag with over twice the surface area as the 4.5x2, but if it makes a mess and squirts rosin off the press plates, its probably not worth it. I guess sitting there a pre packing a bunch of 7gr bags doesn't take too long comparatively. Just trying to get the most out of each press with the 20 ton and 5x7 plates. I emailed low temp plates and they said you want 1000-2000psi of pressure and that more then that is not beneficial. Should be getting that with the 20 ton and 5x7's.

Where did you get the grade 8 hardware? I was able to get the smaller bolts from home depot, but they didn't have the 4 large M-16 bolts in the same length as the originals.

So if you lowered the press too fast, you were getting blowouts? Interesting. I guess the heat is needed to lower the viscosity of the rosin so it can flow through the screen easier.

Doing some research on cannabis terpene boiling points. Apparently you lose Cannabigerol CBG at around 125F but the next lowest terpene boiling point is 246.2F. So as long as you stay below 245F, you should be preserving most of the terpenes. Although SteepHillLabs says THC-A boils at 220F and doesn't list a boiling point for CBG. Seems there's a bit of a range. There's a chart on projectcbd.org that list boiling points and has a range for THC-A, CBD-A, and CBD-A. of 140F-293F. Maybe the lower end is when it starts to decarboxylate? Has anyone tried super low temp presses at say 120F or lower? Might have to press real slow to avoid any blowouts.
Yeah I have tried low temp squishes = low return. I wasn't able to get a decent return until I got up to 200f. squishing at 220 & 240 give the best returns & still tastes great. The fresher the material the better the taste/color.
 

Mountain High7

Active Member
Sounds good. I guess I'll have to experiment. Just ordered the plates from low temp plates. They are 7"x4". Don't know if they changed the size recently or what. Thought when I looked a week ago they were 7"x5". Oh well. They are still the best deal I could find for the plates and heater combo. Ended up getting an assortment of bags, all 4.5x2. Sho bagz, rosin evolution and 710 snob. Just seeing if the quality of the bags differs at all. Got some 37,56, and 90 micron. Gonna be pressing mostly kief from my trim trays, the 160 screen from my hash bags, and some very fine, high quality golden shake. I'll post some pics when I get everything set up and running.

Apparently, you can reuse the bags by soaking them in alcohol or simmering them in coconut oil. Anyone try this? Don't know if it would be worth the effort since the bags are pretty cheap, but if you could get some decent ISO hash or infused coconut oil from what's left in the bags, why not? I'm all about getting the most out of what you got, besides, it doesn't take much time or effort to soak some bags in ISO or Coconut oil.
 

DarthBlazeAnthony

Well-Known Member
I got my rosin press rocking the house. It is 10 tons and pretty compact. Come say hello in the youtube comments. You can also check out my grow. Cheers!
 

DemonTrich

Well-Known Member
@Mountain High7
Where did you find the larger bags for the 5x7 plates? Want to get squishing more material at once. And what micron?

@doublejj
How do you like the 37iu vs the 25iu? Besides the blowout issue. I solved that by only running 5g kief at a time. No more blowouts. That was with my old 3x5 plates. Same press.
 
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