Advanced QWISO Tutorial

This tutorial covers making QWISO (Quick Isopropyl Alcohol) hash extraction. Isopropyl alcohol is more commonly known as rubbing alcohol. You need to use a high alcohol percentage rubbing alcohol in order for this to work best, the lower the alcohol percentage the more water. Water boils at 212f vs isopropyl alcohol which has a boiling point of only 180f. You can purchase isopropyl alcohol from various places 70% is regularly available at pharmacies and super markets, but we don't want this. Most pharmacies typically will have a few bottles of 91% isopropyl alcohol next to the 70%. However if you can find a super market that caries 91% they tend to carry larger bottles and they usually carry more bottles in stock than pharmacies. There is also 99% and 100% isopropyl alcohol available though I personally have not been able to find it other than online. The higher the alcohol percentage the more quickly it will evaporate.

Please note that like butane, isopropyl alcohol and it's fumes are flammable and dangerous please use caution whenever you work with it and if you choose use low electric heat to speed up evaporation only do so outside. Make sure to do all your smoking prior to the extraction process and wear paint masks as the fumes will effect you even if you don't apply heat.

If you follow this tutorial correctly you will have some damn fine hash to enjoy by yourself or with friends. Remember its called QWISO for a reason everything needs to be done as quickly as possible in order to obtain the best quality material. With practice your hash quality should increase.

First you start with your plant material this can be buds, trim or any combination of the two. The higher quality the plant material the higher quality the end product will be and buds will yield more than sugar leaves/trim. You can prepare your material different ways and it is really up to personal preference some may argue higher yield from wet frozen vs dry frozen vs room temp its all relative. I personally let my material become mostly dry with just a little moisture left and then i freeze it until I'm ready to run it you can experiment however you like until you find the best way for you.

Once you have your plant material ready you need to get your extraction materials. You may add or subtract to this list as you like, but this is what I make sure to have. You need to double check because once you pour the alcohol everything needs to happen like clock work for the best quality hash so there is no time to run around grabbing things you forgot.

• Plant Material
• 1-2 quart or pint mason jars
• 1-2 bottles of isopropyl alcohol (depending on amount of plant material and bottle size)
• Coffee Filters
• 4 large glass cups (note: the opening of the cups must be wider than the opening of your jars)
• 4 rubber bands
• Ziploc bags (various sizes)
• 1 or 2 large Pyrex glass dishes (the kind used for casseroles, dips, ect)
• 1 electric griddle (optional)
• razor blades
• rubber gloves

These materials are for 3 different stages in the process so I try to group them accordingly. The first phase is the actual extraction process removing the cannabinoids from the plant material with the alcohol. The second is the evaporation process and the final is removing the final product from the Pyrex tray(s) and preparing it for storage. You will see which materials are used for which stages throughout this tutorial.

Once you have everything ready and you double checked its time to start the process. The first step as I mentioned is the actual extraction process. Take your plant material (if you choose to keep it frozen as I do remove it from the freezer now) and pour it into your mason jar make sure not to fill it more than 3/4 of the way. You can gently pack down the plant material in the jar but you don't want it to be too tight you want the alcohol to reach the surface of all the material to get as many cannabinoids as possible. Using a paper funnel makes it easier to pour the material into the jar. I recommend using ground up plant material in order to make the whole process easier, but again it's all up to you.

(This step is optional but a good preventative measure. Set up your 4 glass cups side by side and stuff one coffee filter in the center of each. You want to leave enough of the filter above the cup so you can fold it over the lid of the cup and place a rubber band around the outside to hold it in place. This coffee filter is there in case you rip or tear the coffee filters that will hold the actual plant material in a further step. If you elect to skip this step simply set the cups up side by side without the filters.)

Once you have all your plant material in your jar(s) it's time to pour the alcohol (if you are using multiple jars do one at a time you can store the ones you are not using yet in the freezer once you add the plant material). You want to pour alcohol until it is just slightly higher than the plant material. Now you are going to shake the jar vigorously for exactly 20 seconds this is the only time you truly shake the jar so make sure you shake well, but do not exceed the 20 seconds for any reason.

Remove the lid and take two coffee filters (one inside the other) and place them around the rim of the jar tightly, holding them in place with your hand. With your other hand flip the jar upside down above your first glass. Once you have a good grip on the filters you can slide them down so just a small amount of the filter is actually touching jar. This creates a pocket for the plant material/alcohol in the filter which will make the alcohol strain faster than if you kept the filter tight on the jar.

Once all the alcohol is out of the jar carefully remove the filter from the jar making sure to get the plant material either in the jar or filter the less in the filter the better. Then twist the top (open) end of the filter closed and continue slowly twisting it all the way to the bottom of the filter. You want to make sure to squeeze out as much alcohol as possible. Untwist the filter in the jar to get the remaining plant material back into the jar or simply discard the coffee filters with the material inside. This is where I use the Ziploc bags to hold the used filters so I can contain the remaining fumes on them.

As quickly as possible pour more alcohol into the jar until it is slightly higher than the plant material. This time I just do a single shaking motion going up and then back down. Then I remove the lid and repeat the straining process using the second glass cup.

The 3rd rinse I swirl the alcohol around the jar two times and do not shake it at all. Again repeat the previous steps with the third glass.

The 4th rinse is one final swirl to get any remaining cannabinoids from the plant material. After I finish straining the alcohol from the 4th rinse I discard the plant material with the coffee filters. I have done a 5th rinse before, but after 4 the quality of the hash begins to decline as too much chlorophyll begins to be absorbed.

If you have any more jars you can repeat the process with them now using the same or new cups.

Now you are left with 4 cups of yellow/greenish alcohol. You may pour all 4 glasses into one Pyrex dish or you can keep them separate or add cups 1 & 2 in one dish and cups 3 & 4 in another. Obviously the first glass is the most potent, but if you did the process quickly enough each cup should be pretty similar so I typically just add all 4 to one dish since I have practiced this particular technique for quiet some time. As always personal preference will deviate how you choose to proceed.

Here is where the optional griddle comes into play. You may now take your Pyrex dish and place it on a griddle between Warm-200f to speed up the evaporation process of the alcohol. Make sure you do this outside away from any smokers, flames or property that could be damaged. Even if you skip the griddle I recommend leaving the tray outside to evaporate as it is still flammable and your house will smell like someone with a serious drinking problem lives there. Just make sure to watch out that no bugs fly above your fumes and fall into the alcohol bath (having a pair of tweezers nearby is handy just in case).

Evaporation times will vary greatly depending on which alcohol percentage you used, how much alcohol you used, how big your Pyrex dish is and whether or not you used a heat source. Once all the alcohol has been evaporated you are left with a nice golden/brown film of cannabinoids on your dish. If you chose to use a heat source remove the dish when there is just a small amount of alcohol remaining and then try to evenly spread that on the dish by tilting it. Always leave it for an extra 24 hours after you think all the alcohol is gone to make sure any remaining alcohol is removed. (Continued...)

Now its time for the final stage, preparing the hash for long term storage. Firstly you need to take those razor blades and scrape all the hash in the dish into a nice pile. You will need at least two razor blades to keep cleaning the one you are scraping with but I keep several nearby as they tend to get sticky. You can't get the very corners of the Pyrex dish but you should be able to get most of the rest. Roll a bud in the corners to get some of the remaining hash.

Once it's all scraped if you did everything right and quickly you should be left with some kind of sticky powder if you did just the first cup it will probably be white if you combined them it will probably be golden/brown and stick together more. (If you get a black goo when you scrape you got too much chlorophyll do it faster next time or try to do 3 runs.) What your left with is a PITA to store long term though it is very nice to place on top of bowls/bongs and smoke. You have two options for long term storage other than keeping it in powder form. You can roll the hash together to make a ball which will be the messier option since as I said this is extremely sticky. Or you can use the razor blades to scoop all that hash onto some parchment paper. Then you place that parchment paper in the Pyrex dish and place that in the oven at the lowest temperature. The hash will melt together into a black/golden goo. Once its all melted together remove it from the oven. Then put the parchment paper in either the fridge or the freezer again it's up to your personal preference either way works.

After a couple hours in the fridge or about an hour in the freezer the hash should be solid all the way through. You can now store this slab whole or if it is too large for your container it can be shattered or cut into pieces with your razor blade.

Now you have some premium QWISO for your oil rig, congratulations and enjoy .

Again this all needs to happen as quickly as possible it will become routine once you've used this technique a couple times. As I said you are free to experiment with your own methods, but this is mine and it produces some damn good hash.

I'm going to be editing this and will add pictures next time I do a run, but I've been meaning to write a tutorial on this for some time and finally got around to it.

All your tek are belong to us

Why would you do 4 runs and combine them? This seems like a fairly good starting guide to qwiso. Thanks for taking time to write it up

lio lacidem said:

Why would you do 4 runs and combine them? This seems like a fairly good starting guide to qwiso. Thanks for taking time to write it up

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I find leaving the alcohol in for longer periods of time with the plant material causes a lot more chlorophyll to be absorbed so the first wash is designed to really loosen up the trichomes/cannabinoids and the other washes are just very quick to get any remaining cannabinoids while trying to get as little chlorophyll as possible you could experiment with different times and number of washes but I feel it produces a better oil doing multiple quick rinses rather than one long rinse and the yield is similar if I were doing larger batches I would keep the rinses separate and use a larger mason jar as the colors would be nicer on the first rinse

Im not arguing muktiple washes i dobt like the combining of washes. If i was using your tek i would definately keep separate. Then you have 3 grades. It would be head stash, cooking oil, 3rd grade i usually nix with keif to make jelly hash for bowls.
Second critique....if your extract is fully purged you shouldnt need freezer/fridge to keep hard .

Nice write up, thank you for contributing....

But a tutorial without pics?
Add some images to give your "students" a visual perspective of your presentation of the process.

Again, nice job.

Can you smoke the 'first wash' qwiso out of a rig? Is it like full melt?

I use to make alcohol hash from midi brick weed when I was in middle school. I would leave that dirty ganga soaking in the alcohol for days, lol! Wish I knew the quick washes were better. I gotta say, back then I thought that black nasty alcohol hash I made was bomb! You live and you learn

this is a good general guide. i didnt want to read it all, but did. i think you may be getting goo sticky hash with those temps going up to 200F. the lower, the better, a fan moving air room temp air over the dish will get the job done. and as you said, heat will speed it up. but speeding things up aint always the key to good results. maybe a little heat, and more fan.

good coverage though, also, keeping EVERYTHING in freezer as long as possible, and perhaps though out the entire process before heat evap makes for a cleaner extract. (people who live in cold temperatures could use this to advantage outdoors. )

add some pictures if you can ! it always makes things preeties.

lio lacidem said:

Im not arguing muktiple washes i dobt like the combining of washes. If i was using your tek i would definately keep separate. Then you have 3 grades. It would be head stash, cooking oil, 3rd grade i usually nix with keif to make jelly hash for bowls.
Second critique....if your extract is fully purged you shouldnt need freezer/fridge to keep hard .

Click to expand...

Yea thats mostly because of the size of my rinses i would also recommend keeping them separate for larger runs but my runs are usually only a gram or 2 total so its easier just combining them and doing a single scrape instead of 4.

Also the fridge or freezer is just to speed up the time from the oven til it gets hard because the heat obviously makes it more liquidy i keep it at room temp and it stays solid afterward

Guzias1 said:

this is a good general guide. i didnt want to read it all, but did. i think you may be getting goo sticky hash with those temps going up to 200F. the lower, the better, a fan moving air room temp air over the dish will get the job done. and as you said, heat will speed it up. but speeding things up aint always the key to good results. maybe a little heat, and more fan.

good coverage though, also, keeping EVERYTHING in freezer as long as possible, and perhaps though out the entire process before heat evap makes for a cleaner extract. (people who live in cold temperatures could use this to advantage outdoors. )

add some pictures if you can ! it always makes things preeties.

Click to expand...

Yea I've dont runs with no heat just letting it evaporate with a fan blowing over it works the same but takes much longer ive found the low heat to be the same quality as long as you dont leave it on too long 200 is the lowest setting on my griddle or id go down under 200

Sirdabsalot462 said:

Nice write up, thank you for contributing....

But a tutorial without pics?
Add some images to give your "students" a visual perspective of your presentation of the process.

Again, nice job.

Click to expand...

Pics will come once I do another run (couple weeks) i just wanted to get everything written down while i was thinking about it and had the time

Squidbilly said:

Can you smoke the 'first wash' qwiso out of a rig? Is it like full melt?

I use to make alcohol hash from midi brick weed when I was in middle school. I would leave that dirty ganga soaking in the alcohol for days, lol! Wish I knew the quick washes were better. I gotta say, back then I thought that black nasty alcohol hash I made was bomb! You live and you learn

Click to expand...

Lol I've been there dont worry i started using mids for long rinses and thought it was BHO quality took about a year to get where i am with it now and i stopped using mids now that i grow and have trim first run would be full melt the later ones might leave a little bit behind but not much if you ran it right


Thank you to all of you sorry I just got around to checking this pics soon!

No pictures? Probably the most disgusting way to get 'hash' but nice write up I guess.

what about bho? surely thats dirtier?

Squidbilly said:

what about bho? surely thats dirtier?

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You need to vacuum purge BHO and I don't have a vacuum chamber yet. I will be doing a fairly large run tonight or tomorrow night depending when I have time and will take lots of pics! And ill weigh everything get some good plant material to yield numbers.

Unfortunately it won't let me edit my original post to add photos, but here are some pictures from a run I did last night with 40g of trim/popcorn. I will take a couple more pictures today once I scrape it and get it to its final product. I had to fill that mason jar 3/4 with plant material twice to get all 40g.


Please note you should do the evaporation process outside especially if using a heat source i.e. a griddle. This was set up inside just to get a good picture then I set it up outside where I actually plugged it in and turned it on.

This time I tried something different and rolled the hash together after scraping it rather than melting it in the oven. The result is a wonderful golden/brown color hash rather than black. I got 3.5 grams from the first and second rinse which i combined in my dab container as they look the same and produce an equal high. I haven't scraped the 3rd rinse yet but I'm thinking it will be about a gram I'm gunna use it for medibles. The golden brown hash is full melt.