# The "Everything About Concentrates" Thread



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

Hey guys, I didn't really know where to post this thread because there is no section on the site for concentrates. Actually I was starting it to hopefully promote a new section put in on the site for concentrates: the different kinds, how to make them, and the different ways of using them etc. For now I guess this thread will have to do. For anyone who doesn't know what I mean when I say concentrates here are a few: Kief, Hash, Hashish, Oil, Dryed Oil, Honeybud, Earwax, Tincture, etc. So, everyone feel free to post on anything I mentioned above or if you have something else that has to do with making or consuming concentrates.


PS: Please don't post on anything other than stuff on concentrates, the different kinds, how to make them, and the different ways of using them etc. Please no stories about how you got so fucked up that couldn't remember where you were, that's fun an all, just not what this thread is for, try and keep it educational. Also please no arguing and waisting thread space thank you.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

There are a few ways to make or get kief, each of which are pretty simple. 

Kief can be collected by brushing dry bud with some sort of soft to medium tipped brush. The trichomes fall from the bud and can be seen as a gold powder, which can be collected on a plate or in a bowl. 







Another method of obtaining the trichomes is to rub the bud against a fine silk screen. This method is evidently called "screening". Growers sometimes do it after a harvest by putting all their bud on a screen to dry/ collect kief when you go to move around the buds. Trichomes may be inadvertently combined with small pieces of plant matter breaking off from the bud, reducing relative potency per weight. 

Buds can also be stored in a container with a fine screen at the bottom. These containers are called _kief-boxes_ or _kief-catchers_. Over time the agitation of storing and removing buds in this box will cause kief to accumulate in a compartment beneath the screen. Many grinders are also fitted with kief screens, which have the same purpose. 

















Kief powder can be compressed into a solid form too, which is sometimes referred to as Hashish.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

There are a lot of ways to make hash, but there is always one underlying factor and that is quantity vs quality. You will have to decide when you are making your hash what you want: more potent but less quantity, more quantity but less potent. This choice will depend on one thing, the size of holes in the screen you choose. The holes should be between 120-180 microns, a typical silk screen is somewhere in there. The bigger the holes the more you will get but the less potent it will be, compared to choosing smaller holes and getting less of more potent shake. The quality of the trim or buds that you use to make it will also help determine the potency. 

After the bud is screened and you have your kief you get a cellophane bage and put it all in. Compact it into a nice brick or flat piece, you don't need to compact it that much, just enough so that it holds together. Move it to the bottom of the bag and take a needle and poke a few holes near the top of the bag, about an inch apart each. Next take a few newspaper pages and dampen them down, dont saturate or break them, just dampen them so that they arn't dry. Then place the newspaper over the cellophane bag, take an iron set to low heat and press down on the paper with medium pressure for about 15 seconds. Then flip the cellophane bag over and repeat it with another piece of newspaper. Only do this once or twice per side. After this you should have a nice block of hash. 

Another way: 

To press you'll need heavy plastic wrap, cardboard, newspaper, a frying pan, a heavy rolling pin and a tile or marble surface for rolling.

Cut the cardboard to the size you would like your finished bar to be. Make a bag around the cardboard, then remove cardboard. Fill the bag with dry trichomes, seal and wrap in several layers of wet newspaper. Place bundle in frying pan on very low setting. Turn your bar often and unwrap to check if all the trichomes are melted. Don't let the newspapers dry out or catch on fire!

Once melted, remove from frying pan, leave wrapped in newspaper, and transfer to the rolling surface. Using the rolling pin, press and roll from the center out. Continue doing this all the way around your bar for 30 to 45 minutes.

Unwrap newspaper and allow to cool in freezer for at least one hour. Then unwrap from your plastic. You now have some awesome hash!







Ice Hash is another form of hash made by using the concept that the trichomes of marijuana fall of the buds when subject to temperatures below 35-40 degrees F. Often called bubble hash, you can buy these things called bubble bags and they are great for making ice hash. Basically you mix in all of your trim or buds into ice water in a big bucket, 5 gallon buckets are probably the easiest, and then blend it for 25-30 minutes. After that you strain the water and everything in the bucket through a strainer at first to get out all the big chunks of plant material. After that, strain it again through a mesh filter to get the rest of the plant material out. Then finally strain it again through a fine silk screen 120 to 180 microns. After you strain it a few times through the silk screen you can scrape everything on the screen to the middle and put it in the sun to dry. Afterwards you should have something like the picture below.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

Quote:
Originally Posted by *bugsrnme*  
_well, if we're allowed to ask questions then does anyone know how to make and what are the best tinctures for honey oil?_

You plan on turning the tincture into an oil? They are relatively the same thing, tincture still has a little alcohol in it, and oil has dryed to the point where all or most of the alcohol has evaporated. If you were to turn a tincture into an oil then the better the tincture the better the oil, but the more alcohol there is in the tincture the longer you would have to wait for it to evaporate. Alcohol takes a long time to evaporate, depending on the quantity, anywhere from 24 hours to a few days. I have never personally heard of this, but I know for a fact that tincture and most oil's are alcohol extracts so they are relatively one in the same. The only other oil you can make is butane extracted or glycerin/cooking oil and there are no tinctures that are butane extracted.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

Question:



caderader said:


> So out of curiosity what method of making hash makes the most potent hash? How potent is it? Lastly, about what potency (%thc) is Ice hash. I'm wondering because I'm planning on making ice hash with some trimmings and I was curious as to how much potency I could be achieving. Thanks


Reply (Dr. Vondankenstine):



DR. VonDankenstine said:


> 180 to 220 micron screens are best for your work product unless you are into making weaker hash with a lot of vegetative matter. 25 to 100 microns produces the purest hash. Kief can be made into pressed hash but still contains a good amount of veg matter. The frying pan and cellophane works good but use a wine bottle filled with hot water to roll out your hash block. You can also work your hash with your hands and fingers and a little pressure--It's ready when it turns dark brown or black--A little tip that works great is when you get to the brown/black part of pressing/rolling is dip your fingers in rubbing alcohol and give your hash a quick rub/smoothing--it will give it a glossy finish. If you are making bubble hash put it in a food dehydrator for 6 hours to dry. You can make a good tincture by using pure 100% food grade glycerin and hash. To test for purity hash should burn to a pure white/silver ash.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

Quote:
Originally Posted by *caderader*  
_So out of curiosity what method of making hash makes the most potent hash? How potent is it? Lastly, about what potency (%thc) is Ice hash. I'm wondering because I'm planning on making ice hash with some trimmings and I was curious as to how much potency I could be achieving. Thanks_

Ice hash usually turns out the best in terms of purity and potency. The reason is because for the most part when you use the bubble bags there are 4 or 5 layers you are straining it through so you end up get almost all of the plant material strained out resulting in really pure hash. Another reason that ice hash ends up turning out so good is because other forms of making hash use heat to form the hash brick and unfortunately heat destroys THC, while cold preserves it, so therfore ice hash naturally contains more preserved THC than traditional hash.

Quote:
Originally Posted by *bugsrnme*  
_well thanks to all of you for this info.....i was way off i guess. i thought the purpose of the tincture was to make the oil workable and slightly liquified. you know how oil gets after being stored....kinda dries,hardens and gets unmanagable. so you put in the alcohol or whatever to make it soupy for lack of a better word. then you put it on whatever your smoin it in/out of, let the slovent dry then tadaa........so this is all wrong?_

Just make sure that firstly your tincture is pure and only has alcohol and extract, a lot of the time people add honey and sugar and all kinds of stuff to make the tincture sweeter in which case you wouldn't be able to smoke it. If you do plan on smoking it tho, you would probably want to spread it out all on a piece of glass and let it sun cure, it usally gives the best results. You just want to make sure that all of the alcohol is evaporated out of it before anything.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

This is a recipe for honey oil. It uses the concept of alcohol thc seperation and then cooking to evaporate the alcohol. 

Materials: 

A glass jar with a watertight lid (widemouth Mason jars work great) 
A metal measuring cup with handle (2 cup capacity recommended) 
Bottle of 190 proof grain alcohol (Everclear brand is perfect) 
Any quantity of pot, any strength (from a gram up to a few ounces) 
A 1' X 1' piece of sturdy cloth (t-shirt material works fine) 
An eye-dropper bottle or hash container 
The use of an ELECTRIC stove and its overhead fan 

*Step 1* 



You'll need to chop up your weed and pick apart the buds until it looks like grass clippings. Remove any seeds, they have their own oils which we don't want. Dump the powdered pot into the mason jar and pour in just enough grain alcohol so the weed particles float freely in the mixture. Place the lid securely on the jar and shake a few times. 
Let this mixture sit for a few hours, shaking it every once in a while. The alcohol should have turned a dark green color and when shaken should form colorful, oily bubbles on top. Place the sturdy cloth over the metal container and press the cloth down to form a funnel. Carefully pour the contents of the mason jar onto the cloth which is in the metal cup. Make sure to get most of the weed particles out of the jar. Gather up the edges of the cloth and squeeze the remaining liquid out of the lump of weed into the metal cup. 

*




*

*Step 2 *

You should now have a quantity of dark green liquid in your metal measuring cup. It is possible to extract more THC oil from the remaining pot. I recommend performing Step 1 a second time immediately after completing it the first time. No sense throwing away the good stuff. Dump the pot from the cloth back into the mason jar and repeat step 1. You now have twice as much liquid in your metal cup upon repeating the first step. 

*Step 3 *


Be sure to use an electric stove in this step!
Do not use a gas stove to cook down alcohol! The vapors will explode! 

Take the metal cup containing the green liquid over to the stove. Turn one of the electric eyes on LOW setting and place the metal cup on that burner. I highly suggest using the fan over the stove to remove the alcohol vapors during this entire step. Watch the liquid closely. It should only boil slightly, never raise the burner temperature above MEDIUM LOW. We need the liquid to cook down until it's slightly thick. This may take some time but be patient. 

Once the liquid starts to thicken and turn darker, remove it from the heat. Never let it get too thick or it'll be too difficult to work with. If you do accidentally make it too thick, just add a small quantity of the grain alcohol to the metal cup and swirl it around till it's thinner. Let it cool down to room temperature inside the metal cup. It should be runny enough to be poured into the eye-dropper bottle easily. You now have your final product: THC oil. It's necessary to have some grain alcohol left in the resulting liquid so it's easy to work with. This will not affect the potency of the oil.

Do not use a gas stove to cook down alcohol! The vapors will explode! You'll have to have patience to complete this step. To get a final product just put the metal container in a place where it won't be disturbed. The alcohol will have to evaporate on its own. If at all possible keep it in a slightly warm area with decent ventilation. It may take days. 
Once it's evaporated test to see if it's too thick. If it is, pour a small amount of grain alcohol in the metal cup and mix. Pour the liquid into your eye-dropper bottle.


----------



## Damios (Nov 21, 2008)

Quote:
Originally Posted by *caderader*  
_Hey guys so I tried to make the ice hash and I'm pretty sure I fucked the shit up. The steps I followed were: Grind up my trim then put it in with ice and water in a mason jar and shake it vigorously for several minutes, then I put the mason jar full of trim in the freezer for approximately thirty minutes. When I took it out i took out most of the larger leafy material at the top and then poured the remaining liquid through a coffee filter. I expected the coffee filter, which I understand to be 15-25 microns, to catch most of the trichomes and good hash material; however, what I ended up with was just a little bit of green shit.  Anyway I thought of a few things that might have caused this, over shaking, not agitating enough, or possibly the fact that the jar of trim got frozen in the freezer during the 30 minutes it was in there. Also I know coffee filters are not the right thing to use it's the only thing I have. I still have all the makings in a jar. If there's anyway I can salvage this or if anybody has had this problem and can tell me what I should do differently next time that would be very helpful. I still have 1 more large lady to trim so I'm going to make one more try tomorrow. Any advice is appreciated._

For sure, have no problem helping you out. I've made ice hash a bunch of times, but I used the bubble bags and there is 5 layers of filtering. K well first off the method of putting it in a mason jar and shaking it and everything works well but only for the alcohol technique. When making ice hash you want to get a decent size bucket, like for 1 pound or 2 pounds of trim you would get a 5 gallon bucket. Also, the agitation has to during when the trim is coldest because that is when the trichomes are capable of falling off the bud or trim. With that in mind, this is how I have done it. I get the 5 gallon bucket, put about 1 gallon of water to every 1 pound of trim and then add about 1 pound of ice per pound of pound of trim, maybe more. the only thing is that you want to keep everything as cold as possible so you can add more ice but you just don't want it to melt because it will then add more water and dilute everything making it so you have to strain more water in the end. After I put the water, trim and ice I then stir it for 30 minutes with a hand-held electric mixer. I add a little ice every 5 minutes to keep things cold, but like I said not much because I don't want to dilute the mixture too much. Then after 30 minutes of agitation(while keeping it as cold as I can) I then pour everything into the bags, which are in another 5 gallon bucket. I use as cold of water as I can to wash off the ice and all of the left over trim when its inside the first bag. I then pull out the first bag having all of the ice and big chunks of trim in it and raise the lower bags, which have the hash on them. When making ice hash you really want to have multiple layers of straining because there are a bunch of different densities of the hash when you are done, and using a few layers while straining will allow you to hopefully catch more of the different kinds. You should use the layer with bigger holes first then continue with the layers with smaller holes, in consecutive order from biggest to smallest. Well hope that helps, if you have another question just go ahead and ask.


----------



## Damios (Nov 24, 2008)

I'm not going to continue to post in this thread, because almost all of this is in the growFAQ already. It's really detailed and spot on, so I guess this thread is dead.


----------



## smartsoverambition (Nov 24, 2008)

wut about making hash using acetone or isopropyl alcohol?


----------



## TyPalmer (Aug 26, 2010)

Nice to see what we are talking about...Honey Oil Here


Ty Palmer :: Founder :: GreenHitShirts.com


----------



## TyPalmer (Aug 26, 2010)

A delicious image of what we endearingly call Ear Wax Here

Ty Palmer :: Founder :: GreenHitShirts.com


----------



## akgrown (Aug 26, 2010)

how about posting a recipe for making Earwax Hash cuz its my favorite.


----------



## Mendomntngirl (Sep 27, 2010)

Any info on making concentrates for sauves, rubs, or lip balms


----------



## mcgyversmoke (Oct 13, 2010)

evaporating a batch of iso hash as we speak. turned from a light green color at first straining now after probably half has evapped and is a golden brown color cant wait to see what i got.
started with ~2 oz of trim ground up in a moason jar poured 91% alch over it till was about an inch above the bud. shook for 20 secs. then strained to a glass cooking dish. 
now its in the sun evaping. will post pics in a sec when its done


----------



## mcgyversmoke (Oct 14, 2010)

came out with just over 5 grams of hash. kinda a gooey sticky mess so i put it in the freezer and break off a lil chunk when i want some.
doesnt have a really heavy flavor but very smooth lung tightening on the exhale. bubbles more than any other hash ive had.
well id say it was worth it 2 zips shake to 5 grams hash sounds good to me.
happy tokin guys


----------



## earwaxsmoker (Jan 9, 2011)

how do you make earwax or budder to smoke


----------



## mcgyversmoke (Jan 18, 2011)

I happen to have just made some earwax!
its actually simpler than you would think.

first you make a batch of dank hash oil 

second you get a bunch of bomb kief 

and third you slowly add kief into the hash oil as you whip it and it will start to get more solid then you can get it to your own consistency 
( i like to be able to pick mine up and squish it like taffy)


----------



## budlover13 (May 20, 2011)

Remanufactured cannabis concentrates are a VERY grey area of the law. At least in Cali.


----------

