TerrapinBlazin
Well-Known Member
I don’t want this to turn into a rosin vs hydrocarbon thing. I don’t squish rosin for big yields. If I was after big yields I would bite the bullet and buy a second hand closed loop. I’m thinking about one day building a passive closed loop but it seems kinda stupid when I’m just running an ounce at a time. What I really don’t want is to fuck with vacuum pumps, cold traps, and all that expensive equipment. I don’t have much space and my benchtop rosin press works awesome. Dabpress 3x5 plates on a harbor freight 6 ton press.
I’ve tried all the different methods. Bubble hash, dry sift, WPFF dry ice sift, you name it. I like squishing freshly dried buds the best. You may lose 4-5 percentage points off your yield, but your time is valuable too. I don’t want to have to work so damn hard for my dabs. For this press I got about a 16% yield. Not shabby but not great either. I’m hoping to hit that holy grail 30% eventually, but it will require more pheno hunting. That shit takes time.
For this demonstration I chose to run 26 grams of assorted popcorn buds from my last harvest. I dry them most of the way, and leave them in a jar with a hygrometer to balance. If you’re running cured bud your best bet is to use a 62% humidity pack. I use 2.5 x 4.5 inch 120 micron bags. They hold right around an ounce.
Everybody’s press is different and the temperature displayed on the controller is unlikely to be accurate. My preferred temp is 190f. My press runs about 5 degrees cool, so 195 on the controller is perfect.
The way you load your bag is important. Getting buds into the corners is important. Packing it in right — tight but not solid, is important. Trimming off the excess on your bag is important so it doesn’t wick up any good stuff. I don’t use any funnels or puckers or molds or any of that shit. Just my own two hands. I fill up my bag, trim off the excess, and squeeze it down a bit to get that good accordion fold action going.
From there it’s into the press. Make sure to have plenty of room behind the bag, and that it’s nowhere near where your parchment paper folds. If it gets too close to the fold it will burst the paper and you’ll lose half your yield out the back of the press.
Go down slowly, making sure that the bag is compressing evenly and that there are no voids or bits of bag that could suck up your yield. Stop about 2/3 of the way and let the bud preheat. After about a minute go down slowly. You should start to see rosin releasing well before you really press hard.
And we’re off to the races! Drips are good. They keep your rosin from staying in contact with the plates and decarbing. More on that later.
Time to collect. I love the hand pattern. If the rosin isn’t really hard you may need to cool it down to collect it easily. Reusable ice packs are the shit for this. Tare your GLASS container on your scale (DO NOT USE SILICONE IF YOU CARE ABOUT TERPENES), and put your rosin in. Technically we’re done but there is one final step we can take to improve the physical properties of the rosin. Yield was average. Not great but not shitty either.
I don’t know about anyone else, but that sticky, stretchy, stringy, sappy shit just screams poor quality to me. It’s more difficult to dispense and it’s ugly. We don’t want it. We want BUDDER! There are several ways to go about “curing” your rosin. I’m not exactly sure what causes this process — it isn’t oxidation since it starts first closest to the heat source away from any oxygen. My theory is that it’s the THCA recrystallizing, and if you did this step in a pressurized container you would end up with some nice sauce, a la jar tek but without cooking it in the oven. Although you might need a partial decarb to make the sauce gooey enough for big crystals to crash out.
Anyway my method for budder in a short period of time is to just set my little glass container on a digital coffee mug warmer. 105f seems to work the fastest. I discovered this by accident when I put a jar of freshly pressed stuff in my pocket and went about my day. A few hours later it was budder. Here’s a pic of the bottom of the jar from when I first started writing this post, and a second one from when I was almost finished. Another half hour and it will all be solid budder.
I hope this was interesting to at least a few people. When I first got into pressing I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I got bad yields of gross shit. Not the case anymore. I low temp dab this stuff and it tastes wonderful. There’s a fair amount of lipids left in the banger after the dab, but keeping the temps low and using a good carb cap allow you to just wipe it all out with a q-tip after your dab. You’ve got one life! Blaze on!
I’ve tried all the different methods. Bubble hash, dry sift, WPFF dry ice sift, you name it. I like squishing freshly dried buds the best. You may lose 4-5 percentage points off your yield, but your time is valuable too. I don’t want to have to work so damn hard for my dabs. For this press I got about a 16% yield. Not shabby but not great either. I’m hoping to hit that holy grail 30% eventually, but it will require more pheno hunting. That shit takes time.
For this demonstration I chose to run 26 grams of assorted popcorn buds from my last harvest. I dry them most of the way, and leave them in a jar with a hygrometer to balance. If you’re running cured bud your best bet is to use a 62% humidity pack. I use 2.5 x 4.5 inch 120 micron bags. They hold right around an ounce.
Everybody’s press is different and the temperature displayed on the controller is unlikely to be accurate. My preferred temp is 190f. My press runs about 5 degrees cool, so 195 on the controller is perfect.
The way you load your bag is important. Getting buds into the corners is important. Packing it in right — tight but not solid, is important. Trimming off the excess on your bag is important so it doesn’t wick up any good stuff. I don’t use any funnels or puckers or molds or any of that shit. Just my own two hands. I fill up my bag, trim off the excess, and squeeze it down a bit to get that good accordion fold action going.
From there it’s into the press. Make sure to have plenty of room behind the bag, and that it’s nowhere near where your parchment paper folds. If it gets too close to the fold it will burst the paper and you’ll lose half your yield out the back of the press.
Go down slowly, making sure that the bag is compressing evenly and that there are no voids or bits of bag that could suck up your yield. Stop about 2/3 of the way and let the bud preheat. After about a minute go down slowly. You should start to see rosin releasing well before you really press hard.
And we’re off to the races! Drips are good. They keep your rosin from staying in contact with the plates and decarbing. More on that later.
Time to collect. I love the hand pattern. If the rosin isn’t really hard you may need to cool it down to collect it easily. Reusable ice packs are the shit for this. Tare your GLASS container on your scale (DO NOT USE SILICONE IF YOU CARE ABOUT TERPENES), and put your rosin in. Technically we’re done but there is one final step we can take to improve the physical properties of the rosin. Yield was average. Not great but not shitty either.
I don’t know about anyone else, but that sticky, stretchy, stringy, sappy shit just screams poor quality to me. It’s more difficult to dispense and it’s ugly. We don’t want it. We want BUDDER! There are several ways to go about “curing” your rosin. I’m not exactly sure what causes this process — it isn’t oxidation since it starts first closest to the heat source away from any oxygen. My theory is that it’s the THCA recrystallizing, and if you did this step in a pressurized container you would end up with some nice sauce, a la jar tek but without cooking it in the oven. Although you might need a partial decarb to make the sauce gooey enough for big crystals to crash out.
Anyway my method for budder in a short period of time is to just set my little glass container on a digital coffee mug warmer. 105f seems to work the fastest. I discovered this by accident when I put a jar of freshly pressed stuff in my pocket and went about my day. A few hours later it was budder. Here’s a pic of the bottom of the jar from when I first started writing this post, and a second one from when I was almost finished. Another half hour and it will all be solid budder.
I hope this was interesting to at least a few people. When I first got into pressing I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I got bad yields of gross shit. Not the case anymore. I low temp dab this stuff and it tastes wonderful. There’s a fair amount of lipids left in the banger after the dab, but keeping the temps low and using a good carb cap allow you to just wipe it all out with a q-tip after your dab. You’ve got one life! Blaze on!
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