To hash, or oil, that is the question.

I'm not that far off harvest, so I'd like to ask your opinion.
Let's assume for the sake of argument I've got 8 plants producing about 3Kg of bud plus trim.
Available equipment: 5 gallon buckets, lab beakers up to 2L, lab scales, plastic beakers of 3L, 1 bucket-sized filter, described as:
Material: waterproof coated nylon cloth, with built-in flexible cord to tie the filled bag.
6 different micrometers allow herbal resins to be filtered into different grades to suit your needs.
Works well at extracting the oil from herbs.
Each pack contains 1 piece of herb rice bubble hash pouch and 1 piece of 25 micron press sieve.
Specification:
Bag size: 27 x 24 x 2 cm / 10.63 x 9.45 x 0.79 inches
Filter mesh: 20 x 20 cm / 7.87 x 7.87 inches
... I've never made hash before so excuse me if that isn't a good piece of kit.
Secondly, I've tried making oil before without success because I didn't have anything stronger than 70%. But now I've got 20L of 96% v/v on the way. (What a country eh where you too can buy 20L of pure ethanol "to make fizzy alcoholic drinks" very cheaply. About $4 a litre)
So would you make oil instead? Which is easier? Which is more fun? Which is more useful?

Check out youtube for making bubble hash & dry ice hash.
192 Proof alcohol - I wouldn't waste it making oil, so go for making your drink.
IMO - the colder the alcohol is (dry ice works well) the less chlorophyll, which will give you a better tasting end product.

Have fun

$4 a litre for pure ethanol?! I'm very very jealous You could soak the hell out of your material with that and evap it for a crude extract at a cheap price, and you could refine it with a small amount of nonpolar solvant or even winterization rather easily afterwards. Or you could filter right back into the bottle and take pot shots I forget, does rick simpson oil use ethanol or hexane?

Honestly though I find I enjoy hash more than extracts these days - the high feels more full and complete, it brings my dreams back and improves me sleep like no other, it tastes better....What micron is your bucket bag? at a bare minimum 2 bags are needed typically, one to hold your plant material (typically 220 or 190 micron) the other to catch the resin (which at the very bottom would typically be a 25 or maybe 45 micron). IIRC there's the gumby method which may only need one filter.

I've done a variety of methods over the years. Bubble bags, alcohol, etc... I prefer the dry ice method. It's extremely simple, is the least messy, requires just a container, screen, and dry ice. Where I'm at dry ice is easy to get but it might not be easily available to everyone so dry ice might not be an option.

xtsho said:

I've done a variety of methods over the years. Bubble bags, alcohol, etc... I prefer the dry ice method. It's extremely simple, is the least messy, requires just a container, screen, and dry ice. Where I'm at dry ice is easy to get but it might not be easily available to everyone so dry ice might not be an option.

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definitely not bad if you prefer quantity and ease over quality. I don't even bother with the ice, just put the trims in a bubble bag and shake shake shake lol. Once again a prime candidate to be refined with solvants, barely takes any after the kief is sifted. I usually do this on my food grade bubble hash with iso and coffee filters to yield a rock hard extract that physically behaves more like hash than concentrate.

FermentFred said:

definitely not bad if you prefer quantity and ease over quality. I don't even bother with the ice, just put the trims in a bubble bag and shake shake shake lol. Once again a prime candidate to be refined with solvants, barely takes any after the kief is sifted. I usually do this on my food grade bubble hash with iso and coffee filters to yield a rock hard extract that physically behaves more like hash than concentrate.

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I give moist of my hash away. I don't really care for oils, BHO, shatter, or other concentrates. I don't do edibles either. I prefer to just smoke flower. I do occasionally top a bowl with some dry ice hash. Sometimes I press it. That's just me. I'll take a nice joint over smoking concentrates all day long. Others prefer the opposite. It's all good.

Cycad said:

I'm not that far off harvest, so I'd like to ask your opinion.
Let's assume for the sake of argument I've got 8 plants producing about 3Kg of bud plus trim.
Available equipment: 5 gallon buckets, lab beakers up to 2L, lab scales, plastic beakers of 3L, 1 bucket-sized filter, described as:
Material: waterproof coated nylon cloth, with built-in flexible cord to tie the filled bag.
6 different micrometers allow herbal resins to be filtered into different grades to suit your needs.
Works well at extracting the oil from herbs.
Each pack contains 1 piece of herb rice bubble hash pouch and 1 piece of 25 micron press sieve.
Specification:
Bag size: 27 x 24 x 2 cm / 10.63 x 9.45 x 0.79 inches
Filter mesh: 20 x 20 cm / 7.87 x 7.87 inches
... I've never made hash before so excuse me if that isn't a good piece of kit.
Secondly, I've tried making oil before without success because I didn't have anything stronger than 70%. But now I've got 20L of 96% v/v on the way. (What a country eh where you too can buy 20L of pure ethanol "to make fizzy alcoholic drinks" very cheaply. About $4 a litre)
So would you make oil instead? Which is easier? Which is more fun? Which is more useful?

Click to expand...

Bubble.

Unless you can distill solvent extract.

The 20L of pure ethanol just arrived and it really is pure, I should know, I used to make it in Saudi, It's got hardly any smell. Quite amusing, $4 a litre... obviously there is NO money in Moonshine here!
The bag is the size of a 5 gallon bucket so I suppose I just grind up all the trim, drop it in the bag, inside a bucket with ice cold water, then pour in the ice and stir. The bag is 175 microns and the screen is 25 microns.
I am getting really curious about the synthesis route. I might start looking at pricing the parts for a short path system.

I tried out the 96% and I must say, it seems to work well.
First I spent ages using the little grinder to grind up about 10g of bud. This was just quality street weed, decent, seedless, nothing special.
I put the powder into an empty soda bottle and added enough freezing 96 to cover it, then capped the bottle and shook it gently for a minute.
With the 25 micron filter over a funnel, I decanted the bottle through the filter and caught the filtrate in a second bottle. Finally I squeezed out the filter and binned the remaining herb. The filtrate was a hazy light amber colour.
I put the filtrate in an evaporation vessel and into the electric fan oven, set to 100C and waited for the alcohol to evaporate off. There wasn't much water left. Finally I microwaved the residue for 20 seconds to evaporate the remaining water. The result is about 2mL I would guess, of very thick dark brown oil. It's incredibly sticky. So I would rate that experiment as reasonably successful. But what do you think?