Well friends, I have been hinting at putting up an extraction thread for some time now so this is now well overdue. That being said having a thread set up to explain a process or a series of overlapping processes is never easy so please bear with me 
. This thread is based mostly on personal experience, with some theory and ongoing research. This is the methodology I use and my resulting opinions are primarily based on observations over years of work in and around the extraction and cannabis communities as well as my own research at home. Where possible, I will try to drag some science in to help better explain what lead me to these conclusions if it isn’t already a novel of a post by the time I am through. Happy to answer questions for those who choose to read through and can’t wrap their head around it!
Nowadays there is so much information available on various forms, methods and resulting cannabis-based products from cannabis extracts so I won’t go into a lot of that however I will identify some verbiage moving forward to keep things a bit more clear.
Primarily I work in three main areas of solventless extraction for my daily medicine; Bubble Hash, Dry Ice Hash, and Rosin. Other forms of solventless extraction include dry sift and traditional hash whereas solvent-based extraction methods vary widely primarily based on the solvent. It should be said that there are natural, harmless nonvolatile organic solvents as well as some unbelievable solvent-based extraction methods and products out there. It should also be said that working with certain solvents/processes often at very low (supercritical) or fairly high temperatures (distillation) while also under pressure can be extremely dangerous if not handled exactly as it needs to be. Beyond the hazards of the process, there are many other health and safety factors surrounding adequately storing the solvents, effectively reclaiming the solvent from the extract safely both for the worker and the end user’s health, environmental impact etc. I would typically say for most people, probably not a great plan in your house. Don’t worry there is a simple solution - don’t use explosive/highly reactive solvents/processes - go solventless!
My primary Solvent-less Extraction methods
Bubble Hash: a simple process of the mechanical separation of trichomes (the goods - trichomes contain the bulk of the medicinal/beneficial/stimulating compounds found in cannabis) from the vegetive matter required to support trichome development. The process uses only water, ice and agitation to facilitate the mechanical separation.
Dry Ice Hash: another simple process of the mechanical separation of trichomes from vegetive matter. This process employs dry ice (frozen C02) and agitation to facilitate the mechanical separation yet produces a very different product which we will go into below.
Rosin: again is another simple process where only heat and pressure is used to separate trichomes from vegetive matter. There are several forms of rosin that have slightly different methods and inputs within the same process including Live Rosin, Hash Rosin, and the more common Flower Rosin. This same extraction method and tools can also be used for mechanical fractioning compounds like THC-A from rosin. Live Rosin is made from fresh frozen material that has been run through a primary extraction first, typically cleaned or Clear Melt Bubble or Dry Ice hash, and then pressed into Live Rosin. Hash Rosin is as it sounds, however, is not derived from fresh frozen material like Live Rosin, but made from cleaned/clear melt hash/kief made with cured flower is pressed with heat and pressure to make Hash Rosin. Flower Rosin is rosin produced from cured flower being pressed directly in the press under heat and pressure producing Flower Rosin.
Rosin is my favorite method by far of all the forms of extraction I have had the pleasure of working with both solvent and solventless based schools of thought from DIY to industrial process. The end product when handled properly augments the profile of the input, creates smells and tastes just as the flower would with a much higher concentration of the goods so to speak, a full spectrum of available terpenes, and none of the nasties of smoking vegetive matter (carcinogens, tar, carbon resulting from combusting vegetive matter, etc)
My @ Home Process
Ok so let’s get into it. I am using a DIY 10t, 1200w Rosin Press with 4x7” plates, 25 & 160-micron mesh rosin bags from Supreme Rosin, various pre-press molds, one and five-gallon bubble bag systems (you don’t need both), a cheap hash washer or handheld mixer, Renoyld’s Parchment Paper (not all parchment is equal if you can’t find Renoyld’s you will have to test the parchment to ensure it doesn’t melt or rip under pressure because most do), a small handheld microscope, an infrared thermometer, an accurate scale, and some elbow grease.
So for me the goal is almost exclusively rosin, whether it is flower I produce or procure to make my medicine. I will do both Dry Ice Hash and Bubble Hash processes but never to stop there, as soon as it can be pressed it will. So let’s talk about the rosin process.
After much testing and experimentation over a couple of year’s worth of time and countless pounds of squished material through my home press, I eventually reduced my process to a recipe that acts as the benchmark test for anything I look to run through my rosin process.
-I ONLY use the best material I can source/grow for flower rosin, lowers mids and larf/trim is better refined through a hash process first
-ALWAYS clean all your surfaces FIRST, use gloves and avoid contaminates ( do as I say not as I do, I only had so much time to make this thread and skipped a very important step as seen in pics below- no gloves, trichome and pistil covered surfaces: not how I typically roll, nor should you…)
-I always have my press set to the same setting for heat 88C on the top plate 85C on the bottom plate
-I always run 5g, 14g of material pre-pressed at 25 psi per 160-micron bag using a 2x4.5” prepress mold for flower or 28g Bottle Tech from 3" round Pre Press for more flower at a time
-I always run a 30 sec pre-press @ 25psi and squish for a minimum duration of 3.5 mins @100psi for Flower and shorter total duration for Live and Hash Rosins @ 25 microns
-I always run several pucks of the same batch to provide an average yield comparably to a single data point for yield per test, each run of inputs have variations in the quantities of extractable materials and this has to be factored
-I always cure my rosin in an airtight vessel (ziplock bags work great) for a minimum of 2 days in the fridge after pressing
Selecting Rosin Inputs
Many of you have likely heard the phrase “Sht in, Sht out” when it comes to Rosin inputs. Rosin unlike other forms of extraction will not turn your swag into gold like a shatter or closed-loop Iso-Butane/BHO process, it will, however, turn it into a small amount of green swaggy product somewhere in-between a crude oil and a brittle, gross looking shatter-ish substance when cured. You need to put in the best and the freshest you can get into your process to get good results. Even though a nug may look frosty this definitely does not mean that it will be a good extraction input for a rosin process. I have put expensive frost-laden quads expecting huge yields and clear rosin only to be met with average yields, dark rosin, and unflattering terp profile. Finding that perfect squish is a lifelong battle however you will soon learn what makes for good input into your process in time. For me, ideal inputs are terpenes rich, dense, sticky nugs, mostly cloudy some amber trichomes, less than 2 weeks from being cut (the sooner the better as long as moisture levels are reasonable) and in between 68-72 RH, even better is fresh frozen for bubble hash and eventually LIVE ROSIN- my fav.
Input materials that fall outside of these parameters are processed through either dry or bubble hash extraction first. For example, fresh frozen bud destined for Live Rosin will be too high of moisture to head straight to the press and headed to the hash washer first. Materials that are cured and that are too dry (below 64 RH) will be assessed with a cheap handheld microscope to determine which process it encounters next if test squishes with the straight flower are lackluster. Material with long trichome stalks might be better suited for bubble whereas average or short stalks with bulbous resin heads are often better suited for Dry Ice has as the trichome stalk or tail of the trichome breaks at the surface of the vegetive matter in the Dry Ice Hash process meaning that if your input for this process has long tails, these will need to be cleaned/separated from the heads to make the best possible extracts.
The stalks/tails do not contain terpenes in the same quantities or density as the resin head, these stalks will dilute the concentration of your extraction. Cleaning hash is merely a matter of separating contaminants in this case the stalks form the heads which can be achieved through one of several simple processes. Dry Ice and Bubble Hash can both be further refined with water after the first extraction. By placing the extraction in water and allowing the heads to settle to the bottom as the liquid is siphoned off of the top, floating stalks and other contaminants will be removed before any of the heads are disturbed. Once you have cleaned your hash, it can then be placed directly into a cleaning mesh for bubble hash and rung out of extra water before being spread out on a solid nonporous surface to dry. If you don’t want to go through that you can employ laboratory sifter trays the come in specific microns to sift your hash once it is dry. Using 120-micron screen and a credit card to move the material back, forth and through the sifter will also remove stalks but I prefer the float method personally as I find that the trichomes stay intact with this method whereas improper technique can burst or tear trichomes with the sifting method.
Now that you have some input that fits the above criteria (for all of the Flower examples shown in this thread is Dosido 33 @ 68 RH, less than 2 weeks from chop, grown just feet from the press) there are 4 main sects of rosin in terms of how the mesh is handled during extraction; Bagged, Chottle Tech, Bottle Tech & Nude of which nude is the only method that doesn’t have a place in my process. Nude is merely squishing buds on the press without bags. For small amounts and curiosity, Nude can be your friend as long as you are willing to manually deal with the sometimes abundant contamination in the forms of vegetive matter throughout your rosin. Bottle Tech is a great if you have 2X4.5” rosin bags and a 2” round pre-press and working with small inputs. Chottle Tech is a great way to use the leftover pieces of bags from Bottle Tech, which can accommodate small to medium amounts of input material depending on the size of the Chottle. For each 4x2.5” bag you can easily accommodate 2x 5g Chottle and a 5g Bottle Techs from the same bag. If you have a 2x4.5” rectangular pre-press and bags you can get anywhere from 14-20g per bag in the Bagged Method and reduce the amount of time you are behind the press and in my case see better results. If you have bigger bags and bigger pre-presses you can easily be squishing 28-30g per squish with this setup and method.
Pic above shows the three main forms of squishing that I typically use; from top left to right: 1x Bottle tech, 2x Chottle Techs and a straight Bagged below, all ready for the press.
From the pictures below first showing the Bottle Tech squish, you will notice a dark streak coming out amongst the golden honey-like rosin. This darkness is nothing to worry about however it is likely carrying more chlorophyll potentially other contaminants reducing the purity and concentration of your extraction. My theory (which has yet to be substantiated with a decent microscope at the time of writing this) is that the burst trichomes and the terpenes contained within are acting as a solvent. Specifically bruised vegetive matter from pre-pressing and letting the puck rest before squishing is especially susceptible to darkening. I typically use this as an indicator that the material has given up all the readily available extract if they have not been pre-pressed for hours, pushing it further has resulted in lipid and vegetive fat contamination and further darkening through extensive testing. The lesson here, don’t pre-press a bunch of your gorgeous flower and let it sit around to bruise, in an ideal setup your pre-pressing should be done mere moments before the squish, this will require 2 presses unfortunately or quick changeovers from pre-press to squish as I typically do.
Now compare this to the doubled Chottle Tech press below which was not pre-pressed and you will notice the lack of the dark streak even at the exact pressure, heat, and duration but yet the same yield was produced and improved color. Also compare this to the pre-pressed 14g pucks which were only pre-pressed 10-15 mins before the squish and again very little darkness if at all even after ran this one for 8 mins to see if I could get it to darken.
A note on extraction pressures
It is imperative that when making rosin that you do not exceed 100 psi as the cells within fresh vegetive matter will start to liquefy and contaminate your rosin when the combination of heat and too much pressure is exerted, this is typically around 110-120 Psi under typical temps. You may or may not notice that your gauge on your press does not read in Psi nor is the amount of force that you are exerting on the head of the hydraulic ram of your press or read on the gauge is the actual pressure on your input inside the press. Psi stands for Pounds per square inch and in order to convert pounds-force to Psi, you need to make a calculation not just measurement on a gauge. Knowing the area of contact (your puck’s exact size) and the reading from your gauge you can quickly convert the units to Psi. If you use the same sized pucks all the time you can simply scribble your desired pressures near the press to save doing the maths until you become familiar.
Chottle Tech (Shown on the left below)
Take 5g of quality material and a cut bag roughly 3 fingers tall and place on a solid flat surface. Start stuffing the mesh tube with smaller nugs ensuring the entire bottom and circumference of the mesh time is filled with cannabis. Slowly layer the nugs up, continuously compacting them into a uniform cylinder until you fill the tube. Place parchment in the press with the heat plates set wide enough to just barely squeeze the Chottle into position. Follow the benchmark recipe at least twice to get an average yield and repeat. If you want to see what max yield is increase the run time incrementally until you can no longer hear the snap crackle pop sounds of rosin flowing or any further increases in yield, then dial back say 10-15% on press time to avoid the solvent stripping action described above. You can expect 20-25+% yields depending on the quality of input if you are not getting these returns, your inputs are not up to snuff or you are not following the recipe as intended.
Bottle Tech
Take 5g of quality material and stuff all of it into an open 2” round pre-press mold. Place the plunger into the sleeve of the mold and bring over to the press and press it for a handful of seconds at 25psi. Remove the pressed puck from the mold by forcing the plunger through the sleeve. Take a 2x4.5” rosin bag, place the puck all the way to the bottom of the bag. With one hand clamp the rosin bag with a scissor motion between your index and middle finger just above the puck while in the other hand take sharp scissors and make an incision through the bag along the tops of your fingers. This will leave you with the exact amount of mesh in order to close your rosin bag. Close the top of the bag by making a series of overlaps as shown below. Place parchment in the press with the heat plates set wide enough to just barely squeeze the bottle into position. Follow the benchmark recipe at least twice to get an average yield and repeat. If you want to see what max yield is increase the run time incrementally until you can no longer hear the snap crackle pop sounds of rosin flowing or any further increases in yield, then dial back say 10-15% on press time to avoid the solvent stripping action described above. You can expect 20-25+% yields depending on the quality of input.
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Bagged Tech (shown center bottom below)
Take 14g of quality material and stuff all of into an open 2X4.5” pre-press mold with included PVC inserts and 2 parchment caps to help the puck release from the mold. Place the plunger into the sleeve of the mold and bring over to the press and press it for a handful of seconds at 25psi. Remove the pressed puck from the mold by forcing the puck free with your fingers and slip directly into a 2x4.5” rosin bag. Place parchment in the press with the heat plates set wide enough to just barely squeeze the bag into position with the main seam facing away from you and the folded over seal to the bag on top of the puck. Follow the benchmark recipe at least twice to get an average yield and repeat. If you want to see what max yield is increase the run time incrementally until you can no longer hear the snap crackle pop sounds of rosin flowing or any further increases in yield, then dial back say 10-15% on press time to avoid the solvent stripping action described above. You can expect 20-25+% yields depending on the quality of input.
Live and Hash Rosin
Take dry, clear melt bubble hash or cleaned and dried dry ice hash and fill a 25-micron bag leaving only a few fingers at the open end to make a folded seal and place inside of another 25-micron bag to stop blowouts. Take over to press with awaiting parchment, fold the empty part of the bag up and over the bag to create a seal, follow benchmark recipe, you will find that the bulk of the extract will take place in 90 secs or less, you can expect 75-97% yields depending on the quality of input.
The picture above shows a 25-micron mesh bag beside a 160-micron mesh bag, the only 2 meshes I use from Supreme Rosin.
Reclaim
Once your material is extracted and if you followed the recipe there should be anywhere from 2-5% of your starting weight worth of goodies trapped in the pressed material still inside the bag and you might ask why leave that there? If you push your extraction too hard (too hot, too much pressure or too long) you are exponentially more likely to start extracting things you don’t want in your rosin. By leaving a touch in the bag your chances of extracting unwanted materials is much lower and worry not, it is not wasted. After many cycles, you will find that you have amassed quite a bit of spent materials. The materials and the bags can be separated and further extracted if wanted. I like to separate the bags and the spent pucks and run them separately through the bubble hash system, the bags inherently trap a bit of rosin through the process (called wicking) and are sort of a gold mine for reclaim. When I have a freezer bag stuffed with separated bags I will run them just as I would flower through the Bubble Has process. Both of these materials are also great candidates for natural solvent extraction/infusions like cannabutter, coco butter extraction and RSO/Alcohol-based tinctures/extractions. Save them up and use them to refine your hash and rosin or other extraction methods, you will be rewarded!
Curing and Harvesting Rosins
Once your rosin has cured for at least 2 days in the fridge harvesting is very easily achieved when the product is cold. By taking a dab tool or any other flat metal tool that is easily cleaned simply stick a small amount of rosin to itself and pull the combined pile away from the parchment. Through a snowball type effect, your pile of rosin on the tool will continue to grow until you have all of the rosin on your tool and none on the parchment. Take a smaller piece of parchment and sandwich the glob of rosin and the tool in between your thumb and forefinger and grab onto the glob of rosin. Slowly pull while twisting the tool back and forth until the glob is deposited cleanly on the sheet. If rosin remains on the tool simply sandwich the remaining glob on another part of the parchment and pull and twist as before, you should be able to transfer the entire pile to a single sheet. Once the glob is on the second sheet you can homogenize the rosin by folding in on itself repeatedly by flattening out the glob between the folded piece of parchment, opening the parchment, and folding it again and again. Eventually, the rosin will become a consistent color and texture. This rosin is now ready to be dabbed, vaporized, turned into edibles, topicals or stored. Most Rosin if the moisture content isn’t too high to begin with, will last in an airtight container in the fridge for months at a time (3-4 months without change).
Pro Tip: Do not store your Rosin in silicone, the terps leach into the container after a few short days/weeks rendering your rosin dry and devoid of flavor/medicinal benefits that it once had.
Above is 4 oz of freshly harvested rosin that had been curing for 2 days in the fridge. This was from cured Dosido flower, roughly a month after the chop. Notice it’s opaque color, for everyday past a certain point (typically 2 weeks from chop) your rosin will become darker in color incrementally. Flower that has had a long cure is much less likely to produce light or clear colored rosins which tend to be more potent and much more terp rich than darker ones IME.
Beyond that there are always ways to refine and improve your extraction through tweaking the recipe, changing your inputs, and experimenting with different parameters - never stop learning/experimenting. This should however provide a solid jumping-off point for anyone currently running a press or just starting out in solventless extraction, this recipe will have you pulling clean, potent, 20-25% yields from your quality flower and 80-97% yields on quality hash inputs immediately.
I really hope that this all makes sense, happy to discuss any and all aspects of solventless extraction at length, anytime.
Well until next time friends, thanks for stopping in and be good to each other out there!!
Round bottomed (inside) glass jars are excellent and easy to get your goods out down the road.
this is a top notch guide. I’ve been lazily extracting by dry ice and drying and squishing. There’s so much great detail in here that give even a lazy guy like me some ideas on how to improve.
