@Grease_Monkey why i suggested that 15mm molecule a little to late, just a learning experience
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Yeaaa It was an impulse buy lmao someday Iāll learnā¦ but probably no time soon
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Iāve used only 2 methods: Bubble Hash & RSO. But Iāve made between 150 and 200 batches of BH, so I will add my 2 cents on that method.
First, I bought my 8 bag set of Bubble Bags back in 2004. I still think theyāre the best, so if you can swing the price, buy them!
Over time, I replaced the hand mixer with a cordless drill and a paint mixer like this one:
Using the paint mixer allows me to ensure I crash every last trichome into the ice and break it off from the plant material. I can reverse the drill and run it for short spurts to make extra sure nothing hides on the very bottom of the work bag. Of course, you will want to be careful to not bang the mixer against the sides or the bottom.
The other thing I incorporated into my ātechniqueā was a tank sprayer, like this one:
The brand doesnāt matter, but the nozzle does - so be sure to use a flat spray pattern. Also, be sure to keep the tank highly pressurized. The tank sprayer helps with efficiency and to save time in multiple ways:
After mixing and pulling the bags and placing them into your 2nd 5 gallon bucket to let gravity pull the rest of the water out, empty your first bucket and place your (now drained) bags back into it. Now pull your first 3 bags up about 6 to 12 inches from the bottom and quickly spray back over the material. You can use your mixer or just shake/roll the whole bucket to turn the material over and repeating a few times until youāve sprayed over everything. Why do this? Because I want to be sure Iāve collected every last trichome possible.
Now take those first 3 bags out and clean them with the sprayer, like this: After emptying the work bag of the ice and plant material, you can turn it and the 2nd & 3rd bags upside down in your bathtub and clean them out (separately) by spraying through the screen straight down and then towards the sides. You can turn them back over and then use the sprayer to push any remnants into one small area to deal with. Itās best to clean the bags before anything dries up, so now that thatās done, now the fun beginsā¦
If you have the 8 bag kit, the 120 micron bag is the one thatās now on top. Itās usually junk, but not always. So for each new strain I run, I collect this to sample. If itās junk, I add it the previous (cleaning) step.
To process the trichome collection bags, first, spray down the (in)sides of each bag to make sure everything is on the screen. As you roll the bag over the sides of the bucket, the vacuum created will pull out the water. Instead of chasing the trichomes around the screen with a spoon, push it all to the middle with the sprayer, pull the bag down again to āvacuumā the water down and out, then collect your trichome patty.
To press out as much water as possible, I place the patty in the next sized pressing screen, place that in the middle of a towel folded over several times and use a heavy rolling pin to squeeze out as much water as possible. Then I place my trichome patties (bubble hash) on parchment paper, which I place on cardboard.
So I repeat this for all the collection bags, then place the cardboard/parchment paper ātraysā on top of a T5 light fixture. Itās almost always completely dry within 24 hours.
Enjoy!
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Youāre a patient man!
I just mix with a wooden spoon for about 5 minutes per pull!
I only use 3 bags now, 220, 73, 25. I bought the all mesh ones off Amazon. I used to own the Bubbleman Original bags, and yeah, they are super nice, but the all mesh ones drain so much faster and are so cheap that I donāt even bother cleaning them. I may buy a 160 āwork bagā to use instead of the 220 to clean my 73 up a little but other than that it gets no simpler.
Iāll plop those globs straight onto cardboard for a few hours to soak up 90% of the water and let it finish drying in the freezer.
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Got a link for the all mesh ones?
Got a link?
@anon32470837 & @Grease_Monkey, I donāt know which set Vernal bought, but Iāve also used these - though I paid A LOT more for them at a local grow shop.
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For years I did the old-school method of silk screens, dry rub, then pressed. Then I went to the bubblebag setupā¦ lot more work but better, finally about 15 years ago I switched to dry ice, good results with minimum work. Still use the old bubblebag for that also, put weed and dry ice in a 5gal bucket, let it set for a few to freeze the trichs good, slip the work bag over it and shake over a big mirror.
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Addendum after Iāve taken them for a dozen pulls is that since the 220 all mesh work bag is more delicate itāll probably tear within a few more cycles, since itās heavy with all the ice and weed when you pull it. Incredibly cheap, though, so no worries but I think a Bubbleman brand canvas-sided work bag coupled with the cheap all mesh bags for the finer stuff might be the best option. Wish there was an option to buy single cheap all-mesh bags.
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This is some dry ice hash made from trim that Iāve left to age for a few months. Itās pretty decent quality. You can see some green leafy fragments in the microscope image. In terms of yield, I probably get 200-300% as much as much as dry sift methods. Dry sift is higher quality; however, if you use it for cooking or pressing to rosin, IMO dry ice is the truth. I only dry sift when I plan to smoke the kief directly (which is pretty uncommon for me since setting up a press).
Iām going to try some fresh frozen dry ice sometime. Iāll take some more close up pictures. Iāve been curious to see if the plant fragments are reduced in fresh frozen hash.
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If you mean using freshly harvested bud that is frozen, then processed with dry ice - that was what I tried. Didnt work well for me at all. Thats partly becasue I didnt break up the bud very finely to begin with. They were mostly whole individual buds.
The problem was that they all got frozen into one huge chunk that refused to break down.
Even the individual buds that did break free mostly stayed as whole buds without breaking apart. I tried breaking the chunks apart, but that didnt work so well. They were HARD!
The outsides got worn down smooth, so I was left with hard frozen golf balls at best and large smooth chunks at worst.
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Ah shit. Well I already have a bag of material in the freezer. I guess with the water still in it, the dry ice probably doesnāt break down the material as much? Thatās part of why dry ice is so efficient with dry trim is that it gets the hash out of every nook.
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You will be able to tell when you take it out how hard it will be to break apart. My stuff was harder than the dry ice! 
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There are so many high quality posts in this thread, this is golden; I love this place. The pictures are very unique and say much about what guys have decided is worth their time. I have tried methods including BHO, ISO extract, dry sift, and bubble. Bubble is my favorite, even though it is a lot of pain to get a lot of ice without an ice machine. The hand labor is worth it. Damn, what a nice thread!
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I had good yields doing it this way. By the time I was done shaking the bucket, the plant matter inside was broken down into almost dustā¦
I used freshly harvested buds that went straight into the freezer, for probably a month before I processed.
The sad part was that I lost all of it to mold because I didnāt let the hash dry before packaging it upā¦ Tough lessonā¦
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