c-ray
09-06-2008, 07:50 PM
*sorry I have no pics to accompany this diatribe, the camera is mia
so recently I have been making bubs using finely crushed ice without adding any water in the mixing stage, only adding water when it is time to use the bags
here's a description of the process
I load the freezer up with plastic containers of water and when it is ice I put it all in a grain bag, pillowcase or what have you and smash that on the concrete with a big hammer until it is fairly well crushed, takes about a minute of some good beating
I dump the crushed ice into a rubbermaid container http://hearthandhomemaker.typepad.com/hearth_and_homemaker/images/2007/11/14/rubbermaid_tote_2.jpg
I grab the material to be processed from the freezer and sprinkle it on top of the ice, I have been using about 2 to 4 times as much ice as shake by volume
I proceed to shake the rubbermaid back and forth, up and down, see saw like and in a back and forth circular motion, anything goes here,...it is a bit of work but it is also a good upper body exercise! :yay: lots of twisting involved, put on some tunes and get into it
when I start to see some water melting and bubbles on the ice that is a sign it is time to rinse the material through ze bubble bags, so I proceed to dump everything from the rubbermaid into some 5 gallon bags that are already to go in a 5 gallon bucket
now I will add some water, enough to cover the material, and then mix it around a bit to help free some trichomes
then I wait until the ice is mostly melted, 15 or so minutes is usually adequate, and then I pull the bags one by one and hang them on a pole...the 220 bag I will squeeze to get lots of the water out but I don't wring the bags or apply excessive force...I dump the shake from the 220 bag into a shopping bag and put it into the fridge to keep it cool until the next run, which should precede as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours...also after I pull each bag I like to swing it around windmill style real fast to help release the last bits of water, like a human powered centrifuge
I use a plastic spoon with a fine edge, or sometimes a good plastic spatula, to carefully scrape the hash from each bag and I lightly smear it onto a sheet of tyvek to dry...tyvek works great and hash peels from it very easily especially the melty strains that are problematic with cardboard... also it is good idea to put some cardboard under the tyvek to help absorb water that drips through the tyvek...tyvek has small pores like 1 micron...you can get tyvek envelopes for free from fedex dropoff points like kinkos, staples, office depot, etc.
I like to crumble the hash lightly with my fingertips as it is drying to help break it up into finer particles, and I will feel my skin actually absorb some of the moisture from the hash while I am doing this..with the real melty strains it is not possible to do this or receommended because it just mucks them up but it is a good idea to use a nice sharp razor blade to chop into lines about 1mm wide
when the hash is dry, in about a week or something, I take it and pour into some vials I got from a laboratory supply place, you can also find them at head shops but they are cheaper from the lab supply..that is about it
some ideas
I have started using ice only during mixing because I believe that water will oxidize and degrade the essential oils (flavour components) in the hash, so the best idea is to limit the amount of contact with water as much as possible..also the amount of water, the length of time and the temperature of the water in contact with the shake are factors that contribute to rapidly declining quality of hash, especially when multiple runs are taken...also I find that using a lot of ice creates a lot more trichome-ice interaction and I can get better extraction rates than I previously got with other methods, and the quality is higher..I did a test recently a found minimal green in the 3rd run, I will run the material a 4th time to see what the colour looks like but also check it under the microscope to see if there is any significant green matter
it is a good idea to crush the ice as finely as possible, and an even better idea to pour the crushed ice through some 1/2" or 1/4" hardware cloth and return the big chunks to the bag for further smashing...here the theory is that when it is time to put the shake through the bubble bags all the ice will melt in a relatively short time because they are all very small pieces, also smaller ice will have more surface area and random surfaces to contact the shake and it will be smaller so it will be able to get into smaller crevices in the shake
for $100 I could probably build a mechanized seesaw for the rubbermaid to sit on..I could even use a large rubbermaid like 28+ gallons to process multi lbs of shake at a time if necessary
that is about it, I have probably missed something..hope this is helpful for some folks
so recently I have been making bubs using finely crushed ice without adding any water in the mixing stage, only adding water when it is time to use the bags
here's a description of the process
I load the freezer up with plastic containers of water and when it is ice I put it all in a grain bag, pillowcase or what have you and smash that on the concrete with a big hammer until it is fairly well crushed, takes about a minute of some good beating
I dump the crushed ice into a rubbermaid container http://hearthandhomemaker.typepad.com/hearth_and_homemaker/images/2007/11/14/rubbermaid_tote_2.jpg
I grab the material to be processed from the freezer and sprinkle it on top of the ice, I have been using about 2 to 4 times as much ice as shake by volume
I proceed to shake the rubbermaid back and forth, up and down, see saw like and in a back and forth circular motion, anything goes here,...it is a bit of work but it is also a good upper body exercise! :yay: lots of twisting involved, put on some tunes and get into it
when I start to see some water melting and bubbles on the ice that is a sign it is time to rinse the material through ze bubble bags, so I proceed to dump everything from the rubbermaid into some 5 gallon bags that are already to go in a 5 gallon bucket
now I will add some water, enough to cover the material, and then mix it around a bit to help free some trichomes
then I wait until the ice is mostly melted, 15 or so minutes is usually adequate, and then I pull the bags one by one and hang them on a pole...the 220 bag I will squeeze to get lots of the water out but I don't wring the bags or apply excessive force...I dump the shake from the 220 bag into a shopping bag and put it into the fridge to keep it cool until the next run, which should precede as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours...also after I pull each bag I like to swing it around windmill style real fast to help release the last bits of water, like a human powered centrifuge
I use a plastic spoon with a fine edge, or sometimes a good plastic spatula, to carefully scrape the hash from each bag and I lightly smear it onto a sheet of tyvek to dry...tyvek works great and hash peels from it very easily especially the melty strains that are problematic with cardboard... also it is good idea to put some cardboard under the tyvek to help absorb water that drips through the tyvek...tyvek has small pores like 1 micron...you can get tyvek envelopes for free from fedex dropoff points like kinkos, staples, office depot, etc.
I like to crumble the hash lightly with my fingertips as it is drying to help break it up into finer particles, and I will feel my skin actually absorb some of the moisture from the hash while I am doing this..with the real melty strains it is not possible to do this or receommended because it just mucks them up but it is a good idea to use a nice sharp razor blade to chop into lines about 1mm wide
when the hash is dry, in about a week or something, I take it and pour into some vials I got from a laboratory supply place, you can also find them at head shops but they are cheaper from the lab supply..that is about it
some ideas
I have started using ice only during mixing because I believe that water will oxidize and degrade the essential oils (flavour components) in the hash, so the best idea is to limit the amount of contact with water as much as possible..also the amount of water, the length of time and the temperature of the water in contact with the shake are factors that contribute to rapidly declining quality of hash, especially when multiple runs are taken...also I find that using a lot of ice creates a lot more trichome-ice interaction and I can get better extraction rates than I previously got with other methods, and the quality is higher..I did a test recently a found minimal green in the 3rd run, I will run the material a 4th time to see what the colour looks like but also check it under the microscope to see if there is any significant green matter
it is a good idea to crush the ice as finely as possible, and an even better idea to pour the crushed ice through some 1/2" or 1/4" hardware cloth and return the big chunks to the bag for further smashing...here the theory is that when it is time to put the shake through the bubble bags all the ice will melt in a relatively short time because they are all very small pieces, also smaller ice will have more surface area and random surfaces to contact the shake and it will be smaller so it will be able to get into smaller crevices in the shake
for $100 I could probably build a mechanized seesaw for the rubbermaid to sit on..I could even use a large rubbermaid like 28+ gallons to process multi lbs of shake at a time if necessary
that is about it, I have probably missed something..hope this is helpful for some folks