My Thoughts About Making Bubble Hash

[TheNewGuy]

Over the weekend I took a day trip to a friend's place. I had not realized that people were misinterpreting instructions in so many different ways. I wanted to clear the air with what issues i had witnessed, so mistakes like these are not made by future generations of growers and hash makers.

Bubbleman has a great video online located here
part 1 bubbleman making hash at the cannabiscup expo - YouTube
part 2 bubbleman making hash at the cannabiscup expo - YouTube
part 3 bubbleman making hash at the cannabiscup expo - YouTube

The Process
You will be freezing the oils to make them brittle, breaking off the oily resin glands from the plant matter, & collecting them with screens.

The Material
Some say frozen, others say dry... what to choose??? Dry trim seems to crumble easier and therefor is NOT as good as straight from the trim job to the freezer trimmings. Dry trim can be used just fine as long as you understand that when the dry material crumbles, not only are the trichomes going to be able to fit threw the screen... but the material that is crumbling, will be small enough to squeeze threw the screens as well. This results in a lot more contaminates in the final product. Freshly frozen trim results in a more pure product. This is due to the trim still containing moisture allowing the leaves to flex instead of crumble. When agitated, the frozen stiff oils break off while the leaf remains in tact.

Separate your material!!! If you have fan leaves & you have trim... don't run both of them together. Run your sugar leaf trim, then run your fan leaves. Mixing the two will result in a lower quality hash... still potent, but not as high quality as it will be when the material is separated. THE ONLY REASON YOU WOULD MIX THE TWO IS BECAUSE YOU DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT QUALITY... there is nothing wrong with that if you are a cash cropper... just making sure the point is made.

BaD MeTh0dS?!?

Grinding Your Material prior to the separation process will result in a lower grade hash due to the plant material that will mix in with your final product.

Mixing Too Long - 20 minutes is plenty of mixing time, especially if your using a powered mixing tool. If you really want to try to get more from it, filter it out & start again with fresh water in a separate batch. Continuing to mix will only lower the grade of you product. Using powered mixing tools results in plant matter getting ground into fine particles which are small enough to drain threw the screen. Since we are dealing with micron sized glands, it is hard to detect these plant particles with the naked eye. When gentle agitation is used the heads are frozen, broken off, and separated in the screens with minimal plant material in the final product.

Overpowered mixing tools, 2800 rpm Makita power drill. The tool was great and lasted all day long, the problem is the speed it was operated at made every batch come out green as cow shit.

Not Enough Water, not using enough water seems to make the mixture hard to stir. During the setting stage, the trim seems to create a thick patty and does not allow all the trichomes to settle threw the screens. Water is the solvent here and it's free, so don't be afraid to get the water level up to 2" or 3" from the top of the bucket. Any higher than that starts to leave a mess on the floor.

Not Enough Icewill be problematic. When The resin glands are cold they are easy to work with (almost sandy). When they are warm they become sticky and are to work with. The water temperature should be around 32-36 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice helps break off the resin glands as well as helps in the separation that occurs during the settling period. Make sure there is enough to last threw a 2 hour period. If it looks or sounds like there isn't enough ice, add more at any point between the mixing and the settling period.

Too Much Material - will result in a lot of the trichomes being stuck somewhere between the thick layers of trim in the work bag. This will result in less yield due to a mass amount of trichomes not being able to reach the screens on the bottom. The idea is to suspend the trichomes in the water to separate them out.

The Right Way(s)!!!
There are two right ways to make bubble IMO. The first way is located at The Highest Quality Plant Essence Extractors in the World - BubbleBag.com. The second way is just a slight alteration of the original method but saves the work bag from getting beat up so much and prolongs the life of the work bag.

First get two buckets according to the size bag system you have (1,5, or 20 Gallon). Place your bags in Bucket #1 starting with 25, then 45µ, 73µ, 90µ, 120µ, 160µ, 190µ, and last the work bag or the 220µ.



i don't think i need to explain why we use that order but i will anyways. in order for the separation of green matter & trichomes, you need to use your tools (the screens). the largest screen holes also known as the 220, holds all the weed inside the bag, while only particles below 219 microns and smaller remain in the water once this bag is pulled. When you pull the 190 bag, the screens holds particle sizes 219 microns to 191. Each screen traps any particles that are larger than it's size.

Next, (WITH THE WORK BUCKET A.K.A. BUCKET#2) add 3-4 inches of ice, then your trim material, and last 3 & 1/2+ gallons of water.
Never use more than 250 Grams or 1 gallon of material in a five gallon bucket. The mixture becomes too thick and doesn't allow the trichomes to sink to the bottom during the settling stage and seriously reduces yield. USE MORE WATER THAN WEED!!! THIS EXPOSES THE TRIM TO MORE SURFACE AREA OF THE WATER & AGITATION. THAT HELPS WITH YIELD ALLOWING MORE TRICHOMES TO BE SUSPENDED IN THE WATER & FILTERED OUT.

What To Mix With???
NOTE: Gentle agitation is the trick to getting the highest quality product.

Subcool uses a spoon to agitate extremely light/gentle. i've tried it & support it 100%, it's a great idea.



Another option is gently with low speed, agitate the material for 8-20 minutes with a mud slinger attachment that you can get @ hardware stores everywhere. In the event you have to ask someone @ the store... this attachment is used for mixing paint. 8 minutes is going to bring higher quality & lower contaminates than 20 minutes.



Option three is a hand mixer from the kitchen. Same as the drill, 8-20 minutes on low speed. Less agitation time is going to bring higher quality & less contaminates. When there is more agitation time, some of the green matter gets broken up & can then fit threw the bags very small micron screen.


For those of you out there who are producing massive amounts of bubble hash, a useful tool is the Bubblenow machine or potable washing machine. This machine will save your back many hours bent over a bucket, and is a gentle agitator capable of producing full melt. to save some money, they sell these as a portable washing machine or RV washing machine... some can be found as low as $80 online.


If you're a cash cropper than you could mix it as hard as you can and not care about the green in the final product. If you are a connoisseur of cannabis like me and only after the highest quality product, then you want to agitate gently so you don't beat the crispy green leaves into your fine hashish product. You only want the resin glands to fall into the screen, not to grind up trim.

Use your mixing tool to stir the material for 8-20 minutes. You want the material to be well saturated in a mixture of water & ice. Make sure there is enough ice to last until you're finished beating and that that there will be enough to last through the settling period. If you have to... add more while mixing.

After you have beaten the material for 8-20 minutes, pour all the contents of the work bucket into Bucket #1 with all the filtration screens. Now allow to settle for 30 minutes. During the settling period, I like to give the mixture a stir or two, every 10 minutes for a total of 3 stirrings during the settling period. Only stir the material around lightly once or twice, the point of this is to make sure that all the matter has a chance to allow the trichomes to sink and fall into the screens, not to beat the matter again... we already did that. Try to be nice with it if you are going to stir because you don't really want to stir up the trichomes, just move the weed around.

When 30 minutes is up, lightly jiggle the bag up & down to get the water out of the bag. When the bag drains, clean the bag in the sink, do what you want with the material in it, and continue. you could save it aside in another bucket and rerun the trim again for a second wash but i wouldn't try it anymore than twice.



Note: On the bubble bag website it says not to squeeze the water out of the work bag because this prevents contaminates from entering your hash. They made 'em so I trust they have had countless hours researching such a claim so I go by the book on this one.

Next jiggle your 190 bag up and out of the water. When the water is threw the screen, use a cup to scoop some of the bubble water out & to rinse down the screen to pool all the hash product into the middle of the screen for easy collection. Now flip the bag inside out and stretch the screen over a bowl and scrape the hash off the screen with a spoon or card. Place it on the pressing screen with a hand towel under it. Clean your screen in the bubble water while inside out so the hash is rinsed into the next screen. This will wash any hash remaining on the screen into the next bag you pull minimizing waste. Rinse the spoon in the bubble water and continue to the next bag.



Repeat this step with the 160µ, 120µ, 90µ, 73µ, 45µ, & 25µ screens. When you get down to the 25µ screen there is no where to rinse the spoon so you have to just work the hash off the spoon with your fingers.

If you are buying your bags separately, I would recommend buying the 120 & the 25 bags minimum. If you can afford additional bags, the 73 & 90 would be the ones to get. The 90 & 73 screens separate the highest grades of hash. they collect the big fat trichome heads while dropping all the smaller resin heads, broken trichome heads, & trichome stems. The smallest screen (25Micron) is what collects these. It removes anything left in the water that is of smok able value, that's why it is a minimum requirement in a 2 bag system.

Now take the "pressing screen" (more on "the pressing screen" in a minute) and fold the unused half on top of the hash. Fold the hand towel over the screen and lightly dab the towel to extract most of the water in the hash cookies. The point of this step is to dab the water out, not to press the hash.



The pressing screen is a bad name for this product. It should have been called the dabbing screen because you aren't suppose to press the hash on this screen. Many people confuse this because of the name. It is intended to dab water out with very minimal pressure to extract water from the cookies. The hash is going to be chopped next so pressing it would be a pointless act.

Now You have hash patties, they need to be chopped up & dried for a few days. Cardboard is a perfect material for extracting water. Another option is wax or parchment paper. Simply peal the moist hash off the pressing screen & place it on the cardboard. Chop the patties up into powder to expose the most surface area to the air for proper drying. bubble that is dried in a patty will for rings or marbling due to uneven drying.

Before Chopping




after chopping
NOTE: Make sure the hash is cracker dry or it will mold.





Male plant hash




From Greg Green's "The Cannabis Grow Bible"
Grading Hash
"The grades of hashish are as follows: 00 (Zero Zero), 0, 1,2,3. Zero Zero is by far the purest form of hashish and comes from plants that have high levels of THC in conjunction with a good hash-making technique. Sometimes the technique may be good but the levels of THC in the plant are low. This may produce a hash grade of two or three.

The quality of the resin glands will determine the quality of the hash that you will smoke. This is calculated based on the simple ratio of cannabinoids to vegetable material. In Morocco, 00 is used to describe hash that has the highest level of cannabinoids to vegetable material achieved by the extraction process. You can well imagine that this is the finest resin available compressed into hashish. "

my thoughts on how this relates to bubble
The 190µ, 160µ, & 120µ are 3 grade hash. Very green, doesn't stick together very well, and powdery. the 120µ can go either way, some have good results, others feed it to the birds. the technique used will greatly determine the product on this screen. The 90µ & 73µ screen hash is graded closer to 00 & 0. These resins suppose to be Full Melt and usually is. This grade sticks together very well, doesn't feel very oily, and is usually a blonde or sandy color. The 45µ screen usually contains broken heads and stalks from the trichomes. This screen usually produces a grade 0 or 1. The product feels slightly oily and sticks together very well, and is usually sandy, blonde, or white in color. The 25µ screen is very oily and is usually yellow or white in color and graded at 1-2. Colors Vary dramatically depending upon material.

Like said in the above quote... The purest form of hashish comes from plants that have high levels of THC in conjunction with a good hash-making technique. What should be a good batch of bubble can go wrong if mixed with a bad technique, so mix gently if you after connoisseur quality hashish.

The 190, 160, & 120 are the worst grades hash and some people even throw them away. You can cook with them as an alternative. the other bags are there to try to catch the fat resin head size & allow the thin trichome stems sink into a smaller bag. you can see in the following shots that the heads are melting yet the trichome stem burns. this is because it is made of cellulose and is an inactive part of the trichome.

for more info on trichomes, visit - Bubbleman's article: Inside the Trichome

Photo's by Bubbleman





some of the pics were "borrowed" from The Highest Quality Plant Essence Extractors in the World - BubbleBag.com and other various places over the internet. Good luck... I hope this was informative.





mesh to micron conversion chart