Techniques for making the very best dry sifted hash

[Chamba]

I've met Soma in Am'dam with Gypsy and smoked his bud ...it was head and shoulders above anything else I smoked there.

 

[southflorida]

awesome chamba......u r 1 lucky man......I hope next april when I fly down for ic mag cup 2009...i smoke some of his buds also...and maybe some of his hash....eventhough...from what I understand he likes making ice hash

maybe he is just advertising Mila's products...lol....he does think about the dough (money)....even if he looks all spiritual and new age...lol

and his seeds cost a few bucks also...amnesia 10 seeds = 130 euro

in my country there is a saying *love comes and goes....but you always want to eat*.....(sounds strange translated into english...lol)

sounds similar to Soma being all spiritual.....but charging some seriously high prices for seeds...lol

 

[igrohydro]

Cool Chamba,thanks for the clarafication!

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

While in general I agree with most of what Chamba has posted, I thought I would point out that I often make dry sift with whole plants, shade leaves and all except the stems, ground up and sifted to get a crude farmers hash with all the resin from the plant. (if the manicured plant is 15% THC the crude farmers hash is about 30%+THC) Then I re-clean it up to very high standards (50%+ THC), I do this because manicuring kilos of bud to dry sift is a waste of my time. I like to spend my spare time smoking hash, not manicuring or even making hash. While I do agree it is best to avoid contaminants, the time involved to manicure may not worth the extra effort if you are working with large amounts at a time. But it may depend on the volume of work and what you want, if the only way you can get dry sift FMCD is by manicuring, then do what you have to do.
I find that a kilo of manicured buds gently wiggled/shaken on a flat screen can make resin that will bubble easy, the rougher you sift the more debris that will come through the screen and the lower the quality and higher the quantities.
But I can also just grind up the whole kilo and sift it and then clean up the resin to FMCD quality. And the later is much faster....
Whatever works for you.....

-SamS

Many dry sifters aiming for the very best quality possible use very potent strains expertly grown that are perfectly dried, cured, well aged and stored for months. They gently work the material through multiple sized screen meshes, sometimes using 6 or 7 different sized meshes ranging from 220 micron down to 25 micron, in a low humidity room and yet are not totally satisfied with the end result. The high is good, the hash is pliable and bubbles, but is not the stuff "legends" are made of.

Here's how you take your dry sift to the next level and produce the hardest hitting, meltiest dry sifted hash that will impress even most hardcore hash snobs.

Basically there's few main things to keep in mind.

1) it's better to not allow the contaminants in, rather than try to remove it later, so use a gentle action for a short duration.

2) Find out, isolate your ideal range of resin head sizes, then purify it.

3) For the initial quality run, use only two screen meshes within a selected and narrow size range, not 4, 5, 6 or 7 meshes.

Do two runs, one for the "quality" (or the "Pure") and a second run for "quantity" (using multiple meshes) to reap the remaining resin heads.
The following will mainly deal with this initial quality run.

Aim to remove just 5%, 10% or a maximum 20% of the starting material's resin heads during this "quality" run.

As most know of us here know, cannabis plants at maturity contain resin heads of varying sizes. What most of us don't realize is that the very best dry sifted hash is never a mix of all these sizes, instead it is selected and isolated within narrow diameter size range, then purified.

This ideal size range might be, for example, within 75 micron and 100 micron, 80 micron and 90 micron, or an even narrower range, eg 82 and 88 micron or 96 and 101 micron?...it all depends on the starting material, your type of high preference and the available mesh sizes you have to work with.

Firstly, work out what your ideal range of resin heads is by running a few handfulls of the material through several pairs of screens, for example, 110 and 95 micron, 95 and 85 micron and 85 and 75 micron, 75 and 65 etc ...then card the resin heads back and forth repeatedly to force the contaminants (and smaller sized resin heads) through the mesh, use a magnifying glass to monitor your progress and then smoke test your results to select your ideal resin head size range.

Once you have worked out the ideal (high/low) narrow range of resin heads for that strain, sift small amounts of that material at a time over the first screen with second mesh underneath using a gentle side to side or circular sifting action for just a short duration...or use vibration

This duration may vary from 20 seconds to a minute or more (or whatever works for you). Then once the material has been sifted, repeatedly card the resin heads that has collected between these two screens back and forth over the finer, bottom mesh using a credit type card, this will break up and force the contaminants and smaller sized trichomes (resin heads) through the finer mesh while the selected resin heads remain above the screen,

Monitor your progress with a 20X ~ 30X magnifying glass. This cleaning process may take 5, 10 or more minutes, make sure the ambient humidity in the room is low, You can also freeze/chill the material (again) before this cleansing/carding process.

Do not run the material initially through 220, 160 or 125 micron mesh as this will only help break up and allow much more contaminants in with resin heads (though, for the quantity run, use these larger sized mesh and work the material more aggressively to get all the plant's remaining resin heads)

Run bud or very high quality trimmed leaves that are very resiny, do not run fan leaves or other plant material that contain just a few resin heads.

The Bud or trim leaf can be broken up, but not ground into a fine powder. Ideally, any finer than joint rolling consistancy is probably too fine and will only help introduce more broken up leaf matter in with the resin heads.

The above method will produce a much purer hash than techniques previously posted anywhere to my knowledge, also the kif is alot easier to clean too ...I also suspect that this is how Sam Skunkman produces his legendary dry sift using his "secret method" (as well as by using the very best clone selected from 40 years of breeding and growing, well aged plant material and by sifting it between a very narrow select size range of meshes..probably within a 3 ~ 5 micron range. I also suspect he uses a vaccuum underneath while carding above and so runs all the fall through to waste!....and what a waste it would be!..damn, it must be nice to have such an excess of bud to work with that you could throw away 97% of the resin on it!)

And of course, resift all of the remaining material, including what was left above and below the first run pair of meshes to reap the remaining heads and then clean it up using multiple meshes, agitating, carding and or vaccuuming etc etc)

I suggest you use this very pure hash sparingly, if you are able that is! lol. Smoke it just once a day at most or you will tend to build up such a high tolerance to it that you not appreciate it as much at all..ideally, smoke it once or twice a week and it will last much longer and hit you hard everytime! and in between, smoke bud and the lesser hash you make from the quantity run.

Happy dry sifting!

(btw I recently wrote a similar description of this technique on another site under another "name"..so it's not copied, just rewritten for readers here on icmag.com)

 

[southflorida]

Sam wrote.....*the whole plant ground up and sifted to get a crude farmers hash with all the resin from the plant*

my questions would be....#1 what is the best method to use to *grind up* all the leaves, buds, etc.....for sifting afterwards???

and #2 what is the best *combinations of the screens sizes* to use to get that full melt sifted hash?

 

[igrohydro]

Breakin it up with your hands will do the trick!
Grinding them will damage the heads.Your hands will give you better control.
Softly softly.

 

[Hashmasta-Kut]

my question would be, how do you sift it to FMCD purity after?

thats the real crux of the biscuit..

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

The softer and slower the better, that said I also have used big particle sizing machines that use round cylinder screens with internal brushes that can grind up lots of kilos per hour. The end results were the same except you lose some resin in the machine, but it is way way faster.
The best sized screens depend on the resin heads size, but you want one that is just big enough that it catches all the resin excluding anything to big to be a resin head, and one that has just bigl enough holes so that none of the resin will go through, to clean up the resin from debris that is smaller then the resin heads.
I have screens of every size holes, metal and woven cloth, even a laser drilled sheet metal screen with round holes instead of the normal square. It is easy to test and see which screen is best for a given clone or variety, then use it.
I do agree that you need very dry or very cold weather to make the best dry sift. I don't even try to do the work in hot wet weather, but you can use a walk-in freezer year round to do the work!!

As for my method to make FMCD, you will have to wait until I make a machine that does it, I am working on it, but no luck yet.
-SamS

 

[southflorida]

thanks a lot sam skunkman...I was planning on growing the pure from TFD and wanted to know how is it for making dry sift......my goal was to do a big grow (well big for me...lol) using 2 x 600 watts......and just make dry sift from all the leaves and buds like you said above.....would that strain be good for this?

I guess no one better to ask since you are the creator of it

and also...do you think smoking high quality trichomes is what a toker should eventually arrive to in his *smoking session*....i think i read somewhere that dj short wrote something like that....and chamba also said something similar in this thread

 

[binaryfission]

and also...do you think smoking high quality trichomes is what a toker should eventually arrive to in his *smoking session*....i think i read somewhere that dj short wrote something like that....and chamba also said something similar in this thread

is there reason to smoke anything else?

i can't think of one, other than making ur kief last longer. or u just like smoking joints/blunts. Personal preference will always win over logic in the long run, but in ur ideal situation described above i think the goal is maximum benefit to minumum side effect. Combusting anything and inhaling it is not good for you, so minimizing the amount you combust is a goal of most people and asssureddly for the masters of all things hashlike among us. My two cents...


PEACE

 

[Chamba]

I've never read "Hashish" by RC Clarke......was the isolation of a narrow size range of trichomes method posted above described first in that book?

..I must get a copy of that book one of these days..the trouble is, the nearest book shop that sells it is 10,000 or 15,000 miles away..lol

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Yes Rob Clarke does mention this and lots of other info in his book Hashish.
BTW, I helped Rob with the book.
The book can be bought over the internet and posted from Amazon books to you.

-SamS

 

[southflorida]

SamS.......respects to you once more....its great you checked into chamba's thread...can you tell us how many screens do you use...and exactly what sizes...and how do you grind up large amounts of buds and leaves for making that dry sift?

 

[Chamba]

I'd like to see that particular excerpt posted here, if anyone has a copy and a scanner, please post that page, it would be a good advert for the book.

.....& yeah, one of these days I'll get around to getting a copy..it might even be my first internet purchase...thanks

Happy Hashing

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

southflorida,

There is no best screen size or amount of screens to use it all depends on the resin size and the amount of debris in with the resin.
Read the book.
Also screen sizes are measured different in each country, you can get it in inches or centimeters as well as company numbers, that can measure the threads per whatever or the hole size or the ratio of screen to thread, etc, etc.
I use a #77 to get rid of the small shit and a #125 to collect the resin in the first place. That is the local silkscreen size at the shop I go to for 20 years. Even though the cloth is not silk anymore.
But that said it depends on the resin, I also use both smaller and bigger screens.

-SamS

 

[Chamba]

my question would be, how do you sift it to FMCD purity after?

thats the real crux of the biscuit..HMK

As for my method to make FMCD, you will have to wait until I make a machine that does it, I am working on it, but no luck yet.
-SamS

hmmmmmm...that's not very "screw the system! I'm all for brotherly love, peace, sharing and long hair" is it Sam?...and we all thought you were a real hippy from the sixties.....lol

here's my thoughts on it Hashmasta-Kut....if the above method I described doesn't get the purity you desire (and if you are gently separating just the first 15% of the available resin that falls through between a narrow (selected, ideal) size range of mesh sizes and then purifying and re-sifting it again..then I really don't know if you would be happy with any dry sift!..perhaps it's the starting material you should be looking at to improve, not the technique..and then again if you have great genes to begin with then perhaps you should look at reducing your tolerance to get some impact back into your high?) , but you could play around with vaccuuming, vibration, static electricity techniques etc.

if that doesn't get you where you want to be then perhaps work on the fact that resin is heavier than the contaminants mixed in with them and somehow create "wind" in a chamber to help separate the rubbish from the resin (much like rice tossed in the air to help separate the grains from the lighter weight inedible stuff.... this technique is used in third world countries before mechanical separators became the norm and it's still use in some poor areas today....the rice is tossed in the air, and being heavier it falls straight down, while the lighter debris is blown several metres away by the wind...the rice is tossed in the air over and over again until all the chaff has blown away..a simple but effective technique that, in theory, could be used to purify kif.

another technique you could work on would be the fact that resin heads are spherical in shape while the (similar sized) contaminants mixed in with them are either longer thinner resin head stalks (that are initially separated from the resin heads over finer mesh as described above) or odd shaped, broken up pieces of vegetative matter..so then use a perforated metal sheet with round holes the size so the resin heads fall through but the jagged shaped broken bits of leafs do not.....with a combination of those techniques described in the past three paragraphs, perhaps that's how SamS makes his "Legendary" dry sift?

but I guess we'll have to wait for legalization and the application of Sam's Patent to find out...

I for one ain't holding my breath for the former and regarding the latter, personally, although I'm all for capitalism, but when it comes to things cannabis and how we could help others inhale a purer, healthier smoke, it's much like yoga to me....true yogis never name a new asana (pose) after themselves..that would be crass and egocentric which is opposite of yoga..

(to paraphrase Dharma Mittra) "true yogis never take credit for their achievments" and say that "I didn't invent this new asana, it simply flowed through me and I hope others will benefit from it".....I think new techniques or improvements on breeding, growing, dry sifting etc are in the same vein as yoga....we should share it openly so all can benefit...it's just a natural plant after all ..but it's also special and beneficial in a varied number of ways to many of us.

anyway, one way to benefit financially and also share the knowledge is by publishing a book on the subject..it's alot safer than trying to Patent a hash making machine (lol, as if!), one can make profit and still get the acclaim of being first...

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

Chamba,

"hmmmmmm...that's not very "screw the system! I'm all for brotherly love, peace, sharing and long hair" is it Sam?...and we all thought you were a real hippy from the sixties.....lol"

How do you make a living? Do You sell any product or service? Why not give it away for free? Or give all your labor for free? Like the hippies did?

"but I guess we'll have to wait for legalization and the application of Sam's Patent to find out...I for one ain't holding my breath for the former and regarding the latter, personally, although I'm all for capitalism, but when it comes to things cannabis and how we could help others inhale a purer, healthier smoke, it's much like yoga to me....true yogis never name a new asana (pose) after themselves..that would be crass and egocentric which is opposite of yoga..

(to paraphrase Dharma Mittra) "true yogis never take credit for their achievments" and say that "I didn't invent this new asana, it simply flowed through me and I hope others will benefit from it".....I think new techniques or improvements on breeding, growing, dry sifting etc are in the same vein as yoga....
we should share it openly so all can benefit...it's just a natural plant after all ..but it's also special and beneficial in a varied number of ways to many of us."

This is a good idea, I will be happy to share when I do have a method I can patent and sell. As for your idea that new techniques or improvements on breeding, growing, dry sifting etc should be openly shared. Sure like seeds, clones, buds, resin,
all of which are given freely at no cost by all the yogis at this site.

"anyway, one way to benefit financially and also share the knowledge is by publishing a book on the subject..it's alot safer than trying to Patent a hash making machine (lol, as if!), one can make profit and still get the acclaim of being first..."

I don't care for acclaim of being first, I would like to benefit from my years of work, and I think that you are a dreamer if you think that all new varieties and all new ideas should be openly shared for free. I know you make a living, I know you handle money, why?? Why not do everything in your life for free? Do you even think before you speak?

You are suggesting that someone who spends a lot of time and money traveling around the world to collect Cannabis seeds at a considerable personal risk, and then spends years growing and improving the materials, like making the first Sativa X Indica stable consistant hybrid Skunk #1, then just give it out for free with no return for the labor and time?

Chamba, you are thinking like a fool. If you want to live your own life like this then do so and I will applaud your effort. But try and tell me how to live my life and I will ask you to please just F*** OFF.

It is my work, my discovery, my life and I will do as I like with it...
Remember, I am trying to make it available to everyone.

I am wondering Chamba,
What great improvements on breeding, growing, dry sifting have you given freely to the Cannabis community? Why have you not given more? I have given a lot over the years... like teaching everyone how to make water hash...I have given out millions of seeds for free, not hundreds, not thousands, millions! And they were the exact same quality as my best. My varieties were the founding stock of the entire seed industry in the beginning.

And BTW, Yogis charge to attend their yoga classes, wonder why?

-Pissed off SamS

 

[robbiedublu]

OUCH!!

 

[binaryfission]

does no one get that Sir Sam has worked with HIS strain for decades. One strain for decades. Consistency is why, IMO, he can produce the greatest dry sift. Its about technique to a point, then about knowing ur strain. knowing its gland size. knowing when they are at the ripest, so u can pick them at the same time every time. u can use the same size screen but if ur glands aren't the same size as Sam's u won't get the same consistency.

and SAM i don't mean to put words in ur mouth and please feel free to correct me if i am wrong, but, isn't he he doing more for the RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT of better pot and smoking habits than say any other single human being alive. The things he mentioned above are monumental, but pale in comparison to the fact that, even though i'm far far away from the man and looking at him thru the internet, his head still seems to fit on his shoulders. all the FMCD skunk kief might make it float a little off the shoulder, but it still looks proportional. ne way...


We don't all grow skunk, but could we grow what we did if skunk #1 hadn't turned the world on its ear. Sam is the Ford of the marijuana industry he put the engine (indica) and the carriage (sativa) together to make what the whole world uses today.


PEACE


why won't the southamerican's learn about hash?

 

[Chamba]

there was no animosity meant at all, I'm sorry you took it that way

though perhaps I could of written it better, more often than not I write out a post and then go back and re-edit it, ...

anyway let me put it this way...

I'm not suggesting you cut off your left nut and donate it to a victim of testicular cancer, or give away your house, company shares and all your cash to Mother Theresa, I'm not telling you to give away all your strains, your bud or your legendary dry sifted hash.....if I did then I would rightly deserve a reply like yours.

but for example if anyone out there has a medical strain in their possesion right now that could relieve the suffering (or at least make their day a little easier) of MS patients all over the World then, yes, I'm saying it would be morally right to give it away now, not wait years until the political climate, the business positioning or the Patent is in place or the time is right for protecting your potential profits before releasing it​

....and to a much lesser extent, the same goes with your secret full melt dry sift method..machine..Patent.., it's just an idea that could benefit a few hash conniosseurs...or a few medical cannabis carers could make and give away a cleaner dry sift for their patients so they could smoke a cleaner, less irritating smoke....or so that less careless idiots could make a very strong hash and not be at risk of blowing themselves up with alcohol or butane extractions.....