use of different meshsizes with dry sieving

[Siever]

Hi,

At the end of this outdoor growing season I will buy a pollinator.
Well, a Topzeef actually.
This company sells different mesh sizes for their dry sieve.
Does any one knows if they make a big difference?
I've heard that almost 50% of the trichomes falls in the first 3 to 10 minutes. After that, the longer you wait the less trichomes and the more impurities fall of.
So I was wondering if it's worth to sieve more than let's say 20 min. if after that you have to sieve more then 1/2 hour for an extra 10 to 20% which is polluted. Extra sieves costs 45 euro each and take 5 to 10 min to replace according to the company. An extra drum costs 140 euro and is very easy to replace.
Does any one knows something about it?

Siever

 

[Gray Wolf]

We stop sieving at about 10% yield, which takes about 3 to 5 minutes. After that, the kif turns increasingly green from contamination.

We extract the balance using a solvent.

 

[Bowb Aandweeve]

We stop sieving at about 10% yield, which takes about 3 to 5 minutes. After that, the kif turns increasingly green from contamination.

We extract the balance using a solvent.

Sometimes you drop the best little nuggets of info.

 

[Siever]

Hi Gray Wolf,

With 10%, do you mean for example: If you put in 450g/1lb you stop when you have 45g or 10% of a pound(I thought that I've read on the internet that you'll often have a yield of maximum 10% of the weight of dried BUDS, not trimmings, you put in the pollinator)? Or do you mean you stop when you have 10% of the total possible yield? Like you would stop with 12g when you would have 120g if you sieved for an hour.
i don't know if the numbers I mention are realistic because I don't have any idea how much to expect. From an outdoor crop grown in the rainy western Europe I mean, trimmings and buds.

Siever

 

[Bowb Aandweeve]

I read it as: It generally takes about 3-5 minutes to get to about 10%, more or less but you need to stop when the material starts to get green in it.

So, the 10% and 3-5 minutes are just estimates and/or guidelines, it's more the stopping at green.
High resin nuggets will be closer or higher than 10%, low resin trim would be less. No way to make an estimate.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Hi Gray Wolf,

With 10%, do you mean for example: If you put in 450g/1lb you stop when you have 45g or 10% of a pound(I thought that I've read on the internet that you'll often have a yield of maximum 10% of the weight of dried BUDS, not trimmings, you put in the pollinator)? Or do you mean you stop when you have 10% of the total possible yield? Like you would stop with 12g when you would have 120g if you sieved for an hour.
i don't know if the numbers I mention are realistic because I don't have any idea how much to expect. From an outdoor crop grown in the rainy western Europe I mean, trimmings and buds.

Siever

What BA said. We go by color and everything else is an estimate, but 10% yield is from bud or high grade trim.

That is roughly half of what is actually there, based on a BHO extraction of the same material.

 

[Chamba]

Good advice so far......

By using magnification to monitor the process you will know exactly when it's time to stop sifting.....but for how long, which mesh size etc etc really depends on what your goal will be (after those chickens hatch that is)

If your aim is to get some excellent quality dry sifted resin (and solvent extract all the remaining goodness on the plant material) then do as GW suggests and tumble dry material for a short duration at low temps and low humidity...for how long? that depends on the starting material, screen size, rotation speed and other factors.

If solvent extraction is not your thing, then you can tumble the plant material for a longer duration to separate almost most all of the resin, which will result in a much high percentage of contaminant, but still will be a nice smoke and it's a fast, clean, hassle free way to get lots of hash.

This is what I do sometimes, and I try to stop sifting the material when I can see through my loupe that there is hardly any resin remaining and the resulting dry sift will still form into a solid using your thumb pressing the spoonful or so of loose resin into your palm with a pushing, twisting motion in less than 30 seconds or so....if you need press longer or use mechanical presses to form the sift into a solid form then you probably have sifted for too long and allowed too much contaminant in. Actually I don't press my dry sift anymore (though most do) I prefer to smoke loose dry sift as I think it burns better)

Then there's sifting in stages and keeping each pile separate, resifting techniques, multi-screen sifting and many other ways to skin the cat!....so it might also be a good idea to use the ICmag search feature on the top of each page and check out the many hundreds of posts about dry sifting, screen sizes, techniques, tumblers etc there's a wealth of wisdom here just waiting to be read.

Happy sifting!

 

[Siever]

Hi Chamba!

In the latest ICmag happens to be an article about dry sifting and resifting. The end result is awesome, but it's done by hand, so very time consuming.
Anyway, that article made me thinking of buying several sieves for the trichome-tumbler
I'll almost certainly buy in October or November.
Just sief the maximum out of it, green contamination or not. If you're done with that resief
until you reach almost 100% purity like in the article. Only done much faster with the tumbler.

Siever

 

[Chamba]

Siever, That's one way..but more often than not, if purity is your aim, I'd suggest not allowing the contaminant in, in the first place, rather than trying to remove it at a later stage. So one way would be to sift for a short duration to reap about half of the resin heads on the starting material and set this aside for re-sieving over finer meshes later on, Then sift the plant material for a much longer duration to remove the remaining resin heads. The first sift will be blond with a low percentage of broken up plant matter and the second sift will contain a much higher percentage of non-active broken up plant matter...the pure sift can be re-sieved using Bubbleman's re-sifting technique with mutliple screens (or enjoyed as it is) and the second more contaminated sift can be dissolved in a solvent like butane or alcohol to separate the contaminant or purified with Bubblebags using ice cold water or re-sifted with a series of finer screens etc.

Do a search through my posts, this will lead you to lots of threads full of informative posts from experienced sifters. There's a ton of info here to be read, check it out!

 

[Siever]

Hi Chamba,

Stopping after a couple minutes (3 to at most 10, but preferably 5 min), setting the first sift aside and then sifting the rest was what I was planning to do. I was thinking of making butter with it because I made some qwiso with vodka and the results were mediocre. So was the weed I made it from.
B.T.W. Chamba, I'm about to harvest( I think at most 4 weeks to go) the strain you derived your name from: Malawi.
Siever

 

[the gnome]

what size stainless mesh do you use on the tumblers?

 

[Siever]

I was thinking about 200micron-somewhat around 110 micron and then finally 70 micron.
This can still change.
The first size is to yield as much trichomes as possible. The second one is sieve out plantmaterial and the third is the sieve out the real d9 crystals.

greetings

 

[Chamba]

4 weeks to go eh?.......so do what Sam Skunkman does.Harvest when fully mature, dry the plants for several weeks, cure/store them for 3+ months then dry sift them.

 

[purple_man]

when working with the pollinator, i do 3 different runs with the same material, 1st 30sec - 1min, 2nd 10min and a 3rd run for an hour or two. the 3rd one is used for ethanol extraction or cooking. the first 2 grades can then be refined, mixed, etc...
as chamba said, plenty of ways to skin the cat

blessss
ps.: i also like to use the bubble bags for resifting, drop the raw sift into the bag and shake it inside of the tumbler casing

 

[Chamba]

plenty of ways to skin the cat


"That cat is high
Look at that look in his eye
You know I wouldn't lie
That cat is higher than a kite

Boys he's high
Oh look at them two black eyes
Oh me oh my
That cat is higher than the sky

When you see him tippin'
Round and round the block
Oh you know that cat he's very beat
Hip clean down to his socks

That cat is high
Look at that look in his eye
Oh me oh my
That cat is higher than the sky
Yeah!...."

The Ink Spots 1938

and later covered by Manhattan Transfer, Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and others.....it's actually a song about a drunk guy, but to me it's all about reefer.

 

[Siever]

Chamba,

no way on earth I can wait for 3 months. Perhaps with a small part of it. I'll buy the sieve for my outdoor grow in the first place.

Purple Man,

Do you only use 1 mesh size with the pollinator?
Can you give an estimation of your total yield after a complete sieve?

 

[purple_man]

high bro!

i use the standard sieve which comes with the pollinator (not sure the meshsize, check out pollinator company homepage), they have other meshsizes too, but don't need them (also they are pretty pricey), since i use the bubble bags for resifting. the total yield of course depends on starting material, but with primo material (trim leaves and popcorn buds), i get around 1-2% for the 1st sieve., another 5 - 10% for the second and the last one, i can't really say, cause it depends on the extraction time + the longer you extract -> the higher the contamination, so the 3rd results, i can't estimate (because of the varying contamination rate)

blessss

 

[Siever]

Thanks Purple Man,

the extra meshes from Topzeef are a lot more economic. You can even buy one or more without an extra drum. Of course then you have to put the mesh on the drum yourself.

greetings

 

[DrySiftWizard]

Storing is good for it.

Not always needed, though.

 

[dread]

u should at least wait a month,dryer resin breaks off easier,------>gives higher resin yield
& don't forget the freezing part...
grtz