How to make good quality bubble hash quickly and easily - a step by step guide

[OGONLY]

So I finally got my bags a few days ago. Got the Bubble brand bags off ebey. They look pretty nice as far as quality. They were folded pretty tight in transit and have some creases from being folded, is that an issue?

So I'm kind of bummed its not very cold at night since its already April and Im in Socal. I've been meticulously planning it all out in my head. Went to Depot today and bought 2 extra 5 gallon buckets (already have a couple) and a 2 gallon one and some lids. Going to sweep outthe garage tomorrow, planning on doing it there at like 5 AM Saturday. Coldest time I figure. I've got 2 week old SUPER sugary trim from White Fire, White Dawg, White Skunk, White Urkle, White Master and Guava 13. I mixed the WIFI and Wt. Master. Also mixed the Dawg and skunk.

Any last minute tips would be appreciated. Planning on putting it in the freezer tomorrow. Should I have done that already? Its been sealed in giant plastic zip locks since it has been dried. I made sure not to over dry. Thanks everyone. Thank you Blaze for the inspration and detailed instruction.

 

[Blaze]

Freezing it overnight should be enough time. If it's been a bit warm just be sure to have extra ice. You should be able to keep your mix nice and cold even in warmer weather like this, you just will go thru a lot more ice.

 

[OGONLY]

Nice thanksBlaze! Waking up at 5 am tomorrow to do my first run. Bought 2 blocks of ice and 2 bags of crushed. Just finished washing out my new buckets and got mixing table and other materials in place. I'm going to use a large wooden paint stirrer (sanded with 120 grit and wiped very clean) to stir the mix. Trim is in the freezer. 10 gallons of R/O is in 5 gallon bottles chilling in the backyard. Will post results along with pics.

 

[OGONLY]

So my first run is complete. It went ok overall I guess but could have been better.

What I thought was crushed ice turned out to be those cylinder shaped cubes. It was Arrowhead brand ice. Crushed ice would have been better. I ended up loading too much ice in my mixing bucket and was afraid to put more water in because I didn't want to overload my straining bucket.

I was very happy my girlfriend woke up and offered to help right before I poured the mixing bucket into the straining bucket. Trying to scrape the goods off the screen turned out to be harder than I thought. Having her hold the bag while I centered and scraped was a huge help. Then she would bring the bags inside and clean them in the sink while I pulled the next bag.

I ended up lightly rinsing each bag using a large cup and very cold water. A hose set up would be better and much more efficient. I did it in the garage so no hose was available. Also figured that hose water from the tap wouldn't be cold enough.

I neglected to rinse the 220 and 160 bag because I figured they were just trash. Realize now that there were probably some good smaller crystals I could have recovered by rinsing them.

So I used 6 oz. very fine trim OGR White Fire and White Master. It was harvested 20 days ago. This stuff smelled so strong when I was mixing it. Wasn't expecting that. The 90 micron bag yielded the best. It also is the cleanest looking. The 73 was second best as far as yield, but has a tiny bit of green in it. The 45 has a decent amount of green in it. The 25 was barely recoverable, and looks like junk.

Starting from the top left and going clockwise we have the 90, 73, 45 and 25.

 

[NaturalTherapy]

A lot (if not all) of that green color will be gone when the water has fully evaporated

 

[caregiverken]

I don't know if its the right way, and i didn't see anyone mention it..So I wanna ask you guys. :rolleyes:

When I make bubble, I lay a little piece of paper towel of the wet piles for a sec. and let it soak up some of the water.
Sometimes I do it a few times till it looks dry.... o_O

Am I screwing it up by doing that? :confused:

 

[baba G]

Ken the water contains the magic bubble! Don't dry or absorb any of it, that's why I dry on pyrex glass! You don't want to mix anything with the bubble that could contaminate it either. I just leave it hanging in the bubble bag til it's partially dry(20-30mins hanging) then pull it out and stick it on pyrex, let it dry after turning it over daily...that way I don't miss any bubble, and I don't advise pressing your bubble together to speed up a drying. Just my experience...

 

[caregiverken]

glad I asked :confused:

Thanks Baba!

 

[OGONLY]

Ken the water contains the magic bubble! Don't dry or absorb any of it, that's why I dry on pyrex glass! You don't want to mix anything with the bubble that could contaminate it either. I just leave it hanging in the bubble bag til it's partially dry(20-30mins hanging) then pull it out and stick it on pyrex, let it dry after turning it over daily...that way I don't miss any bubble, and I don't advise pressing your bubble together to speed up a drying. Just my experience...

Interesting, so you leave it in the bag for a while until it dries a bit. That seems like it would make things easier as far as recovery is conserned. I had no idea recovery was so difficult until I tried it for real. I used the spoon scoop method which seems to push lots of trichs into the screen.

So I just realized after cleaning up my mess from this morning that my girl didn't do such a good job cleaning the bags. I'm mostly to blame though because I didn't give her much direction other than get the screens clean turning the bags inside out and use cold water only. I kept yelling at her to come out and hold bags while she was busy cleaning bags in the kitchen. So ya, my fault I guess. She is a cleaning expert so I guess I just figured she'd do a better job lol. I'm pretty bummed right now though after seeing there are quite a few trichs stuck to the screens on the 90, 160 and especially the 220. I tried washing out with cold water again with no sucess.

 

[Blaze]

Hmmm should be easier than that to get the trichs off the screens. I think maybe your mix wasn't cold enough - as the trichs warm up they get more sticky. Also I've found using a spray bottle full of water to wash the trich's into one corner of the screen helps a lot. You can never get 100% of them though. Stretching the bag over a bucket or bowl to get the screen nice and tight makes scooping your harvest out much easier.

Once the trichs get fused in the screens it can be a bitch to get them out. You might need to give them a quick soak in some alcohol to dissolve them. Try not to make a habit of it as you can, it's not good for the bags.

 

[OGONLY]

I actually did use the spray bottle filled with very cold water. Part of my problem with that was I bought the largest spray bottle and it was hard to get it inside the bag (due to size) and spray it at the proper angle. It was a bit difficult scraping the screen with the spoon at first but I got a little better after a couple bags.

After letting the mix sit in the straining bucket for 10 minutes, I ended up dumping the material and ice in a trash can without rinsing it into the bucket first. Later on when I went to dump that material the water was full of trichs! I really messed up by not rinsing that material through.

Getting my brand new bags clean was and is very important to me. I had done the research on cleaning them even prior to my first run so I knew to and what not to do. I was very surprised to see that they were not completely clean. I was just so caught up in recovery (and not letting the bags sit in the water too long) that cleaning the bags took a back seat. I didn't want to have to use alcohol but I might. Not sure if I might go the olive oil route as it seems less harsh on the bags. Just hate the thought of trying to wash the olive oil out.

I took a couple pics of the product dry for 36 hours. All 3 of these (left to right, 90, 73, and 45) are pliable and workable. The 90 is the most play dough like and the blondest as well. The 73 is a bit darker and the 45 is the darkest. They all have a nice smell to them. I've smoked the 90 and it is very nice. It bubbles a lot but doesn't melt into the bud. What exactly is full melt? Does tht mean it melts into the bud and disappears once its spent?

All 3 appear to me to be dry completely but I'm not sure. I've had them stored in small tupperware containers after sitting in pyrex for 36 hours to dry. The humidity has been very low (20%) all weekend so I've been carefull not to let it overdry. I burp the tupperware containers every 12 hours or so for a few minutes. Does that sound like good tecnique? Thanks!

 

[oldirtybastard]

Looking good OGONLY. Full melt is when you can drop a piece of the hash on a hot knife, TI pad, Nail or whatever you use to vape hash and very little residue is left afterwards.. Usually sticky.. almost like cake batter... I love taking real full melt bubble dabs of the TI nail... Taste is awesome... Way better than when using a lighter/on top of the weed... To answer your question Yes most of the hash should melt into the weed.. Very little ash will be left if any... Some strains yield full melt, some dont....

Im eagerly waiting my first run of WiFi bubble... Cant wait to see how long t turns out... ~ODB~

 

[OGONLY]

Thanks for the heads up ODB. I've got a TI nail and dome set up I use for my BHO. I figured since I've got some ashy stuff left behind on the bud when it burns it must not be good for the nail. Going to try the 73 micron here in a few minutes. Hopefully its full melt. Gonna get super baked and go plant some veggies in the backyard.

Ya bro the WIFI is so sugary it is perfect for bubble and BHO. Can't wait to get my bubble skills a little better so I can turn all of this killer trim into something special. Made a few separate batches of BHO a couple weeks ago using buds. One of WIFI, one was a blend of White Urkle and White Dawg, and the other was Guava 13. All 3 came into their own this week after a little cure and taste like candy.

 

[outwest]

Blaze - I'd like to use bud to make some bubble, I get the sense you recommend against it due to the lack of surface area. If I do want to use bud, is there a way to gently bread up to bud to expose surface area without losing a lot of trichs and making the plant material small enough to pass through the screens easily. Gracias.

outwest

 

[Blaze]

Fiskars or other scissors maybe? I don't use the main buds for this process. A grinder would break it up to be a little too small I think.

 

[outwest]

Thanks again, Blaze. I'll let you know how it goes.

outwest

 

[Bakeaked]

A friend of mine recently hired a large CO2 fire extinguisher and used the dry ice in that instead of normal ice. Yield was much higher the hash turned out blonde and very smooth to taste. The dry ice lasts 3 days so you can use for much longer. The hash was made from serious seeds original chronic strain. In short dry ice is the way forward with bubble hash and costs only 50quid to hire the extinguisher so try it out its a winner!!

 

[Dutchdaisy]

Layering bags in buckets is wrong and stupid, one bag at a time in it's own bucket, you'll need 3 total, Peace

 

[Dutchdaisy]

If you use wax paper you'll seal in the water and it will mold or burn hot, it's NOT suppose to bubble in the pipe, thats water and that's hot and harsh, dry it, remove all mositure and it will burn smooth with no bubble, that's water bubbling, the term bubble came from the process of making it not smoking it, Peace

 

[Blaze]

Uhh it's called bubble hash because it bubbles when you smoke it - even according the the person who invented the bubble bags. Not sure where you get your info but it is wrong on all accounts. If your water extracted hash doesn't bubble then you have crap hash, period. Usually I see that claim from people to justify their poor quality hash. You can thank the clubs and idiots like Matt Rize for putting out that bad info in order to push inferior products on consumers. Trichomes don't burn, they melt - thus if you have very pure bubble hash it will just melt and bubble away. One of the biggest issues I see is people over-drying the shit out of their bubble till it becomes hard, crumbly, and smokes like crap. Bubble hash must thoroughly dried obviously, but you want to be removing the extra water from the extraction process, not dehydrate the trichomes themselves as that will degrade them.

I've had several batches lab tested to confirm potency, lack of mold or mildew, and excess water. Came back clean and potent on all that was tested with no excessive water content. In fact mine was some of the most potent bubble hash the lab had ever tested - the chemist even though it was Earwax or some sort of chemical extraction when he first saw it.

Also doing a bucket for each bag is ridiculously time consuming, especially if you have more than three bags - which is almost always needed to make exceptional hash. Setting up 7 or 8 30 gallon trash cans for this process is just absurd. It also has no affect what so ever on the quality of the end product or the return so I really see no point in doing it that way - it just means extra work and materials. Why waste time and money on an extra step that does nothing?