Hash talk

[Gingerbeard]

If y'all go back and check your notes, I do not have the connoisseur gene a lot of y'all have. And y'all might have highlighted the part where I do not enjoy combusting my dope to get fncked up.
Well, there's a new chapter where Gingerbeard found out about 3+ year old hash. It tastes like pure marijuana. No limonene or pinene or any of the other terpenes people call out. It's just one amazing taste. A little goes a long way. Vaporizing in the bowl. No cherry until the end.
I have not been stoned in quite a while, it seems. Good and proper stoned. Expanding head and wondering if I have enough hair and beard to fill in the expansion so I don't go looking all balding sort of stoned. Not high. You stick to high with your friends at parties because you don't want to make an asshole out of yourself by losing facial function and verbal communication. I ain't saying I'm paranoid, but if buddy Robert comes over, there might be a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sort of moment.

[ScottyHill]

Letting the hash dry properly before pressing makes a big difference. If it's too wet, it can be harder to work with and won’t press as nicely. Keeping everything cold helps too.

[Gingerbeard]

There's pressing and there's pressing. There's using a hand screwed pollen press, and there's using a rosin press. Way different products. Rosin is way less forgiving than hand screwed hash.
In my case, and I didn't even mention where I found the hash, it was backed up in my pollen press from years ago when I had occasion to press kief. If I remember correctly, there was water in the press. That's probably what made the hash squeeze pass the press plate and cylinder.

[Gingerbeard]

A recap.
The process was dissolving ice water hash in 200 proof ethanol, filtering, and submersing the filtered ethanol solution in ISO and dry ice for an hour. At the end of the hour, the ISO was cold enough to be gelatinous and had all but stopped boiling. The ethanol solution in the jar was cold maple syrup and filtered one more time. The final filtered ethanol sat on a double boiler setup to boil off the ethanol. This is the second time I've done the process.
My first attempt at this made something much less viscous. This time I got something liquid enough to be sucked up in a de-needled insulin syringe and squirted into a vape pen cartridge. The difference in viscosity might be the amount of time spent dewaxing in the dry ice and ISO.
There was also a carbonation thing. For a full two days at room temperature, agitating the liquidized hash produced bubbles. The first picture is five minutes after transferring to the jar by scooping and dripping.
Second picture is the mound of powdered plant matter that got filtered in the first filter. Don't hate my picture quality. Second filter got a little contaminated so I'm not 100% sure what that took out.

[dirtymike]

When can you dab it. Does it also have to cure?

[Ckbrew]

Look who is becoming a lab rat. Good work.

[Gingerbeard]

First dab was directly from the double boiler to check for excess ethanol sizzle and cough. There was no sizzle and no cough so the plate came off the heat and went to room temperature. It sat for a day before transfer to see if it would settle the carbonation. It took another bit in the final jars before settling.
Maaan... that curing thing is a question. I mean, is it possible to stop curing without freezing? Rosin is heat pressed through a filter but cold cured. I've seen distillate temperatures can go over 400°. Live resin is pretty much sub-zero throughout the process. Hash is heat pressed, unfiltered. What of those things cure and why do they or do they not cure in their extracted form?
Marijuana does not produce THC, it produces THC-A, yeah? It is not until heat and/or time are applied to the THC-A that it becomes active. Does THC-A cure but not THC? Or say whatever compounds cure? Does heat or cold stop curing? Do solvents?
I guess time is going to tell me if this stuff gets better with age. With all my ginger I am going to store at least a gram in the fridge for a month and a gram in a cupboard to see if anything changes. It's me against my willpower.

[Gingerbeard]

Buuuuutttt... when an extreme temperature or solvent is used to make an extract, what happens to the natural curing?

[Bluey]

What's natural curing?

[Gingerbeard]

Natural curing. Just a plain-ol' bud sitting in a jar, naturally curing. Dry sift trichomes. Unheated. Uncooled. Unstripped.
Extracts are unnatural. From -100° to 400°+ and Ethanol and all the other -tanes. What stops curing? Is there a point where the little trichome says, 'Well, that about does it for me! I'm cured. Can't get no more cured than the cured I am. Thanks for the comfortable environment.'