I've made Ice Water Hash over 100 times over the years with various levels of success. I started in the 90s using a blender and coffee filters and now use a 15 gal RV washer and a 4 bag bubble bag set. Until recently I've only ever used dried trim. but I harvested a heat stressed plant early and tried my hand at making fresh frozen ice water hash and was very happy with the results! I started with about 630g of fresh frozen, mostly large, 3 week early buds....
​The 2 marbles in front rivaled what I've seen at Med Men in LA and other dispensaries!
But I was wondering about Dry Ice hash and what it would be like to enjoy the fruits of your labor the same day as harvest........... So when the other 2 AK47s were ready 3 weeks later, I gave it a go!!
On Tuesday I chopped and wet-manicured the 2 AK47s and put all the small and underdeveloped butd and wet trim in the freezer. Wednesday I took a ride over to Chilly Willy's amd picked up 10lbs (The minimum purchase and more than I needed) of dry ice.
I had 2 nearly identical 200g (The bags are 50g) bags of fresh frozen, mostly small and/or underdeveloped buds and trim to process....
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I put one of the bags in a 5 gal bucket with about 3lbs of fist-sized pieces of Dry Ice and stirred with a length of PVC pipe.....I put a lid on and waited 10 minutes for it to chill
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Then, I put the 73u bubble bag over the top.......
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I flipped over and gently shook the bucket over a black trim tray......It didn't take very long for the pure white trichs to start raining out onto the tray! I've never in my life seen sch clarity!!
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I repeated the process, with the 120u orange bag and the 220u work bag shaking until tired,changing bags only when the sitf stopped appearing on the black tray......The yield was beyond expectaion with 3 distinct qualities with one in the middle (73u bag) having the best clarity of anything I've ever seen anywhere!
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I could have pressed it right then, but I was out of time, so I threw it in the freezer and went down to the grow room clean up and made 2 unexpected discoveries: The first one, was that the Borderliner Extreme that was next to the sublimating Dry Ice was suddenly 6" taller! No shit!! The second, was a copious amount of quality hash still stck to the sides of the bucket! I added another 1.5g to the yield
So lets compare the two processes
Cost
Ice Water Method 3 x $3.89 10lb bags of Ice $12
Dry Ice Method 10lb bag of Dry Ice $22
While the cost is really not much of a factor here, Chilly Willys, the closest Dry Ice establishment is also a 20min drive each way making it much more of a pain in the ass to get than the 2 minute drive to the supermarket or gas station for regular ice.
Time
Ice Water Method Processing: including soak, chill, settling and collection times for 6 washes (2 batches) 5 hours Drying: 4 Days
Total: 101 Hours
Dry Ice Method Processing, including stirring, shaking, waiting and collection: 2 hours Drying: 1Day
Total: 26 hours
This is a no-brainer. Not only is it more than 3 days faster than the ice water method, it's so much cleaner with no messy freezing cold water, ice and slushy bud to clean up. The Dry Ice simply turns into vapor, leaving a bucket full of slightly damp bud material that's easily dried and made into butter
Yield
Ice Water Method: Starting Material:630g of fresh-frozen 3 week premature bud (large nugs)
3 Qualities,
Total Yield: 20.00g
Dry Ice Method Starting Material: 400g of fresh frozen, mostly smaller and under-developed bud and trim
3 Qualities
Total Yield: 22.27g
Not only did I yield 2g+ more hash from the dry ice method, I used a 3rd less starting material to get it ! The top-quality hash from the dry ice method was the whitest hash I'd ever seen and probably the best I've ever made
Rosin Yield
Ice Water Method: Starting Material:17g
2 Qualities,
Total Yield: 4g
Dry Ice Method Starting Material: 17g
3 Qualities
Total Yield: 3g
Here's where things started to go sideways..... I used a Nugsmasher Mini for the press and pressed all the first runs at 160f and 2nd and 3rd at 220f. I didn use press times as much as watchng for the resin to stop coming out. There are several variables here including starting material and bags. I used Nugsmasher bags with the Ice Water Method but switched to The Press Club bags for the Dry Ice Method due to a few blow-outs with the NS bags. It didn't matter, I still had blow -outs with TPC bags, but maybe one or two less due to the learning curve.......All the blow-outs were with the highest quality hash when pressed too hard. I used about 12 bags for pressing in both ice water and dry ice methods.
To be continued...
​The 2 marbles in front rivaled what I've seen at Med Men in LA and other dispensaries!
But I was wondering about Dry Ice hash and what it would be like to enjoy the fruits of your labor the same day as harvest........... So when the other 2 AK47s were ready 3 weeks later, I gave it a go!!
On Tuesday I chopped and wet-manicured the 2 AK47s and put all the small and underdeveloped butd and wet trim in the freezer. Wednesday I took a ride over to Chilly Willy's amd picked up 10lbs (The minimum purchase and more than I needed) of dry ice.
I had 2 nearly identical 200g (The bags are 50g) bags of fresh frozen, mostly small and/or underdeveloped buds and trim to process....
I put one of the bags in a 5 gal bucket with about 3lbs of fist-sized pieces of Dry Ice and stirred with a length of PVC pipe.....I put a lid on and waited 10 minutes for it to chill
Then, I put the 73u bubble bag over the top.......
I flipped over and gently shook the bucket over a black trim tray......It didn't take very long for the pure white trichs to start raining out onto the tray! I've never in my life seen sch clarity!!
I repeated the process, with the 120u orange bag and the 220u work bag shaking until tired,changing bags only when the sitf stopped appearing on the black tray......The yield was beyond expectaion with 3 distinct qualities with one in the middle (73u bag) having the best clarity of anything I've ever seen anywhere!
I could have pressed it right then, but I was out of time, so I threw it in the freezer and went down to the grow room clean up and made 2 unexpected discoveries: The first one, was that the Borderliner Extreme that was next to the sublimating Dry Ice was suddenly 6" taller! No shit!! The second, was a copious amount of quality hash still stck to the sides of the bucket! I added another 1.5g to the yield
So lets compare the two processes
Cost
Ice Water Method 3 x $3.89 10lb bags of Ice $12
Dry Ice Method 10lb bag of Dry Ice $22
While the cost is really not much of a factor here, Chilly Willys, the closest Dry Ice establishment is also a 20min drive each way making it much more of a pain in the ass to get than the 2 minute drive to the supermarket or gas station for regular ice.
Time
Ice Water Method Processing: including soak, chill, settling and collection times for 6 washes (2 batches) 5 hours Drying: 4 Days
Total: 101 Hours
Dry Ice Method Processing, including stirring, shaking, waiting and collection: 2 hours Drying: 1Day
Total: 26 hours
This is a no-brainer. Not only is it more than 3 days faster than the ice water method, it's so much cleaner with no messy freezing cold water, ice and slushy bud to clean up. The Dry Ice simply turns into vapor, leaving a bucket full of slightly damp bud material that's easily dried and made into butter
Yield
Ice Water Method: Starting Material:630g of fresh-frozen 3 week premature bud (large nugs)
3 Qualities,
Total Yield: 20.00g
Dry Ice Method Starting Material: 400g of fresh frozen, mostly smaller and under-developed bud and trim
3 Qualities
Total Yield: 22.27g
Not only did I yield 2g+ more hash from the dry ice method, I used a 3rd less starting material to get it ! The top-quality hash from the dry ice method was the whitest hash I'd ever seen and probably the best I've ever made
Rosin Yield
Ice Water Method: Starting Material:17g
2 Qualities,
Total Yield: 4g
Dry Ice Method Starting Material: 17g
3 Qualities
Total Yield: 3g
Here's where things started to go sideways..... I used a Nugsmasher Mini for the press and pressed all the first runs at 160f and 2nd and 3rd at 220f. I didn use press times as much as watchng for the resin to stop coming out. There are several variables here including starting material and bags. I used Nugsmasher bags with the Ice Water Method but switched to The Press Club bags for the Dry Ice Method due to a few blow-outs with the NS bags. It didn't matter, I still had blow -outs with TPC bags, but maybe one or two less due to the learning curve.......All the blow-outs were with the highest quality hash when pressed too hard. I used about 12 bags for pressing in both ice water and dry ice methods.
To be continued...
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