If you live in America or Canada, you might not come across hash that much, as its more standard to smoke a dried version of the cannabis plant. In other parts of the world, however, like the mid-East, India, and into Europe, hash is often more popular, and some much prefer it. If you’re a hashhead, or looking to try it out, here are some general instructions for DIY hash in your own home.
DIY hash is one of the best ways to get a quality hash product, right in your own home, just the way you want it. Welcome to our independent news publication which specializes in the cannabis and psychedelics industries going on today. Be a part of it by signing up for THC Weekly Newsletter, which also puts you at the front of the line for offers on cannabis products, likes vapes, edibles, and other paraphernalia, along with cannabinoid products including delta-8 THC. We remind you, *cannabinoid products are not preferred by everyone, and we promote consumers to buy products they are comfortable with using.
What is hash?
The cannabis plant can be taken, dried out, and then smoked in order to gain psychoactive effects. For a lot of the world, this is exactly how it’s done. However, in some places, it’s not about the standard plant, but a compressed and processed version of it, called hash, or hashish. Hash is essentially the compressed resin glands of the plant, known as trichomes. The cannabinoids of the plant are housed within these trichomes, so hash is a concentrated version of these cannabinoids.
This resin, when compressed, forms bricks or slabs, that are softer or harder depending on the strain, and the amount of compression. It ranges in color from brighter yellow to darker red and black, and is somewhere between brittle and bendable in terms of consistency.
Hash is similar to kief, which is powdered trichomes that are usually collected via a mesh screen at the bottom of a bud container. Kief is a powdery substance of trichomes, while hash is the more condensed version. Hash is easily made by compressing kief until it becomes solid. This is as simple as rolling around kief in the hand, or squashing it in a sandwich bag. This is probably the easiest way to make hash, and some people save their kief for this purpose.
Hash is a popular (or the most popular) form of marijuana in many places like Morocco, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, India, and Iran. It’s usually smoked with a pipe or bong, used in edibles, vaped via a dab, or rolled with tobacco to make a spliff. Hash is accounted for in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the international drug treaty that regulates global cannabis legality. The line: “the separated resin, whether crude or purified, obtained from the cannabis plant”, refers to hash.
Hash has been a staple in several cultures, going back centuries, although when it first came about, and from where, are unknown in present day. The first use of the word ‘hashish’ in written history is its inclusion in a pamphlet published in Cairo Egypt in 1123 CE. This wasn’t necessarily a positive reference, and pointed at the Nizari Muslims as ‘hashish-eaters’. Hash has a long history in India and Nepal, where the local name ‘charas’ is used.
DIY hash
There are different ways to make hash, with the easiest listed above. Overall, the processing for hash is minimal, and unlike creating oils, tinctures, or edibles, requires very little in order to get to the final product.
DIY hash – The kief method
If you have a bunch of kief, and you want hash, just compress it until it reaches the consistency of hash you like, and voila, you’re done. It’s one of the simplest ways to do it, since kief already functions as an extract.
You also have the option of using a hash press. A hash press (pollen press) is a tool used to compress the kief into a solid hash brick. It’s usually a simple design whereby the kief is put in the devise, with a cap and plunger on the end, which is used to compress the kief down. Its left in place for an hour or more to get it to stay in shape. When using a press, you can decide how compressed you’d like your final product to be.
If buying a press seems extensive, there’s a poor man’s way to do it too. For this you just need a standard iron and parchment paper. Set the iron on low and put the kief within two layers of the paper, about ¼ inch thick. Iron it for 3-4 seconds at a time, and about 20 times over. Check in between to make sure the heat and pressure are right. When it’s how you want it, you’re done. Go ahead and smoke it!
DIY hash – Dry sift hash instructions
This is a standard and easy procedure that’ll net you some decent DIY hash. This method involves dry-sifting the weed, and requires different sized screens, preferably attached to boxes for collection. If boxes are not available, just make sure you’ve got some place for what’s coming through the screen, to go on the other side. The general process goes like this:
1 – Rub the plant material over the screen with the largest holes, until no more resin comes out. It’s expected that other unwanted plant material will also get through, since the holes are bigger to start with.
2 – Continue the process with smaller and smaller screens until the plant material has been sifted out, and you’re left with concentrated resin. That’s it. Not terribly difficult. It literally only involves rubbing the weed through successive screens until the most concentrated part is left.
3 – Smoke it!
DIY hash – Bubble hash instructions
There is another way to make hash, and it also makes use of the idea of cold. Cold has shown to be quite beneficial for cannabis plants, at the time of harvest, and for processing afterwards. Cold locks things in place, and keeps compounds from degrading, so if a plant is frozen immediately at the time of harvest, and/or kept cold through preparations, the final product is often stronger and more pure. This pertains to the making of bubble hash, though the weed does not have to be frozen first for this method. It’s just an added benefit.
For this method, a five gallon bucket, a large spoon for mixing, and bubble bags are required. Bubble bags are bags that offer different layers of filtration, much like the successive layers of screens used in the above method. Bags are used instead of screens because this method involves liquids. I’m putting basic instructions here, however, other steps and tools can also be employed. Check recipes for alternate approaches.
1 – Put the bag with the smallest micron filters in the bucket first, and then cover it with each successive sized micron bag. The one with the biggest holes should be on top.
2 – Fill the bucket with ice and weed. First a layer of ice, then a layer of weed, then another of ice, and another of weed, and so on until the top. Fill up as much as can be fit in the bucket without overflowing. The top layer must be ice, and not weed.
3 – Let it sit for a bit. You can even stick it all in a cooler for an hour or so. Everything must get cold.
4 – Stir. This might be difficult at first since you’re stirring ice within bags, but as the ice melts, it gets easier to stir. This agitates the material and removes the trichomes from the plant, so they can go through the successive layer of filters. Stir for 10-15 minutes, increasing speed. The more you agitate the plant matter, the more comes off of it.
5 – Strain it. As the ice melts, it brings the trichomes through the filters, which stop the plant material from getting through. Each bag should have less and less plant material as the filtration holes get smaller, and the bottom bag should only have resin by the end. Each layer makes for a different hash, with different amounts of plant material. You can decide which level you like the most, for the preparation of future batches.
6 – Smoke it!
Conclusion
There you have it, hash is one of the easiest concentrates you can make, and it doesn’t require dangerous chemicals, or processing techniques. Just get the appropriate tools together for your preferred method of extraction and compression, and you can have some solidly awesome DIY hash in just a few hours, or less. Check out other DIY instructions for gummies, tinctures, sweet treats, skincare products, tea, and oils. You can even check out guides for making your own CBN, and delta-8 THC, although we do not recommend the latter for novices.
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