Bubble bag hash making instructions

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

I was having trouble finding a step by step guide to using Bubble Bags on IC so I pulled my head out of my ass and went to the Bubble Bags page. All info below is copied from their page. I have posted the shorter simple directions but there are detailed directions on their page also.

Simple Directions

Detailed Directions

How to Make Ice Water Hash with your Bubble Bags™ - Simple Instructions

Note: If you are using an electric mixing device, we recommend mixing in a separate bucket before pouring the mixture into your Bubble Bags and allowing it to settle.
In addition to the Bubble Bag kit, you will need ice, water, a spoon (or a mixing device such as a hand mixer), a tea towel and a bucket (the size will depend on the kit used).
The original Bubble Bag system offers you eight layers of industrial grade filtration, which will allow you to extract the essential oils from almost any plant.

1. Line the bucket with your Bubble Bags, starting with the 25 micron bag and ending with the 220 micron bag.
   
2. Fill the bucket with enough cold water to cover the bottom of the Bubble Bags (about halfway full).
   
3. Add your dry or frozen plant trimmings.
   
4. Add enough ice to almost fill your bucket to the top.
   
5. Stir your mix for 15 to 20 minutes, adding ice if necessary. Then sit back for 30 minutes and let the Bubble Bags work their magic.
   
6. Pull out your Bubble Bags one by one, draining them into the bucket.
   
7. As you pull each Bubble Bag, turn it inside out after it is finished draining to collect your herbal extract.
   
8. Remove the excess moisture using the pressing screen and a tea towel, and use your new herbal extract!
   

 

[good drown]

very nice

 

[biglove]

Here's my method for bubble hash bro. I make it every month and have found that the method I describe below gets me the the best yeild of the highest quality hash.

Simply put, the more you mix, you will get more hash of reduced quality, if you mix less, you will yield less but the quality will be superior. Sorry I don't have pics and for the long read, but I think it's all important to great hash making.

Freezing the trim vs. using fresh trim... tried it both ways with the same leaf to find out once and for all which method produces better results and the hash you get back from freezing fresh leaf is WAY better than using unfrozen fresh leaf, and I mean it's as clear as the balls on a great dane.

right after all the buds are trimmed and I have a paper grocery bag full of leaf, I roll it up in the bag and freeze it immediatly and wait 24 hours. I then get a good size cooler and ice down 5 or 6 gallons of ro water (for a 5 gallon bag run) and get it martini cold. the cooler should have a plug for the drain hole that is attached instead of the screw on variety thats sprays too much water when you try to plug the drain hole with water still in the cooler (I do runs in my small kitchen so this feature is important but outdoors not so much) I put the ice water in the bucket with the bags and fill it with icy water from the cooler till its 3 or 4 inches above the bottom of the blue first bag. I then add my frozen leaf and icy water from the cooler til it's full then add a small top dressing of ice. wait ten minutes and then comes the most important part....

put on some long rubber gloves and agitate(sp?) the leaf with claw shaped hands, being careful not to rip or tear the leaf during mixing, til it foams up nicley, maybe 40 -60 seconds, then stop. wait 15 min, reach underneath the mound of floating mj and rotate the bottom to the top and mix, do it again. then one more time. after 45 min to an hour hang the first three bags with a rope and pulley and let it drip til it mostly stops dripping, maybe 10 min. then scrape. The pulley system of hanging the first 3 bags is essential because it saves you the time of standing there waiting for the bags to drain and u eliminate the frustration of waiting and then impatiently bouncing your bags to drain them, pushing debris into your hash that should be caught by the bags. By hanging the first three bags and letting them drip together, you assure the process of removing the debris you don't want to smoke happens efficiently while you smoke a bowl and do something else. Let the bags work for you w/o your impatience to finish the process getting in the way.


I've tried mixing by drill with drywall mixing attachments that is obviously easier than doing it by hand but what ive found that after mixing both ways, slowly and rapidly with the drill bit, the hash you get back is inferior to mixing by hand. If you try it both ways with the same leaf batch to see for yourself you will clearly see that hand mixing produces superior results in the final product.


After pulling all the bags you still have some some really clean mj water left in the bucket. It should look blondish and not green. Since resin falls when chilled in water, take a sauce pan and remove the top third of the water in the bucket then pour the remaining bucket water back into the cooler to use on the next new leaf run to catch anything still in the water. The amount of leaf I get fills a trader joes paper bag which is enough for 2 fresh leaf bubble runs. After I do the 1st batch of leaf I use the water from the first with a little fresh water to chill the 2nd fresh leaf batch. You catch more resin this way. After 2 rinses, I usually toss the twice used water in favor of fresh ro I use on the 2nd soaking, and I can use both previous fresh batches to make one big 2nd run cuz the leaf is already wet.

This method is a bigger pain in the ass than mixing with the drill and drywall bit but damn, I usually have to freeze the hash to remove it from the pressing screen, it's soft and very hard to handle without sticking to your fingers like glue, if that happens then u know you've done it right What happens during hash making is if you over mix, you get a lot back but inferior quality. I'm all about quality smoke so I do it the way I just described and I don't get a big yield, but I do get the besyt quality I can make and that's what I'm after I want to add that it's VERY important to freeze your leaf in a paper grocery bag(I love trader joes bags) because if you freeze trim in a plastic bag you will get green hash that doesn't taste or come out nearly as well, so remember, paper grocery bags are essential for freezing trim w/o damage. I've bought hash several times at dispensaries around town, $45 a gram sour d, gdp, etc and hash made with this method blows every dispensary hash Ive had right off the face of the earth. no comparison whatsoever, and that's not hubris talkin cuz I'm 100%confident you'll find it out for yourself when ya try it ;-)

To give myself a little more bucket space to work with I buy 2 five gallon orange home depot buckets and cut the top 11 inches off of one and put it on top of the other and seal it so I have a 5 gallon bucket with a couple extra inches of height and that allows the bags to hang independently of each other and give me a little extra space for more leaf. i found a regular 5 gallon bucket bunches up the screens on the bottom but and extra tall 5 gallon bucket pulls the screen of the last bag off the bottom of the bucket and allows nice separation of all 7 screens. I actually don't bother with the last purple bag, takes to long to drain and the hash seems to be worse than the white,yellow or orange bags, don't know why:/ but it's less bags to rinse off and dry and that's a plus. After I rinse out the bags after I'm done scraping, I roll each bag up in a beach towel, inside out too, and hang dry. If you rinse and dry the bags with a beach towel and then dry em the rest of the way by hanging em, you will extend the life of your bags.

Here's another treat I learned that's wonderful for joints....After scraping the bag of hash sludge, I take a rolling paper and dip it on the bottom of the bag til it soaks up to the sticky part of the paper, then gently stick the paper to the side of a spaghetti collander to dry. When it dries, roll a joint with it and it will burn exquisitly slow and evenly and add some octane to the doob. biglove rolling papers enjoy.

 

[simon]

Excellent posts, folks. I'm getting ready to make some bubble next week and this is very helpful.

Simon

 

[globel]

you should add to the end...

*Don't expect to much unless using 45 gallon bubble bags

 

[greengnome]

I am sorry but I can't help laughing at this post.

Laughing at hand mix only and clean water finish. What are you doing? lol.


I do not like to give to many tips on creation, to not have a bunch of flamers.

So here is a little story, did a batch, friend of mine says, oh mix gentle. Okay I did that, 2 batch, and ended with 3/4. He said that stuff not worth running again, I put the stuff out to freeze. A few weeks later, I get busy, I find, everyone including youtube is trying to show us how to do it wrong so we have poor results, well screw them. This is a chemical process that uses ice to freeze and nock free the things we want.

Moral to this story, I have since run what my buddy said not to , 2 more times, each time adjusting the way I do it.

5 minute spin yield. 10-11g
15 minute spin same batch yield 28g. < hahah so far 3rd run produced more than the first two runs. Intense spin, using dirty water. Hash taste a little crappy cause of dirty waster, but puts you on your ASS.

Did a 5th rinse on mixed mats, with super clean, fresh ice, fluffy mix, shattered material, spun like hell for 15. Produced a 1/2 again. Like wtf does this stuff ever stop??

QUALITY TESTED LAST 5th Run batch. 110% !!! little to no difference from the first hand mixed batch, other than about 80% more yield.


Dirty water, produces poor tasting hash and it will tend to look darker when cured.

Clean water per batch produces very nice tasting hash and will normally be lighter than the dirty batches, easily noticed.
Clean water also seems to produce a slightly larger yield because when settling the resin can sink to the bottom easier, and faster. (hint about mixture strengths)

My final advice, keep spinning until the material at the end is ridiculously not worth it.

If you want resin hash like the guy above made, why not just do a iso wash. There is a reason bubble hash is fun to do, if you do it right.

Last but not least, DOES THAT DIRTY WATER CONTAIN ANYTHING YOU WANT TO KEEP?
plant matter, if you like that green shit I guess, 100% that green water is all the stuff you do not want, and if you think your losing from pouring out your used water, guess again. What do you think those screens do @ 25 micron....

 

[Mikenite69]

Very nice info in this thread I am about to go and get some bubble bags right now from my recent harvest.

I have a couple of questions is it best to freeze the trim then let it dry out? Or just dry the trim then use it without putting it into the freezer any help will be greatly appreciated will be my first time trying to make bubble usually I just toss my trim.

 

[supermanlives]

I thought everyone already knew how by now lol. when draining slowass bag give it a full jerks and make it bounce or you will be waiting forever

 

[MJBadger]

and the hash you get back from freezing fresh leaf is WAY better than using unfrozen fresh leaf,

That is a good bit of advice , frozen stems on thrices snap better , that's the whole point of adding ice .
I see Bubblebags info has changed now , yrs ago it was place bags in bucket add water & ice & trim/bud & mix . I thought sod this , use another bucket to do all the mixing then pour into bubblebag simples .

 

[dontstepongrass]

fresh frozen trim is always best. try to have frozen for at least 24-48 hours before the run.

I use distilled water and always buy ice cubes with jagged edges and not smooth edges.

I let the water and ice sit in buckets for 30-45 minutes before the run begins so that the water gets as cold as possible.

I like to layer ice/material/ice/material/ice etc.

I use a boat oar to stir with (the handle flares out almost into "T" shape and is perfect for stirring 5 gal run)

I do not stack bags, I use one bag at a time. I usually have 3 or 4 five gal buckets with me for the run.

I do 10 minute stirs and 30 minutes of letting it settle.

always rinse bag u just used with cold water immediately after each sift (this helps keep bags clean for many runs to come)

spoon out wet hash and lay the hash patty onto some paper towel (sounds crazy, but it draws a lot of the excess moisture out almost immediately.) I have also dabbled with running hash patties thru kitchen strainer held over your cardboard. this breaks the hash up into smaller pieces for the final dry.

then there are other things I have incorporated into my method like piggy backing runs so I can have 2 runs going side by side. that was I can pull the sift from one run and rinse bag out and use it on the other run, all the way down the line. only really run into a bottleneck once I hit the 25 micron bag, since it is the slow drainer. really, I should buy a 2nd 25u bag to help alleviate this...


really, bubble making can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it. I just started with the basics and over time have tried different things to see if they benefitted me. some didn't and weren't repeated. many did and were tacked onto my ever changing methodology...

happy hash making

 

[zachrockbadenof]

only really run into a bottleneck once I hit the 25 micron bag, since it is the slow drainer. really, I should buy a 2nd 25u bag to help alleviate this...happy hash making

agree the 25 is slower then shit... n we have found that the end product of the 25 bag isn't as good as the 45/73/110...

 

[jayjayfrank]

depending on the type strain you grow the gland size will be different.

heavy indica strains like kush and afghani will have big long stalked trichomes in the range of 73-90 and even up to 120.

long flowering equatorial sativas will have small long stalked glandgular trichomes all the way down to the size of the 25 but mostly the 45 micron size

depending where you are making hash at on this planet it might be bet to have all the sizes in a kit, and simply omit the ones you dont feel are worth the time with the type of material being run.

 

[Hemphrey Bogart]

I like using fresh frozen trim too, although sometimes I use dry or slightly dry material...usually because I'm too lazy/tired after trimming to do it right away.

I mix either by hand or with a mixer...depends on the amount of material. Also, I mix with the 220 bag only in a separate 5 gallon bucket. I have another bucket with all the other screens in it ready to go.

Once I'm done mixing, I pull the 220 bag out (with the starting material and leftover ice) and put it in another bucket for the second run. I pour the water from the first run through the drain bucket that has all my screens in it.

The drain bucket has a big hole in the bottom of it so the water drains out fairly easily (at least at first). I usually set the bucket on some bricks over the drain on my patio. I let it drain and then pull the bags. I can always tell that I got a good run when it takes a while to drain, but I try not to bother it too much as it's draining.

I see oils on the top of the water and I like to think the oil is getting stuck on the hash instead of going down the drain with the water....I might swirl it around a bit, but I try not to move it too much so I can try to catch those essential oils!!

Rinse and repeat.

HB.