Super Low yields. Buds that won't drop/let go of trichomes

My yields are super duper small and I don't know what's going on. This most recent time I used buds and I was hoping that using full buds instead of trim/larf was going to make a difference in my yields...but it hasn't (at least not drastically). I feel like I'm wasting a lot of good herb that could be smoked.

I haven't actually weighed anything out but just from an estimation of this most recent time I used around 3 to 4 ounces of resinous sticky/oily buds that are packed full of trichomes and after more than an hour of washing I ended up with around only 1.5g of hash. (good quality hash tho, melty/oily under heat)

I broke the buds down into pieces about the size of a small marble or comparable to a dime & penny in diameter. I let the buds soak in ice water for more than an hour before I start to wash them, and even after soaking for that long the buds were still dry on the inside when I would break them open. I've heard of people letting the buds pre-soak & hydrate for 15 to 20 to 30 minutes before but never an hour, and my buds are still dry after that long.

I washed/agitated for more than an hour and even after that long (1+ hour of soaking and 1+ hour of washing) most of the buds were still totally dry and packed full of trichomes on the inside. And even on the outside of the buds many of the trichomes were still intact.

I've tried agitating & stirring the water more vigorously/aggressively but that doesn't really make any difference. I'm using plenty of ice and the water is as cold as it gets, and I'm doing it all outdoors at night when it is around 40 degrees or cooler out so the ice in the water doesn't even melt much.

It is the same for every strain I've used and I've washed somewhere around 5 or 6 different strains so far over the past 3 years (I'm using stuff from my outdoor plants). I've noticed a difference in the quality of the hash between the strains but no drastic difference in yield.

I run the wash-water though the 220, 120, 45, 25 bags...The 45 is always where 90%+ of the material is.

I'm thinking about letting the buds soak & hydrate in ice water overnight for 10 to 12 hours and then trying to wash them for 3+ hours. I've just never heard about anyone having to do that. I've heard some folks wash for only 10 to 15 minutes (2 to 3 times) and up with tremendously more hash than I do.

I've seen people wash like 14g of buds for 30 minutes then run the water through a few small 1-gallon bags and end up with more hash than I'm getting from 75gram of dank buds washed for more than an hour.


Has anyone else experienced this or heard about this happening?

Are most strains just not ideal for making bubble hash even if they are frosted with trichomes & resinous? And only certain genetics/strains will "drop/let go of their trichomes?







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A pocket scope is very helpful. You can determine the size of the stalk to the size of the head.

From your yield per micron, I'd say either the plant produces small tight trichomes or the harvest is early.

I am also trying to make hash from buds and it's not working out great. I'm also having low yields because the trics inside the buds never gets knocked off.


I tried mixing water, ice and buds in my Vitamix. Made an awesome slushy (LOL) but when I made the hash, it was full of fine debris (as was expected).


I also tried letting some buds soak for 2 or 3 days. They absorbed more water every day but they retained a ton of air bubbles inside. I would squeeze and squeeze like a sponge but bubble would just keep coming. LOL


Even soaking wet, it would take a lot of agitation to break these buds apart. These things are about popcorn size and as tight as a prisoner's asshole.


I soaked some buds and froze them, hoping they would break apart like ice but..... no go. LOL


I don't especially want to grind all this pot by hand. And, I understand grinding is bad when making bubble hash.


I am all ears here. I am getting reading to go on a long trip and I want to turn about a pound of flower into hard hash to make it easier to take with me. Unfortunately, most of it is tight buds and it's just not working out.


I did freeze some buds and dry sifted them. The yield was much better than water (as was the quality) but the buds were still unbroken and full of oil inside.


Again, I'm all ears.




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If your making bubble hash there are a few things you need to remember.



Step 1: Let your buds soak in Super cold water for an hour or 2, with a tiny bit of ice so it keeps the water cold. You dont need to agitate yet. ( i always put buds in deep freezer before anything )


Step 2: Add Enough ice on top of your material to cover, and keep the water cold, but you do not want to add so much ice it stops the water from moving.

Step 3: Do 3 washes.... Always do the first wash with 5-10 mins of mixing. Second do 15ish mins. Last wash i always do a longer one of 45 mins. (IF you let your buds soak for a long time, you will not get that much plant material)



Make sure, IF YOU ARE GETTING A SMALL YIELD, you use a 25 micron bag at the end. I have a feeling you have super small tricomes because i can safley say 90% of the bud on the market today is cut 2-3 weeks too early. Socal buds are nice, but everyone cuts them too cloudy and it looks like a heavy yield but they never let it finish maturing.





Also, you should test different bags for your preference. I have an 8 bag 5 gallon setup from Zen Hydro (works ok). Personally i only use all 8 bags on my LAST wash. For my first and 2nd wash i personally only use 3 bags. 25 Micron, 73 Micron, and 120 Micron. I use the 150 micron to hold bag material.

I like to use the 73 over the 90 because i collect all the 90 in the 73, and it makes a really tasty smoke. 25 micron is usually my least amount but i do get a really fine ball from that micron.



I personally like to HAND mix because you get a better washing machine effect.




REMEBER, YOUR NOT TRYING TO BREAK THE TRICS OFF THE PLANT. THEY WASH OFF WITH THE MOTION OF MOVING WATER SO YOUR PLANT MATERIAL DOES NOT GET MIXED WITH IT. Create a strong vortex one way, then the other. I can post a video if you like....




FREEZE THE BUDS BEFORE YOU START MIXING

nephrosis said:

If your making bubble hash there are a few things you need to remember.



Step 1: Let your buds soak in Super cold water for an hour or 2, with a tiny bit of ice so it keeps the water cold. You dont need to agitate yet. ( i always put buds in deep freezer before anything )

Click to expand...

I always let my buds soak/hydrate before washing, I explained this in my original post of the thread. This last time I let the buds soak for an hour before I started to wash. Even after soaking for an hour the buds were still 100% dry on the inside when I would break a bud open.

Step 3: Do 3 washes.... Always do the first wash with 5-10 mins of mixing. Second do 15ish mins. Last wash i always do a longer one of 45 mins. (IF you let your buds soak for a long time, you will not get that much plant material)

Click to expand...

If I only wash for 5 to 10 minutes I end up with basically nothing at all in the bags. The last time I washed for over an hour and still didn't have much hash to collect.

Even after washing for over an hour most of the trichomes are still intact on the buds, and when I break a bud open it is still dry on the inside and packed full of trichomes.

Make sure, IF YOU ARE GETTING A SMALL YIELD, you use a 25 micron bag at the end. I have a feeling you have super small tricomes because i can safley say 90% of the bud on the market today is cut 2-3 weeks too early.

Click to expand...

I'm not using buds "on the market", I'm using buds from plants that I grew myself and they weren't harvested early.

IME the 25 bag might sometimes be loaded with material but it is not composed of trichomes heads, it is mostly fragments are trichome stalks and other bits of plant material. I have no interest in low quality hash so I toss all the wash water after it's gone through the 45 bag.

Personally i only use all 8 bags on my LAST wash. For my first and 2nd wash i personally only use 3 bags. 25 Micron, 73 Micron, and 120 Micron. I use the 150 micron to hold bag material.

Click to expand...

I use the 220 as my work bag which filters the bulk of the bud material, then the 120 (which only collects some small plant fragments), then into the 45 which is where all of my prime hash ends up, then I dump the rest of the water since the 25 bag is usually muck/garbage.

For myself, the 45 bag catches the most material and also holds the highest quality hash. The 90 and 73 have virtually none, at least with the strains/batches I've ran so far (I know those bags ends up with primo stuff for some people).

I personally like to HAND mix because you get a better washing machine effect.

REMEBER, YOUR NOT TRYING TO BREAK THE TRICS OFF THE PLANT. THEY WASH OFF WITH THE MOTION OF MOVING WATER SO YOUR PLANT MATERIAL DOES NOT GET MIXED WITH IT. Create a strong vortex one way, then the other. I can post a video if you like....


FREEZE THE BUDS BEFORE YOU START MIXING

Click to expand...

I hand mix as well.

I'm fully aware of the concept of making hash and fully aware of washing with a vortex.

And I have frozen my bud before washing on one occasion (it didn't make much of a difference in yield at all)





My issue is that the trichomes are not getting broken off/dropping off the buds...even after soaking for an hour and even after being washed/agitated for more than an hour most of the trichomes are still intact on the buds and the insides of the buds are still dry and packed full of trichomes...When I pull a small bud out of the buckets and break it open it is still dry on the inside and packed full of trichomes, even after being washed around vigorously in ice water for more than an hour.

Looking at a bud under the scope after it's been stirred/washed in ice water for more than an hour and it is still caked/frosted with trichomes. This is why I've considered washing for 3 to 4 hours or more, because the trichomes don't break off my buds easily at all. The buds are still frosted with trichomes even after washing for an hour.

Some of the hash I've got has been pretty good quality and melts into an oil under flame, but my yields are extremely tiny....from several ounces of dank frosted buds I'm only getting a tiny marble of hash, maybe a gram or two at the very most.

I feel like I'm wasting a bunch of good flower...I could have rolled up 75+ joints with the buds I used to make that hash, but I ended up with only like a bowl or two worth of hash from those buds. (even after washing them for an hour)




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Some strains just suck for hash and are better with solvents/rosin.

Typically under the scope you'll see stalks as thick as or thicker than the head.

Mikell said:

Some strains just suck for hash and are better with solvents/rosin.

Click to expand...

That's something I've wondered about. If some strains, even if they are extremely frosted/resinous and caked with a dense layer of trichomes, just don't make good hash because their trichomes won't break off the buds..?...

So far from what I've seen, it seems like MOST strains suck for hash.

I washed like 6 different strains so far and all of them have not given me much a yield at all, like around 1% to 2% yield at the most...I've washed Slymer (extremely frosted/resinous buds), Thin Mint (very resinous), Frosted Cherry Cookies, South Fork Kush, Lemon Wookie Glue (tons of terps/resin), and a few other random strains....

...All of the buds I use are dank and frosted with trichomes, but the trichomes just don't seem to break off the buds easily and stay intact even after washing for an hour or more. Over all the years I've been into cannabis I've just never heard of this happening to anyone.

One time I tried to wash/agitate/swirl the buds around in the ice water extremely aggressively, I was stirring it super intensely and vigorously to see if that made any difference...but it didn't, the buds were still covered in trichomes and they were still dry and totally untouched on the insides.

Typically under the scope you'll see stalks as thick as or thicker than the head.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by this?

Is having stalks as thick or thicker than the head a desirable trait for making hash?

Are there certain traits/signs to look for that shows a bud/strain is ideal for making hash? I always figured any bud that is caked with trichomes would be ideal, but apparently that's no true.

Do you know of any strains/genetics off the top of your head that are great for making hash?

Thanks for your input, appreciate it.





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It's like this good buddy... When I look at hashish capitals in this world, their plants look nothing like ours, especially what is grown indoors. Then again, they may grow 1K plants for a 100oz yield. Yield for hashish is 10-20%

Thicker stacks can have thicker connections to the trichome but this is not a rule.

Most modern strains look frosty but get in close and it's a different picture. Use a scope and you'll just see a mess of spaghetti stalks with the odd trichome head. Breeding for frost with the naked eye was a stupid plan from day one. You need a good pocket or digital microscope to see how fucked they made things.

Constant.concentrates and erik.nugshots on IG do a lot of macro. Check them out.

I would go for older types from the 90s and 00s. There's a few people breeding for hash but I can't recall the names off hand.

I run the wash-water though the 220, 120, 45, 25 bags...The 45 is always where 90%+ of the material is.

Click to expand...

I use the dry ice/dry sift method with a lot of success but in the past I had success with making ice hash. Strange your resin glands are so small, it makes me think something's off. A lot of strains have greasy sticky resin vs dry resin which tends to stick to the plant matter and the screen. Cold usually eliminates this problem but it doesn't always work. I'd try a smaller screen, or something to catch all the small particles so you can check them out under a loup or microscope.

When I know I'll be making hashish I let the plants go to full maturity, swollen calyxes and resin glands. Not overripe/100% cloudy but I make sure it's done. Then I hang it for over a month, 4-6 weeks at cold temperatures. 60-65 degrees F for 7-10 days to get them dry then below 60 for the rest of the time. Those temperatures can vary some, doesn't have to be perfect. The resin breaks off the flower a lot easier when it ages like that. You can also break the flower down through a screen, for instance a metal kitchen sieve or a screen for sifting dirt. You don't want to break it down like in a blender because you'll break down the leaf matter and smush the resin, but breaking the buds down so they have more surface area is a good idea. Gently, you don't want them to smear.

I'd be wary of washing for a long period of time, at a certain point they're either going to drop their crystals or not. I've found the plant matter will break down before the resin does in those situations, stick to the resin and reduce yield. When I dry sift if I run it longer to 'get all the resin' I end up getting more leaf instead. The leaf particles will break down to your screen size the same size as your resin.

Getting shut out when you're making hash sucks, few things are more frustrating. Hope you work it out. Best thing you can do is get a strain with big dry crystals. I remember White Russian was a good one, at least 20 years ago. It was surprising because the smoke was stony but nothing special but it had huge silver resin glands with a smooth sweet hash taste. To this day it's probably the best yielding hash plant I've ever made hash with. Gorilla Glue is an obvious one. 88G13HP is a good one, it seems to be in a lot of crosses, the resin is dry and the glands tend to be round and want to break off the stalk. You want plants with raised, long stalks as opposed to ones with short stalks that stick in with the plant matter. For instance I was looking at pictures of the strain Slurricane, my friend was talking about it as a hash plant so I looked it up. I don't know anything about the strain but the pictures looked like what you should be looking for, what I keep in mind when I'm looking at potential strains.

I just finished my run and I am pretty happy with the end results. You might try what I did.....

The first wash is always gentle and quick. I always do that just to get the cream. Yields are not usually real high but quality is amazing. Albeit, I usually used scrap and trim, not buds.

The second wash was nice but the third dropped off quickly in terms of yield. Usually, I would stop here. I seldom do more than 3 washes on trim and leaves. However, like you, a lot of the buds were still unbroken and definitely not done yet.

So, I tossed it in for a 4th wash and I used my wife's electric kitchen mixer. On all previous washes, I used a simple soft rubber spatula and stirred it by hand. I used one of those little 5 gallon washing machines for years but I sold everything I owned last year to move to SoCal. The Corona Party put a quick halt to that just as I was leaving and now, I am short on many of the tools I have used for years while I wait to move (this Summer)

Anyway, I used the electric mixer and mixed real hard with the mixer on medium and high most of the time. I mixed for 6 or 7 minutes, I'll bet. Maybe more.

When I pulled the bags, I was amazed. The yield was incredible and, believe it or not, the amount of debris was no different than the previous batches. I can only assume that since the buds were so soaking wet from the 3 previous washes, that the mixer ripped and shredded the buds rather than powdering them into dust like what happened when I tried to grind them dry.

In the end, I did 7 washes with the electric mixer!!! I could watch yield taper off with each wash but the quality was staying very consistently good. And, the buds were being broken up. Even the rock hard little popcorn buds.

It's all dried and pressed, now. I was happy with the yield and very happy with the quality. I started with 125 grams of flower. I ended up with 15.9 grams of hash. Better than 12%. Not great but not bad. However, every single drop is full melt (except the 160, of course). I used a different bag selection than I normally use. I used a 220u as my work bag and then use 160, 90, 45 and 25. The quality is unbelievable. I am very happy with that.

Here is a pic of what I ended up with. The 4 columns from right to left are 160, 90, 45 and 25. The rows from top to bottom are, first row, first wash pressed all alone. Second row is washes 2 and 3. The third row is everything AFTER the electric mixer (washes 4 through 7). I kept the hand mixed and the power mixed separate in case there was a difference. There was not. I was very surprised about that. Like I said, it's all full melt. I may actually grab another 4 ounces of buds and do this again.

I will definitely use this bag sequence again. The bulk of the quantity was also the bulk of the quality (45u).

The stuff on the bottom of the picture is scrapings from the glass and the pressing screen and samples. Also, when I was sorting and removing stems, I used a screen over glass and much of that is dry sift hash. It all came from the same 125 grams starting material but that little bit on the bottom is dry sift and samples, scraps, etc.

I got 2.5 grams in that little group. Only 0.64 grams of 160, which is great because the 160 is not very good. The 90u yielded only 1.47 grams but the 45 yielded a whopping 7.7 grams. 25u was another 3.59 grams.

I'll be sampling this now and then but most of this is intended to go to SoCal with me. I don't want to travel with a lot of pot but a little baggie of hash and a jar of rosin should hide pretty well.

Sorry for the long post, LOL but in summary.... try an electric mixer to knock off those stubborn trics and break of those bud without powdering them and getting a bunch of debris.

Good luck.




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Is the thing with the wooden handle the press blocks? You use a rosin press to squeeze?

Looks delicious. Good luck making it to the beach Mr. Ringodoggie. May your future be bikinis, boobs, and good waves.

Thanks for the good wishes. It's exactly what I'm planning. LOL

The wooden thing is a pipe with a flip-open lid. I roll the hash with a glass jar filled with hot water. Frenchy Canolli style.

This is so tasty. I love to smoke hash.

Thanks again.






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I used about 3lbs of bud and I pretty much wasted the entire thing due to the plant itself having super small tricomes. Good thing i saved all my water and sifted the end... i was able to get something decent for edibles but my yeild on 3 lbs of DRIED BUDS was trash (like 30 grams)

Hey Organilush. As some people said before and you suggested, not all the strains are good for making water hash, but some of them even not yielding so much give a very good quality, the thing of hash is keeping the organoleptic qualities and tossing the green stuff that taste weird. Anyway, if you dont want to toss 75 grams just put 5 or 10 in a glass jar and agitate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNsqpqcnhc

Regards.