[Dropped Cat]

I run my buds/trim in the Cuisinart, couple pulses.

Increased yields and took less time.

[St. Phatty]

Originally Posted by illumin8100

Can someone please reply with the real reason you can't grind buds before bubble hash. I want to get as much as possible extracted from my mid buds that i plan on using. Like 3 0z total. I don't want edibles or don't like solvent based hash.... I'm just wondering why i cant put it all in a chopper prior to freezing then mash the hell out of it in the bags.....

People say you dont want to do that but it makes no sense to just get trichomes on the outside.

Who wants tiny pieces of stem or leaf in their concentrate ?

The point of Bubble Hash is to let the physics of the Cannabis buds & Cannabis Leaves do its magic. The fragile parts are also the parts that have the THC & other psycho active goodies, the trichomes.

The bubble hash process is designed to capture that goodness.

The rest of the bud is still useful. Time-wise it might be better to use a solvent.

[Hookahhead]

Originally Posted by St. Phatty

The point of Bubble Hash is to let the physics of the Cannabis buds & Cannabis Leaves do its magic. The fragile parts are also the parts that have the THC & other psycho active goodies, the trichomes.

The bubble hash process is designed to capture that goodness.

The rest of the bud is still useful. Time-wise it might be better to use a solvent.

Phatty is right. Bubble hash is a physical separation, not a chemical one. The idea is that you are knocking the bulbous trichromes off the plant, and then sift them out. By running your material in a grinder or food processor, you're already busting up those heads. This spreads the oils they contain onto the plant matter. You wouldn't notice any real difference in the quality if you smoke or solvent extract the plant matter at this point, but it will severely diminish your yields for bubble hash.

Busting your buds up also has a secondary effect of making it easier for chlorophyll to be extracted from the ruptured plant cells. This will result in a "greener" tasting product. You can probably rinse the wet hash with lots of plain water to remove this, but why add an extra step?

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Originally Posted by Hookahhead

Phatty is right. Bubble hash is a physical separation, not a chemical one. The idea is that you are knocking the bulbous trichromes off the plant, and then sift them out. By running your material in a grinder or food processor, you're already busting up those heads. This spreads the oils they contain onto the plant matter. You wouldn't notice any real difference in the quality if you smoke or solvent extract the plant matter at this point, but it will severely diminish your yields for bubble hash.

Busting your buds up also has a secondary effect of making it easier for chlorophyll to be extracted from the ruptured plant cells. This will result in a "greener" tasting product. You can probably rinse the wet hash with lots of plain water to remove this, but why add an extra step?

If you grind your material while its frozen and the trichomes are brittle then they just snap off at the neck instead of getting damaged and crushed like they do grinding at room temp. The resulting hash you get working on the ground stuff is noticeably greener than otherwise, but not too much more so. The volume of returns increases substantially, in the 250% range when I tried it with small buds and larf, and the greener, particulate laden stuff can be cleaned up further, squishing it in a rosin press is a good trick for that. I usually use the Cuisinart like Dropped Cat, that might even be who I learned it from. If you do the puritanical unmolested style then you end up with a good amount less weight of primo hash than you would squishing the ground material's hash to primo rosin.
The stuff in the photo is 20-220 micron or something like that.

[Hookahhead]

More experience and better evidence than I can provide... I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Originally Posted by Hookahhead

More experience and better evidence than I can provide... I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

I'm tried to be a fairly dedicated and well studied pothead for a somewhat long time now and its always very pleasing when someone acknowledges the fruits of my efforts, thank you, I hope it helps you out.

[White Beard]

I hear you arguing against the unmolsted, but your pic seems to show a much larger pile of it than of the ground...?

[Hookahhead]

PDX said in his post that the unmolested yielded LESS.

Originally Posted by PDX Dopesmoker

The resulting hash you get working on the ground stuff is noticeably greener than otherwise, but not too much more so. The volume of returns increases substantially, in the 250% range when I tried it with small buds and larf... If you do the puritanical unmolested style then you end up with a good amount less weight of primo hash than you would squishing the ground material's hash to primo rosin.
View Image

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Originally Posted by White Beard

I hear you arguing against the unmolsted, but your pic seems to show a much larger pile of it than of the ground...?

Yeah, both of those photos are close up pictures of freshly extracted hash while its still wet. Neither of them show the whole amount.
The other advantage of pre-grinding your stuff that I don't think I mentioned is that you can extract way more at the same time. A 10 gallon washer can fit maybe 2 pounds of untrimmed small buds if you stuff it, but if you had that same material all ground up you could easily do 6 pounds in the same run with no penalty. If you're looking at days and days of babysitting the washer and scraping out the bags and you'd rather do something else then grind that shit and be done in 1/3 the time.