Experimental results: Massive yield increase via frozen grinding

PDX Dopesmoker · Feb 20, 2017

Running dried, untrimmed lower buds we took some of the batch and froze it overnight & then bashed it in a food processor directly out of the freezer hoping to hit the trich heads while they're brittle.
From the food processor it went directly into the ice water for extraction via bubble bags.
Comparing this technique to just putting the dried material in the ice water for extraction we got 238% more return (average of two tests). Macro photos of the material reveal a slightly increased, but still very small amount, of green particulates.

Via the modern miracle of rosin making, the bashed up stuff is going to end up yielding substantially more in melty concentrates than the higher head percentage stuff does as pressed hash.
That all being said, it makes me kind of wonder why we didn't just press the bud directly? That would get the max overall yield and save all the work with the bubble bags and the wait time for drying out the hash.

mack 10 · Feb 25, 2017

238% more yield.
I gotta try this.
What was your actual yield and any dry pics of the hash.

PDX Dopesmoker · Feb 25, 2017

That material isn't dry yet so we don't have any final numbers or dry pics, but I can tell you that using the frozen smashing technique I've pulled more than 25% from trimmed bud doing dry sifting without having the final sifted material being too green.

Dropped Cat · Feb 26, 2017

Here's a yield from a small batch of Zamaldelica blender style:

Made from well cured stash, frozen, then mixed in a blender with some
ice cubes and ice water.

Strained with a canning funnel through 74micron mesh, then dried on
some parchment paper.

Next batch will be done in an ultrasonic parts cleaner, no mashing steel blades, lol

Good stuff

Quiet_Riot · Mar 2, 2017

It's well known that freezing herb and then grinding and sifting yield a lot more. Looks good

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 3, 2017

Quiet_Riot said:
It's well known that freezing herb and then grinding and sifting yield a lot more. Looks good

Thanks, I've been doing the frozen grinding thing when the situation calls for it for year & wouldn't be surprised to find out that I learned about it originally on this board. This is just the first time I've gotten an opportunity to quantify the benefits in head-to-head runs using the same starting material.
What really exiting about it & is another new wrinkle this time is the rosin aspect. As it turns out, our material when ground and run for bubble hash returns about 10% more in ass-kicking, pressed-from-trich-heads, super tasty rosin pull&snap than it returns as when run unground for sticky, melty, black hash.

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 16, 2017

I got more exact numbers a couple days ago: After the higher-particular hash was turned into rosin we got a 14% increase in weight of final product as compared to making better quality hashish from unmolested starting material. The final product of making hash from the unground material is black sticky hashish which isn't quite full melt, probably in the 4-5 star range, it tests at 52% THC, which is lower than the average test result for decent rosin by a good fraction. I can safely estimate that by adding the grinding step and the rosin step to our process we've increased our final overall yield of THC molecules by more than 50%.

Dropped Cat · Mar 16, 2017

+1 for sticky, melty, black hash.

Mikell · Mar 16, 2017

Pictures of the rosin?

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 16, 2017

Mikell said:
Pictures of the rosin?

I have those, but they're just jpeg flavored.

Mikell · Mar 16, 2017

Looks good, better than many of the uncrushed hand spun flower runs I have browned off into black soup. Tasty usually, but hilariously unappealing to the eye.

If this was hypercritical Instagram wherein customers who look at producer feeds somehow become one, I would say something cutting about the colour and that fleck of whatever.

But we aren't losers, so pass.

I love to hate on IG yet waste a good amount of time on it.

You are lightly pulsing the processor? I have a RoboCoup I can steal/borrow. What model did you use?

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 16, 2017

Yeah I can press that rosin out as thin as you want and back light it if you think a paler colored photograph will result in a higher THC%.

I pour the untrimmed flower into the cusinart out of a bag from the deep freeze. I then start the cuisinart as soon as its full of bud and then rush to put the bag back in the freezer before it warms up too much. By the time I've got the bag of bud back in the freezer the bud in the food processor is green sand.
RoboCoup is fine too, probably better. Another great thing about food processing the stuff is I can get about three times as much mass of cannabis in the washer at once, thats a huge time saver.

Mikell · Mar 16, 2017

If you want to increase THC further, work air into the rosin like candy. Really bumps up the hettiness.

I find it amusing watching the black hash "gurus" breakdown and buy a freeze dryer. I don't think Frenchy will but Cherry may. The amount of flack they get is mindboggling, especially as few of the "poop soup police" have done anything but buy concentrates.

Thanks for the rundown, I'll give it a shot soon.

Dropped Cat · Mar 17, 2017

I will try this dry pulverize method, but will use a stick blender
as I don't have much material to fill my squeezen art.

Good stuff

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 19, 2017

Mikell said:
If you want to increase THC further, work air into the rosin like candy. Really bumps up the hettiness.

I find it amusing watching the black hash "gurus" breakdown and buy a freeze dryer. I don't think Frenchy will but Cherry may. The amount of flack they get is mindboggling, especially as few of the "poop soup police" have done anything but buy concentrates.

Thanks for the rundown, I'll give it a shot soon.

Something is happening to the hash as it dries out and changes color. It wouldn't be changing color if there wasn't some sort of chemical reaction happening, so its not necessarily the case that the effort put into making pale rosin or pale water hash is strictly superficial, the color shit might affect flavor or some other significant factor. Plus the pale stuff is neat to look at. The other thing is the price it fetches, sounds like the freeze drying gear pays for itself after you sell your first 10 grams.

I soak my apple slices in lemony water before I put them in the drier to help them keep their color, maybe adding an insignificant amount of critic acid to the hash water can do the same job as the freeze dryer.

Mikell · Mar 19, 2017

Interesting note on citric.

I see references of 0.5-3% concentration. Seems rather harmless to try it out.

I am also looking to remove or reduce the hash flavour that has muddled every batch I make.

GreatGardener mentioned that drying hash above dry ice will give a similar result as a freeze dryer, as the vapour is 0%RH.

Seems worth a shot when I have the time to try it.

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 22, 2017

Drying in an oxygen free atmosphere might be a another way to do it without the freeze dryer or critic acid. I ran the critic acid idea by one of the local dab celebrities last night at the weed club and he said the idea of dabbing lemon juice sounded bad.

The Hermit · Mar 30, 2017

Definitely going to have to try this out, I've got a couple of bags of frozen buds from the same plant in the freezer, It'll be an interesting experiment. I've always shied away from grinding, purely from fear of contamination/green hash. Your results have definitely piqued my interest, great work PDX!

Mikell said:
I find it amusing watching the black hash "gurus" breakdown and buy a freeze dryer. I don't think Frenchy will but Cherry may.

I'm pretty sure frenchy has one already, he was singing their praises at spannabis, definitely a convert.

Nice tip on the dry ice btw, that's one to remember, thanks.

Mikell · Mar 30, 2017

Yes that was pointed out to me. I believe he then cures it to a brown/black... monkey with a computer.

I should have some result soon, we are almost inbetween crops. Or I'll nap my free time away again.

PDX Dopesmoker · Mar 31, 2017

The Hermit said:
Definitely going to have to try this out, I've got a couple of bags of frozen buds from the same plant in the freezer, It'll be an interesting experiment. I've always shied away from grinding, purely from fear of contamination/green hash. Your results have definitely piqued my interest, great work PDX!

I'm pretty sure frenchy has one already, he was singing their praises at spannabis, definitely a convert.

Nice tip on the dry ice btw, that's one to remember, thanks.

If the secret Skunkman sift purifying tech even becomes public it might be possible to go directly from the food processor to 99% pure heads pretty swiftly with very large return rates. Why remove the filth from dirty kief when you can remove the dirt directly from the crushed bud instead? Until then the frozen bashing of buds to make hash with higher return rates doesn't seem to add so much contaminant to the hash that it makes the increased return rate worthless. The particulate fraction might go up 10% or so this way, but not too much more than that.

Experimental results: Massive yield increase via frozen grinding

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