Tutorial How to Make Full Melt Dry Sift!!! photo essay

bubbleman said:

I have definitely checked out traditional screening methods from those countries Frenchy, but believe it or not they surely have not been doing it for 1000's of years. If you read Rob Clarke's Book HASHISH, you will learn that Morroco only produced Kief, a tobacco and herb mixture pre 1960's. Not until the Nigerian " mustafa" showed up with Lebanese screening technique's did Morocco start producing half of the worlds hashish.

I would also add, that with as many years as they have been doing this world wide, it wasnt until recently that we started showing people how to isolate these gland heads from the rest of the plant matter on the same level as Water Hash. Which makes it easy for anyone to isolate the glands from the plant matter. Dry sifting is a whole other level, and really the amount of people that can regularly produce the 99% pure gland head sift, is a very small number of people.. but slowly gaining popularity, as people learn the techniques we have been sharing.!!!

Click to expand...

To be fair Frenchy did also mention Afghanistan. Concerning Old-collection carpet style techniques, the use of silks, Milk of Mazar/resieved etc. If the Sufis had been hanging onto techniques when the hippies showed up its a safe bet the practices had been going on for too long, taking into account cultures isolated from occidental influence.

In 1453, the Grocers’ Company of London was entrusted with the King’s Beam, officially weighing all goods sold by the Aver-de-Poys weight or the peso grosso. It was also charged with the duty of garbling, or preventing the adulteration of spices and drugs. Garbling is sifting, sorting, cleaning, separating, and culling to remove physically unwanted soil, dirt, etc., or separate particles by size and/or quality.

Seems the west was late to the party, as the spice trade which defined medieval Europe was categorically Eastern in nature. They must have produced powders somehow and I doubt it was from grinding solely. I never discount the creativity of others nor any vast civilization.

If the entire Middle East is experiencing a hash-craze in the 12th century its reasonable to state 50% is not rubbed. As regards Lebanon, who is to say their technique did not come from Syria considering trade routes of the era? Its not so difficult to follow the ethno trails hashish follows from there.

"Chinese silk regularly traded along the Silk Road connecting Persia and Arabia with China as early as 300 B.C. In Afghanistan, silk cloth from Khotan (in Chinese Turkestan, home of the last wave of immigrant Turkestani hashish makers, was considered to be the best for hashish sieving."
- Hashish!, Robert Connell Clarke

In reference to isolating gland heads on the same level as water methods:

"knowledgeable hashish makers placed a small bit at a time in a handkerchief-size piece of silk having exceptionally thin threads and a very fine, tiny-pored weave. Then they gathered the cloth into a pouch, tying the top to hold the resin powder inside. The cloth pouch was tapped on the thigh or on the back of a chair to force the small particles of dust through the cloth. The largest (and highest potency) resin glands remained inside the cloth, while the smaller (less potent) immature glands and dust particles passed through. Sometimes, a very small amount of resin powder (only a handful or two) was put inside a sack about the size of a pillowcase. This technique allowed the resin greater freedom of movement and provided a greater sieve surface for tiny debris to pass through. Resieving resin powder to increase purity and potency is a tradition dating from prior to the arrival of the hippies, and does not seem to be of Western origin. Some researchers feel that in Afghanistan, resieving is ancient and was among the techniques taught by the original Baba Ku.”
- Hashish!, Robert Connell Clarke

I'm don't know this from experience...

I'm don't know this from experience...

Common mid-century knowledge:

“In the mid- to late 1950s, it was proposed (3241,3242) that the per cigarette yields of MSS PAHs would be diminished by removal of SHCs, phytosterols, and terpenes from the tobacco by extraction with nonpolar solvents such as hexane”
- The Chemical Components of Tobacco and Tobacco Smoke, Alan Rodgman & Thomas A. Perfetti

The BHO/shatter community deserves this knowledge, because they are not experiencing this plant, they are in truth ingesting by-product regardless of myriad pollyannas and their decry of purity. Show me a chef who favors the use of lemon concentrate or a majority rule of said chefs favoring it over the use of real lemon and its zest then I will understand better the superiority of shatter. I also worry for the ashen skin many BHO users are beginning to exhibit, I care. [SIC RANT FINEM]

I mentioned the previous quote due to its relation to solvents and my own personal inquisitiveness surrounding fermentation:

“An understanding of the regulation of the genes that tie the biosynthesis of these compounds to gland differentiation, including subcellular differentiation of cytoplasm and plastids, may be required to generate these compounds in cell or tissue culture successfully. In tissue cultures autotoxicity may not be a problem if the phytotoxic compounds can be removed by continuous extraction of media. Continuous removal may also be desirable because cell and tissue cultures often produce enzymes that degrade unsequestered secondary products (e.g. Woerdenbag et al., 1992). Understanding these genes sufficiently to manipulate and transfer them to other organisms could lead to significant advances in the production of compounds of interest by fermentation.”
- Plant Trichomes, D. L. Hallahan, J. A. Callow & J. C. Gray

My curiosity arises in respect to THC (not being water soluble), and its alcohol solubility i.e. bhang, but before I forget about the properties of pressing hashish and any heat involved I wanted to mention some culled info about terpenoids and evaporation. @ 21°C (70°F) volatile terpenoids begin evaporation, @ 31°C (87°F) the lesser terpenoids begin evaporation, @ 39°C (102°F) most terpenoids quickly evaporate and @ 50°C (122°F) THC-Acid decarboxylates; water molecule held in carbonate evaporates thus activating THC. The 50°C (122°F) threshold is interesting because these lower temps are generally or traditionally where hashish is pressed, I do agree hydro-carbons are lost prior, but regarding the terpenes present prior, the temperature might point to terpene eradication of undesirables in particular cultivars specific to hashish. Meaning we might lose the Limonene, but are left with the robust Myrcene, Cineole/Eucalyptol, Caryophyllene etc.

It is general knowledge to heat certain herbs or seed to release their essentials, you have all tasted toasted sesame. Heat? What of its alleged properties to create more THC via isomerization of inactive cannabinoids? Heat converts THC-A into THC, primarily in short duration - as has been discussed avec mes remerciements Frenchy. In regards to frozen temps or wine cellar dry/cold isolation, the ceiling of concern should start with exposure to oxygen during a lengthy cure (as StS has stated). As for water and its affects, I don’t think freezing to cure is truly failsafe unless vacuum sealed. I’m not one to doubt the value of the world’s finest cigars stored in precious humidors, nor am I willing to debate Chinese methods of fermenting priceless teas and herbs. I can not argue Pakistani curing methods, but the finest grade is high value for some reason, always has been and I look forward to its tradition flourishing.

great brozini said:

Same with pressing resin will increase potency and terps. Counter intutive to many of us here, so again, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

Click to expand...

I squeeze my lemon twist to increase its presence in my espresso. The same could be said for muddling techniques among cocktail enthusiasts or mortar and pestle usage in the world of cuisine.

“One group of cannabinoids, the THC group, is primarily responsible for the psychoactive properties of cannabis. Although, without the other cannabinoids and terpenoids, pure THC is a boring high, according to Sam Skunkman. I'm don't know this from experience... yet.”
- Matt Rize

I ran across the previous quote concerning Sam and I’m attempting to compare it to his previous statements in this thread to make some sense of the elements. In noticing what phytocannabinoids weren’t on the hitlist I surmise CBL and CBV. Cannabicyclol is the result of light converting CBC, I am reminded of the Nepalese sun-dried affects. CBV is essentially oxidation, is CBN’s analog and is non-psychoactive. I do agree with Sam’s process of weeding out, with the exception of Cannabigerol Monomethyl Ether which in itself deserves more research. However, I debate exclusion of Tetrahydrocannabivarin and Cannabidivarin from any equation due to their values of attenuation, metabolism and CBDV’s prevalence in Himalayan and Nepalese varieties.

For those with access to academic journals and/or obsessive scientific penchant:
Comparative Proteomics of Short and Tall Glandular Trichomes of Nicotiana tabacum Reveals Differential Metabolic Activities -

I'm don't know this from experience…

I'm don't know this from experience…

In defense of pressed hashish. This is a high/low temp chart showing boiling points: http://vaporizertemp.com/components-cannabis-terpene-boiling-points-effects/ Beyond 312.8 F terpenoids like myrcene are lost, yet beneath the 330.8-334.4 F mark the loss points to pinene (loss of stimulant/inhibitor), sitosterol (loss of flavonoid/inhibitor) and caryophyllene (loss of gastric mucosa - comparitive to clove).

With the exception of one stimulant being lost, I can't agree a dry sift unpressed proves that pressed hashish is the lost-cause born of prohibition era or smugglers' requirement. We might associate the pinene with many modern hybrids, but the absence of such terpenoid might be what millions of hashish smokers through the centuries "prefer" for their chosen profile. Debating the loss of two inhibitors in the name of dry sift unpressed's ideal is not illogical, yet it does come across less workaday, slightly bourgeois and utopian (citing uptick in butane torch sales and random glass appliances + various quandary of utensilae).

Not that one would taste such utopia in their hash, but your product should at least bear the pinene first before one is to defend their kief, otherwise I am skeptical of anyone blasting pressed hash as bunk old-school technique when I know the percentage of any hashmaker's holding does not point to an absolute majority of piney dank. No offence to the diesel or frisian lovers. Besides if you think conifers and pine-sol were, are or ever will be the hallmark of a tell tale hash scent, then I will be patient and await the invention of the next quintessential OG extract.

Carding tek

Carding tek

love this thread stopped making bho and doing dry sift until I can get my water tek down . It is really all about the material but dry sift seems to be more forgiving than water to me

bubbleman said:

I have definitely checked out traditional screening methods from those countries Frenchy, but believe it or not they surely have not been doing it for 1000's of years. If you read Rob Clarke's Book HASHISH, you will learn that Morroco only produced Kief, a tobacco and herb mixture pre 1960's. Not until the Nigerian " mustafa" showed up with Lebanese screening technique's did Morocco start producing half of the worlds hashish.

Click to expand...

To retain some context and reference to source material here is the extract from Hashish!


Clarke's commentary here regards commercial production per se, not necessarily who sieved first i.e., "screening method". I realize the arbitrary issue might concern pressing, but one need only apply marginal heat or squeeze a pinch of kief to realize what happens. Assuming not one individual squeezed kief prior to 1965 is a stretch.

Kief etymology: 20th Century: from Arabic kayf (pleasure). Yes Morocco does produce a great deal of the worlds hashish, but it didn't happen overnight and is certainly a centuries old phenomenon. Shayk Haydar, the Persian founder of a religious order of Sufis, allegedly discovered hashish in 1155 CE. Upon hearing of the wonderful plant and desirous of sharing their master's pleasure, Haydar's pupils entreated him to show them this strange plant so that they too could partake of its marvellous virtues. Haydar agreed, but not before he made them promise under oath that they would not reveal the secret of the plant to anyone but the Sufis (the poor). So it was, according to legend, that the Sufis came to know the pleasures and contentment of hashish.

The Aissawa is a religious and mystical brotherhood founded in Meknes, Morocco, by Sheikh al-Kamil Mohamed al-Hadi ben Issa (1465–1526) or "Perfect Sufi Master". The terms Aissawiyya (`Isawiyya) and Aissawa (`Isawa), derive from the name of the founder, and respectively designate the brotherhood (tariqa, literally: "way") and its disciples (fuqara, sing. to fakir, literally: "poor").

Consider the prevalence of Sufism in Morocco and its relation to Pakistan. Abu al-Hasan ʿAlee ibn ʿAbd Allaah ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbaar al-Hasanī wal-Husaynī ash-Shadhili (1196 CE – 1258 CE) influential North-African Islamic scholar and Sufi, founded the Shadhili Sufi order.

The Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order of Sunni Islam founded by Abul Hasan Ali ash-Shadhili. Followers (Arabic murids, "seekers") of the Shadhiliya are known as Shadhilis. Of the various branches of the Shadhili tariqa are the Fassiyatush, found largely in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The Darqawi branch is found mostly in Morocco and the Darqawi Alawiyya which originated in Algeria is now found the world over, particularly in Syria, Jordan, France and among many English-speaking communities. The Darqawi Alawiyya founded by Ahmad al-Alawi is latter-day, in 1894 he traveled to Morocco, and followed for fifteen years the Darqawi shaykh Muhammad al-Buzidi. After al-Buzidi's death in 1909, Sheikh Al-Alawi returned to Mostaganem, where he first spread the Darqawiyya, and then (in 1914) established his own order, called the Alawiyya in honor of Ali.

The debate surrounds how much hash was around 12th century compared to a 20th century "revival" era. The reference to Clarke's knowledge of Mustafa states he learned a craft in Lebanon, it does not make an outright distinction between sieving and pressing or the regional practice prior. A few locals' statements and random tourist accounts do not constitute any sort of hash census covering an entire mountain range. The history of trade in the area dates back to 11th century BC Phoenicians. The possibilities of multi cultural influence must have gone into overdrive during the Moorish settlements of the 15th century. Makes it hard to believe nobody ever squeezed the kief or swapped stories/technique. I cannot trust conjecture which takes a broad stroke and generalizes culture, I cannot be led to believe Gnawa musicians now or then only travelled with powdered kief.

"Hand-rubbed hashish that was pressed after collection to remove excess moisture and traditional Afghani sieved hashish were the only pieces commonly hand-pressed for the export trade."
-Hashish! R. Clarke

The quote loosely references charas i.e., Pakistan. When we speak of Sufis and hashish in relation to Morocco and Pakistan or Sufism's origin and regional advances, it is logical to look at the sharing of knowledge (primacy) among religious individuals and less logical to depend on the Algerian Mustafa as origin for Morocco's advent of pressing kief.

kayakush22 said:

love this thread stopped making bho and doing dry sift until I can get my water tek down . It is really all about the material but dry sift seems to be more forgiving than water to me

Click to expand...

I'd recommend dry sifting the material first then use your Bubblebags with ice and water....to get the best of both worlds without the need for dissolving the resin heads in petrochemicals.

Use dry material and in a low humidity environment very gently sift small amounts of the plant material at a time for a short duration...this will produce a very pure sift, then freeze the plant material, use lots of ice and gently agitate the ice, freezing water and the plant material for a short duration, this will produce a very pure ice hash. When the ice hash has dried (see threads for the best ways to do this by micro-planing) then combine the dry sift with the ice hash to get the full flavor of dry sift and the high altitude effects of the ice hash while completely stripping the plant material of resin.

MYtheIndicator...If pressed hashish has been around for many centuries then there would be carbon dated archaeological evidence of this wouldn't there. Has there been any discoveries of ancient hashish?

tropicannayeah said:

MYtheIndicator...If pressed hashish has been around for many centuries then there would be carbon dated archaeological evidence of this wouldn't there. Has there been any discoveries of ancient hashish?

Click to expand...

Hash would oxidize regardless, but it would be nice to find some ancient leftover in pipes. If in Egypt the practice of sieving and winnowing was common, I feel it reasonable the same technology would stretch to most of the Levant. Playing with one's hash ball is an equally ancient past-time, nature's stoner putty. What's the oldest example of carbon dated opium? Seeds 4200 BCE and evidence of Sumerians cultivating 3400 BCE, I have to give civilizations more credit than demanding proof of ancient ignorance.

In 1992 an examination of nine Egyptian mummies in the Munich Museum, dated approximately 1070 BC - 395 AD, found cocaine and hashish in all nine, and nicotine in the hair, soft tissue, and bones of eight. In America the two oldest smoking pipes so far found were discovered in Brazil and Louisiana and date from about 1500 BC, just 300 years before stone smoking pipes appeared in northern Syria. As for hashish/marijuana, it originated in Central Asia.

But what on earth were they smoking in Syria so long ago? The same researcher's conjecture is hashish must have been transferred to the Americas no later than 100 AD, the traces found in mummies point to sativa, but it seems old world nomenclature surrounding the term hashish is applied. So whether they are finding plant material or prepared glands is up for grabs. I do understand these "scholarly" sources often come across as orientalist in nature and suffer regurgitant 18th century style hyperbole, but its info nonetheless. If you care to look up a Carthiginian warship's cargo circa 200 BCE, try Marijuana Medicine: A World Tour of the Healing and Visionary Powers of Cannabis by Christian Rätsch, it also includes some evidence of 19th century written documentation of hashish in the Rif Mountains. Notice the dating by modern researchers finding the tobacco/hash mixture usage in Morocco (1975) and the prevailing preference among Berbers and Arabs for straight product.

From a random cannabis timeline: circa 0-100 CE Construction of Samaritan gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb. Hmmm, stash box??? I find it fascinating not so much for the evidence of hashish, but rather the gold region being Levantine. Regardless of mid-east pipes in clay being non datable, one might still ponder a prototype for the sebsi and the era of such invention or greater usage approximate to a 12th century hashish hysteria. They called it kief, we call it kief, we more often call it hashish and it would seem they more often than not never disagreed. I feel the contemporary obsession to dilineate the two terms is just that, a modern compulsion.

Our ancestors would have experienced dry resin at an early stage of their contact with the Cannabis plant simply because seeds and fiber are always collected when plants are dry. Dry resin sticks on hands when breaking up flowers to harvest seeds but a lot is lost and the birth of dry sieving most certainly came from simply salvaging as much of the resin as possible.
It is relatively easy to collect fresh resin from live plants but a totally different story when the flowers are dry and broken up to harvest. The process necessary to separate chaff/trims from the resin glands and to collect the separated trichomes is totally dependent on some sort of basketry and/or a tightly woven fiber receptacle to catch and contain the falling resin.

Let’s take a little historical perspective on the art of weaving basketry and textiles.

Weaving is the oldest human craft and was perfected early in our evolution so that the main characteristics of basketry are the same today as they were before 3,000 BC .
The oldest evidences of textiles were found in clay fragments dating to around 30,000 BC with clear impressions of a finely woven textile similar to linen .
Cotton was one of the first domesticated plants around 7,000 years ago in what is now Pakistan and Northern India.

Silk was first developed in China, possibly as early as 6,000 BC and definitely by 3,000 BC.
The origins of carpets remain a mystery but woven floor covering were in use before 7,000 BC by nomadic tribes in Central Asia.

Solid evidences show that we had not only the mean to collect dry resin ten of thousands of years ago but that the three potential birth places of Cannabis are also the birth place of agriculture and of most textile production.

Quite the coincidence!

There is no archeological evidence or references of sieving Cannabis resin until the 15th and 16th century and the introduction of tobacco from the New World however solid evidences of various sieving procedure going far back in time abound.

The earliest direct evidences of humans processing pre-domesticated wild grains, seeds and cereals have been found in Mozambique, Africa, they are over 100,000 years old .

Traces of starch grains on grinding stones recovered from archaeological sites in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic are solid evidence that our ancestors were grinding flour and roots at least 30,000 years ago which cannot be consumed without some sort of sieving.

Herders in Europe and Central Asia were producing cheese to supplement their diets far back in time, 34 specialized pottery sieves discovered in Poland have been dated to 9,500 years BC, they are the the earliest solid evidence of cheese-making .

Archeological evidences of plant samples, classified as “finely sieved by-products” by modern scientists, have been found in Jetum, Central Asia and dated to 6,000 BC .

Despite so many archeological validations of diverse types of sieving, the two oldest known forms of resin collection described in the book “Hashish” by Robert C Clarke are not true sieving techniques. Letting the plants dry over a a clean material so that the trichomes fall at the slightest touch or carpet collecting are not effective or even practical for that matter when compared to actual sieving.
Every edible types of grains and seeds have been processed through grinding and sieving for ten of thousands of years so why was it never done with Cannabis, one of the first domesticated plant, until recently (1500 AD).
It is an amazing mystery and the subject of my next article for Weed World, "The Origins of Concentrate, Part 2"

Wanting it to be true is different from hard evidence . ..and don't get me wrong, I also think that some of what you are saying is very possible, even probable, but where's the evidence of hashish from 400, 600, 1000 or 4000 years ago? There's none that I know of. Either hash wasn't produced until fairly recently or it was produced in the past 2 or 3 thousand years but only rarely and sporadically in remote areas and the evidence of buried stashes haven't been discovered yet....as there has not been any evidence of ancient hashish, it's highly likely that hashish making is a recent practice...and also, as far as I know, there's no evidence of pipe smoking in the Middle East or Africa prior to the introduction of tobacco.

Who knows, next week someone might find an ancient stash of compressed cannabis resin and sifting screen materials that has been buried for a thousand years..and then perhaps weeks and months later more and more finds in the same area.

and the cocaine and tobacco found in mummies has been put down as contamination from researchers at the site or later in their labs.

The subject of cannabis in the Americas prior to European settlement is another one where belief trumps over evidence for some people...there has been zero pre-Euro evidence of cannabis in that part of the world that is indisputable.


It is an amazing mystery and the subject of my next article for Weed World, "The Origins of Concentrate, Part 2"

Excellent!, please start a thread in the Hashish forum, post a link to these articles and post the articles as well if possible (or at least some excerpts) as they will be widely read and greatly appreciated ....and discussed too

As you say I am using archeological and historical datas and applying a logical approach to it. There is no hard evidence thus the mystery.

tropicannayeah said:

Wanting it to be true is different from hard evidence . .. there's no evidence of pipe smoking in the Middle East or Africa prior to the introduction of tobacco.

and the cocaine and tobacco found in mummies has been put down as contamination from researchers at the site or later in their labs.

The subject of cannabis in the Americas prior to European settlement is another one where belief trumps over evidence for some people...there has been zero pre-Euro evidence of cannabis in that part of the world that is indisputable.

Click to expand...

The cultural use of cannabis is widespread throughout Africa. While the plant is not indigenous to Africa, several traditions of religious, medical and recreational cannabis smoking have developed since its introduction to Africa over six centuries ago. Note - For Africa, the tobacco story began when it was imported from America by the Portuguese.*They brought it from their one-time South American colony, Brazil, to their settlements on the West African coast around the turn of the 17th Century.

Aside from Egypt, where cannabis has been grown for over a thousand years due to the influence of India and Persia, the first archaeological evidence of cannabis in central and southern parts of Africa comes from 14th century Ethiopia where two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls containing traces of cannabis were discovered.
: Nikolaas J. Van Der Merwe. “Cannabis Smoking in 13th-14th Century Ethiopia: Chemical Evidence.” In Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 79.

Researchers hypothesize that since cannabis was outlawed in Egypt in the 3rd century A.D. and was punishable by religious law and judicial authorities, several Muslim communities who wanted to continue to grow cannabis migrated south and introduced cannabis to Ethiopia.
: Brian M. Du Toit. “Dagga: Cannabis Sativa in Southern Africa.” Cannabis and Culture. Ed. Vera Rubin. Chicago: Mouton Publishers, 1975. p. 83.

Researchers also believe that later on, around 1500 A.D., the fully developed trade routes between Arabia, Turkey, India and Persia with the East African coast, permitted the Arab traders to introduce cannabis to the more southern parts of Africa.

Coke mummies??? I did insinuate the researcher and the era suffered rampant orientalism.

However, the root of the scholarly refutation is equally dubious as it is motivated by skepticism involving Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, its a bigger issue with many reputations on the line and equally more street-cred to gain when hinging academic bets on one's "legacy" in science and archeology. Do I feel any scholar using terms like fringe science or pseudoarcheology comes across elitist? Not entirely, but I do question why such overwhelmingly defensive postures occur. My own personal issue with all that mess involves academics, their disdain for afrocentrism and their ad hoc detectivism, ignoring the uniqueness of cultures and championing the primacy of European settlers their habits, customs and "destiny". Why individuals persist on occidental terms like negroid in contemporary articles only amplifies a centuries old scientific racism historically used to validate Indo-European mastery of technology and social advance.

In 1985, Bill Fitzgerald discovered resin scrapings of 500-year-old pipes in Morriston, Ontario containing “traces of hemp and tobacco that is five times stronger than the cigarettes smoked today.” Other archaeological evidence includes stone and wooden pipes and hemp fibre pouches that were found in the Ohio Valley from about 800 A.D. Elders of some North American native tribes can also remember their ancestors using cannabis in a ritual manner. According to Richard L. Lingeman in his book Drugs from A to Z, a 79 year old member of the Cinco Putas tribe in California recalls his grandmother’s daily ritual when he was a small child. She took some cannabis flower tops out of an intricately carved box then rolled it in handmade corn paper. She held the resulting ‘joint’ upright in front of her and, watching the rising swirled smoke, prayed: “Oh thank-you Great Mother!” for each of the gifts the day had brought, as well as thanks for her present relaxation. Even today, there are some North American tribes, especially those from Mexico, who have used cannabis as sacred gift under the name Rosa Maria or Santa Rosa, and continue to use it today. Indians in the Mexican states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, and Puebla practice a communal curing ceremony with a plant called Santa Rosa, identified as cannabis sativa, which is considered both a plant and a sacred intercessor with the Virgin. Although the ceremony is based mainly on Christian elements, the plant is worshipped as an earth deity and is thought to be alive and to represent a part of the heart of God.

The snag in studies surrounding North American custom in this regard, suffers an age old schism, scholars and pundits have always sought to present history from the hispanocentric perspective, relying on 16th century written accounts rife with god, gold and glory.

I wanted to post the electronic copy of my article but can't get the size right so here is the original text, sorry no pics, if you want them Weed World #113

Origins of Concentrate Part 1

The origins of concentrate is lost to us, we only have diverse myths coming from different producing countries left, most of them quite recent considering the long history of humanity and of the Cannabis plant.
To find the origins of concentrate, we have first to find the birthplace of Cannabis, which is also unknown due to the plant ability to adapt and grow at most latitude and climate and to an early prehistoric dispersion of the plant. Three potential birthplaces have been offered, all of them on the Asian continent, the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers in China , the feet of the Himalayas from Bhutan to the Hindu Kush and Central Asia . The world highest mountain ranges separate China from the rest of the Asian continent and since there is no evidence of plant originating on both side of the Himalayas or having multiple origins for that matter; we have to take into consideration human evolution, the end of nomadic life, the birth and rise of agriculture as well as search for the oldest Cannabis culture to make an educated guess, most experts believe the birth place to be Central Asia or Northern India.

The Asian continent is also the birthplace of agriculture, sedentary life and civilization, as we know it. Agriculture in China is one of the oldest, with evidences of Cannabis, peas and rice farming over 10,000 years old. The Fertile Crescent in Central Asia is where agriculture was born 15,000 years ago . Northern India and Southern Afghanistan are the main centers of origins of cultivated plants . Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others archeologist suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52,000 years ago. Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world . The Hindu Kush region has the oldest Hashish traditions and its geographic location has to be the reason, being the epicenter of the two most likely birthplace of Cannabis. The Hindu Kush is also the portal between China and the rest of the continent, it controls the oldest and most important trade road in the history of humanity, the Silk Road and that until the discovery of the Cap of Good Hope in 1488 and the opening of a sea route to India and the far East.
“Agriculture grew from human behaviors and from responses or changes in plants and animals, leading without conscious plan toward domestication of plants and animals” . The birth of agriculture would be the outcome of an actual if not conscious breeding of plants that must predate the first periodic occupation of site by our ancestors more than 50,000 years ago.
The amount of knowledge necessary to create an agricultural package that would trigger sedentary life and civilization is beyond vast; the oral traditions that conveyed the knowledge through so many generations are mindboggling.
“There are 200,000 species of wild flowering plants on the planet, a majority in the plant kingdom and the source of all modern crops. There are only a few thousand of these plants that are eaten by humans, a few hundred of these have been “domesticated” but provide minor food supplements. Merely a dozen of these wild flowering plants account for 80% of modern food production and more than half the calories consumed by the world’s human population today” .
The fact that we have not domesticated a major new food plant since the beginning of sedentary life is the ultimate testimony to our ancestors’ incredible ability of survival and their botanical knowledge.
Cannabis was one of the first plants domesticated by humanity; therefore we must assume that we have had a “rapport” with the Cannabis plant that must go far back to the Dawn of Time.
Before extrapolating further on the question, I would also like to point out three key factors that must have played a major role in the discovery of the Cannabis plant and its eventual domestication.
The first and foremost factor is the ability for cells in mammals to synthesize cannabinoids within a receptor system that is the result of an evolution that dates back to the unicellular common ancestor of animals and plants, over six hundred million years ago . We are and have always been connected to this specific plant at the cellular level; it is in our DNA; hundreds of millions of years of evolution creating a unique bond with the botanical world, we share a profound biological co-evolution with the Cannabis plant.
The second important factor to keep in mind is the basic necessities of life for the survival of our ancestors; medicine, sources of food that are light, nutritious with a long shelf life like seeds and grains, as well as fiber to shape anything from containers to simple ropes. Weaving is the oldest human craft along with tool making and has been central to the survival of our species.
The third key issue is the size of the flora on the earth at that time which would be in proportion with the size of the Megafauna mammals roaming the earth so long ago that became instinct only 20,000 years ago.
A Cannabis plant at the time of the wholly mammoth must have been a sight to behold.
Around two and half million years ago Homo erectus migrated out of Africa and dispersed throughout Europe and Asia. It took our distant ancestors roughly 800,000 years to move from the African continent to Asia as confirmed by stone tools found in Malaysia that have been dated to be 1.8 million years old. How hard and challenging a journey it must have been is just impossible to imagine. Generation after generation of discovery and adaptation, every plant, animal and event analyzed and memorized and passed down for the survival of the species.
By the time Homo erectus was discovering the Asian continent we can assume that a vast amount of knowledge was at play on their continual search for food, medicine, fiber and the means to create tools.

How long would it take a master forager to find a plant the size of a tree, that offer the three most important necessities to survival (food, medicine, fiber), with which there is a connection at the DNA level and that is so hard to hide in the twenty first century?
A hundred years or three generations?
A thousand years?
A hundred thousands?
Five hundred thousands?
A million?
To pinpoint a date would be totally preposterous on my part but let’s speculate that it took our ancestors as long to discover the Cannabis plant as it took them to migrate from South Africa to Asia; that would bring it to somewhere around 900,000 to 800,000 BC and the earliest known use of fire.
Now let’s imagine, using a logical approach, that first ancestor meeting with a Cannabis plant/tree in his ceaseless quest for medicine, food and fiber. It is pretty much impossible to access the seeds, the fiber or any part of a Cannabis plant without building rapidly a layer of resin on the hands and fingers; this first accumulation of resin on our ancestor hands was the first concentrate ever made, what will be called Charas hundreds of thousands of years later.
Millions of years of methodic discovery of every aspect of every plant encountered during their long migration mean that the chances for our ancestors to ingest some of that aromatic resin are rather high.
The psychoactive properties of ingested Cannabis resin may well have been discovered before the nutritious and medicinal properties of its seeds or the quality of its fiber.

It is most probable that the plants would not be handled standing, for obvious reason of safety and practicality, but brought back to camp to be processed. The knowledge and “technology” to harvest and separate chaff from seeds and grains had been perfected during the million of years of our migration from Africa, the “apparatus” has not changed since and is found in every ancient and tribal culture on the planet, a long and wide loosely woven basketry with low side wall on three side.
Working comfortably and safely next to their fire, breaking down the flowers and separating seeds from chaff; which we may as well call sugar trims; it would not take long for the flower “waste” to finish in the fire and the discovery of the psychoactive properties of the smoke emanating from the burned sugar trims must have followed closely.
The probabilities that our ancestors had the understanding of all aspects of the psychoactive properties of Cannabis resin from the beginning of their contact with the plant are simply undeniable.

The possibilities that our ancestors picked the healthiest genetics are likewise very high, the simple fact that those plants had a greater chance to reproduce in a richer soil generated by human refuse and waste around campsite is logical and could actually be considered the first step in breeding and cultivating Cannabis and important in its survival of the Last Ice Age period.

Charas is the oldest form of concentrate; it is the simplest and most adapted method to collect fresh resin from wild Cannabis plants at the peak of flowering in the high humidity climate, which was vital to support the “Megaflora” of the time.

It is still the main way of collecting resin at the feet of the Himalayas in Bhutan, Nepal and Northern India.

The birth and evolution of dry sieving will be the subject of Origins of Concentrate Part 2.

Nice article frenchy, time to smoke some concentrate.

Modern vaporizers have become popular, but do not eliminate polyaromatic hydrocarbons,
(D. Gieringer, J. St. Laurent, S. Goodrich, J. Cannabis Ther. 2004, 4, 7.)

and still are relatively inefficient in preservation of available THC due to incomplete decarboxylation of THCA and loss through exhalation, with an overall bioavailability estimated at ca. 30% (A. Hazekamp, R. Ruhaak, L. Zuurman, J. van Gerven, R. Verpoorte, J. Pharm. Sci. 2006, 95, 1308.)

I've created some full melt dry sift this year by trimming and lightly moving material around a 120m screen, seems very pure but the bud is outdoor and not overly dry. DJ shorts BB, JOTI's OH god, and GSC S1 all gave me some very melty hash this season. The GSC S1 is very malleable even when cold and looks like super thick Black ISO hash.

BT

Thankyou for providing such an in depth explanation of the refinement of contaminated dry sift. Really puts the amount of work required to improve the quality of even a small amount of product. Trying to think of some ways that similar methods could be used to improve the quality of large quantities of contaminated dry ice product.

Grant said:

Thankyou for providing such an in depth explanation of the refinement of contaminated dry sift. Really puts the amount of work required to improve the quality of even a small amount of product. Trying to think of some ways that similar methods could be used to improve the quality of large quantities of contaminated dry ice product.

Click to expand...

Dry Ice hash from indoor would be much harder to clean IMO as it is very dust like in plant material, I have heard of separating by water and having the plant material float while glands sink but I have not tried myself.


BT

does anyone know which sized mesh is best to use?

I know freshheadies.com has the listed 60, 90, 110, and 200 LPI and was wondering if DrysiftWizard is only using 2 screens, what sizes he would be using?

Just curious if they are different, or the same. Or if the sizes don't matter so much as the use of the 2 different sizes together, or 3?

The two screen trick would be the size 60LPI and 90LPI from freshheadies ( me), The other screens are used for single screen farmers grade extration and then carding screen or cleaning screen. I just did a video recently with all these tech's and i explain each method with each screen size and show macro photographs of what i got doing each one. you should check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5S-uF8VLQ&list=UU23aSgHY8WaJGw4nft7Sn7g