[RulaTone]

Yea nice read,
one thing is missing tough

Bubbleman,
How much grams of crisp dry herb do one need to get one gram of FM drysift, following the method as shown?

Is there a reason why only the first screen has a inox sieve vs the lower with a nylon sieve?

Is there a reason why only the first screen has a inox sieve vs the lower with a nylon sieve?

If you are talking about the Bubble Box (with it's 3 screen frames) then all the meshes are the same type of synthetic nylon material, only with different size openings. The Bubble Box is a table box designed for cannoissuers personal use and is not designed for producing lots of dry sift....if you want to produce handfuls of dry sifted hash then buy the Bubbleman's Tumble Now tumbler....

if you want something between those two products, then check out the Bubbleman set of four dry sifting frames, these are purpose built for producing the highest quality dry sifted essence.

https://aqualabtechnologies.com/medic...creen-set.html

The top mesh is 160 micron stainless steel (S/S) which is more durable than synthetic meshes in case the user sifts any sharp or jagged stems or the they sift very aggressively....but synthetic meshes are more durable than you would imagine and even S/S meshes can be holed if you try hard enough!

S/S is great for 150 or 160 micron meshes, but are not ideal for the finer meshes, actually I find synthetic more durable than S/S for meshes finer than 120 micron (but this depends how the tautness, the thread thickness etc)...another reason S/S mesh is not used for the finer meshes is that they are not suitable for carding with at all as cards move pleasantly and smoothly over a synthetic mesh, while carding over a stainless steel mesh sounds and feels horrible, also, if you are using a credit or membership type card, the steel mesh will wear down the edge of the card (and you don't want to smoke powdered card do ya!)

There's lots of points like this on many of Bubbleman's products that are not specified, but assist in helping us produce a cleaner, purer end result......this is the difference between an knowledgeable innovator, an experienced enthusiast and a hash connoisseur like Bubbleman and the clueless people who blindly copy his products (and more often than not, still get it wrong! lol).

[mriko]

That's some yummy close ups there bubbleman, and nice info too! Though, if you allow me (not that I like to play the iconoclast), I don't think that fullmeltness comes from purity through resifting (although it is a way to reach it, most of the time...). Nope, i'd rather think that the main factor behind fullmeltness is (again & again) specific terpene profiles.
All I have for my drysift is a piece of synthetic cloth at 140 or 150µ and last time I used it was with trimming from deepchunk-influenced (for resin of course) outdoor sativas, plus a few indoor ones, and to my immensely satisfied surprise, I got fullmelt straight away !
Also, I have a special mom producing buds which I only need to run through my grinder to get crazy boiling fullmelt. Of course, resifting will make the end-product cleaner & even more agressive, boilingly speaking, but the true path is in the terpene profile, it's all about the terpenes ! No terpene, no nasha...

Irie !

Hi Mriko.......I don't know if terpenes are the main factor in whether you able to get full melt dry sift or not, but it's certainly dependent on the strain and the % of contaminant ...maybe it's also the weight of the trichome, how easily the stalks dislodge compared to the trichomes that sit on them, etc etc ..maybe it's a combination of lots of factors?

All I have for my drysift is a piece of synthetic cloth at 140 or 150µ and last time I used it was with trimming from deepchunk-influenced (for resin of course) outdoor sativas, plus a few indoor ones, and to my immensely satisfied surprise, I got fullmelt straight away !

I guess that melty dry sift resulted from that fact that the dried plant material did not even make contact with the mesh as you held each branch or stem and trimmed it and resin heads fell off onto and through the mesh. ...you could of got the same result by trimming over a window insect screen.

This points out several things..firstly trichomes, especially the fat, exterior located ones will easily dislodge from the plant with even very gentle handling, this is why all bud that have been handled, cut, trimmed, bagged, re-handled, re-bagged and sold several times contains little or no exterior trichomes and gives a dull boring high when bud from the same plant that is handled with care from day one of flowering to the time it is inhaled still contains most of it's trichomes, these exterior trichomes which are exposed to full sunlight, the ones that are easily smudged on plastic bags and careless hands are in my opinion will give you the best high...and the more aggressively the plant material is worked then the more plant material contaminant is introduced to your sift resin

R.C. Clarke writes in his book "Hashish!" that you can get very pure hash by simply very gently finger tapping whole branches as you rotate them just a couple of times over a mesh screen, the size of the screen is not important, being extremely careful and gentle is.

It's actually easy to get very pure dry sift by being gentle as the first 5% of resin heads will drop off easily initially....but it's the other 95% that needs time, effort and technique to attain a decent purity.

[bubbleman]

Well Put chamba , i would only add that for sure terpenes and terpenoids and the rest of the volatile oils are responsible for the melt factor.. however with that said.. than it stands to reason that isolating just the heads that contain these oils will produce a more likelyhood of getting melty resin.
its easy to get that first light bump to melt and if you look under a scope you will see the purity of gland heads will be extremly high 80% plus. This is possible to do with a light screening or even in a small grinder to produce very small amounts.. but its that other 95% that Chamba mentioned that is going to require methods of cleaning to a higher purity.
Peace
Bubble man

[mriko]

Hi Mriko.......I don't know if terpenes are the main factor in whether you able to get full melt dry sift or not, but it's certainly dependent on the strain and the % of contaminant ...maybe it's also the weight of the trichome, how easily the stalks dislodge compared to the trichomes that sit on them, etc etc ..maybe it's a combination of lots of factors?

Hi Chamba, of course; lots of factors coming in. Abou the strain, it's a whole sativa mix, with genetics like kali mist, manga rosa, mex sativa, arne hash plant, surprise, all re-worked with a deepchunk cross to get them ready out soon enough for me, and increase as well the resin production. plus a few indoor like sssdh, cheesebery and maybe crimea blue. Only this batch produced fullmelt. the outdoor indicas sift and indoor mix sift both didn't produced full melt. Nicely boiling but not fullmelt.
Also, sieving was done outdoor, with sunny day and minus 5°C temps (never sieve above 0°C).

I guess that melty dry sift resulted from that fact that the dried plant material did not even make contact with the mesh as you held each branch or stem and trimmed it and resin heads fell off onto and through the mesh. ...you could of got the same result by trimming over a window insect screen.

eheh, nope-nope, maybe if it were my very first time a sieving, but it isn't. what I do is take an inox cooking pan, on which I firmly fix the sieving cloth, then I grab a small handfull (rather a large pinch) which I put o the sieve, then I shove the whole thing into a transparent plastic bag (them for freezing food are nice), so as that one of the bag bottom corner protrude right above the sieve, then twist tightly.
I then push out the air out of the protruding corner by simply flatening it gently.
Then, I grab my wooden spoon (rounded & two different width at disposal, better than a stick) and start to beat gently the trim. Doing so pushes air back into the flattened corner, which allows the trim to hop and twirl and fly and dance under the plastic bag, and release its goodness. I don't beat the crap out of it of course (it would blow open the plastic bag and allow unwanted stuff to go through the sieve), and there's always enough left for a second sieving, though with an end-product of lesser quality of course.

however with that said.. than it stands to reason that isolating just the heads that contain these oils will produce a more likelyhood of getting melty resin.

I wouldn't dare to claim the opposite, and the only reason I don't resieve is because I just have one size cloth at hand. When I can afford to buy a whole set of neat screens, then things will change.

its easy to get that first light bump to melt and if you look under a scope you will see the purity of gland heads will be extremly high 80% plus. This is possible to do with a light screening or even in a small grinder to produce very small amounts.. but its that other 95% that Chamba mentioned that is going to require methods of cleaning to a higher purity.

yep, but as said above, it is not just the first 5%. Got a few pics of the stuff, actually, will post some.
My experience in making hash is just a few years old, certainly a fraction of yours and I'm not pretending to teach a lesson to anyone here, just sharing what I've observed. Must be my 7th or 8th sieving season (I only do winter dry sieve), and it's the first time I see this. Never changed anything to my sieving tech, except shifting from a 120µ to the actual one and this year, my first trim sieve produced 6gr of pure gold. I guess I'll have to thanks Tom Hill for his DeepChunk, for it's probably due to its influence that the resin reached this quality, the parents plants certainly didn't produced fullmelt last year...

Irie !

[juggo]

Great tutorial,awesome melt as always!

peace,
juggo

[Gray Wolf]

The cost of multiple screens can be reduced significantly by making your own frames out of scrap hardwood using a simple table saw and rolling in your own silk matt as the sieve.

Ours are stackable, and will work with either metal or poly screen, because it has both a spline chanel and a screwed retainer.

Here is Skunk Pharm Research's sources for stainless and monofilament screens, taken from their page on DIY dry sifting frames:

Sources:

A good source for stainless mesh in larger sizes and quantities is:
https://www.howardwire.com/stainless_steel_cloth.html

A good source for a polyester monofilament silkscreen is:
https://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com...-printing-mesh

A spline roller and spline can also be picked up at the above source, or use 1/8″ window screen spline and roller from your local hardware store.

[Gray Wolf]

Mo pics:

I don't resieve is because I just have one size cloth at hand.

Hi Mriko......by the way, do you re-work your plant material a second time by sifting in the same way or do you cook or do other things with it?

...and yes, you can re-sieve with just the one mesh screen (for example with a 125 ~ 160 micron mesh). When you have sifted your material, remove the plant material that is sitting on the mesh, then re-tap the frame upside down to make sure as much of the contaminant as possible is removed from the screen.

It's a good idea to place a sheet of paper under the screen when sifting and re-sifting, so the resin can be easily picked up and poured over the cleaned mesh screen again. Pick up the sheet of paper, half it without folding it, and "pour" it on the screen, also give the outside of the paper a few sharp flicks with your finger while the paper is folded which will help remove all of the resin.

For those who are not familiar with re-sifting, work the resin over the (same or a finer) screen by gently tapping the frame and stop when about 70% ~ 80% of the resin had passed through the mesh. Resin heads being round and heavier than the broken up plant material contaminant (which are odd shaped and lighter in weight) will pass through the mesh at a greater rate initially.....with magnification you will notice that the 20% that is still remaining on the mesh will contain a lower percentage of resin heads than the 80% that had passed through the mesh. You can set this 20% ~ 30% aside, tap out the screen to clean it and re-re-sift the resin again if you like to improve the purity. An important factor here is to monitor your progress with magnification which will help you know when to stop sifting and when to keep going.

If purity is your aim, then stop when about 50% of the dry sift has passed through the mesh, if quantity is your goal then stop re-sifting when 85% or 90% has been worked through the mesh

Gray Wolf.....there's nothing more satisfying than doing it yourself, please keep showing us how it's done! An easy way to produce a tumbler at home would be to make or buy four screen frames and join then together to form a "screen box" (one frame could be hinged for access), fit a sheet of wood to either end and run a rod through the middle of these two ends and sit this on an open top box and hand turn it...voila, DIY tumbler