Hash comes from the word hashish which means “grass” in Arabic. It is a concentrated form of cannabis that has been around for a long time^[1]. Indians have known how to make hash for centuries. In fact, they rubbed cannabis with their hands until the friction and heat coated their hands with the plant’s resin. Then, they rolled the resin into balls called “charas.”

Nowadays most cannabis concentrates^[2] are in the form of oils made with solvents^[3]. Others are made by squeezing cannabis parts between hot plates^[4] to make rosin^[5] extracts. However, OG connoisseurs still have a sweet tooth for some of the more traditional non-solvent hashes. The two ways to make them involve manually separating trichomes with the dry sift and ice water extraction techniques.

How To Make Dry Sift Hash

Dry sifting is relatively simple. You just need weed and different sized micron screens.

Starting Materials

There are boxes that have several different sized screens on top of each other to make the dry sifting process simple. The screen sizes get smaller as you move downwards.

If you have no box, you can just use different sized screens. Just make sure to have something like a large piece of paper to catch the sifted materials with. Fold the piece of paper and move the sifted materials to the next screen or to where you plan on storing them.

Step 1: Run Through First Screen

Using a stiff card, you can brush the plant material back and forth until no more resin is passing through. The first screen is usually the largest so there will probably still be contaminants in the sifted material.

Step 2: Clean It Further

If you’re using a box designed for dry sifting, there should be a second screen directly under the first one. Remove the top screen and set it aside. Repeat step 1 until you’re down to the last screen. You can label each sift with the size of the micron size screen used.

The highest quality dry sift and bubble hash falls under the full melt extracts^[6] category. You can find out how to ensure the dry sift is a full melt every time by reading Bubbleman’s tricks & tips^[7] to make full-melt dry sift hash.

How To Make Bubble Hash

Bubble hash uses ice, water and silk-screen filters to separate trichomes. The name comes from the fact that the concentrate will melt next to a flame instead of burning. Fresh frozen material tends to make higher-quality hash.

Full melt ice wax made with freshly frozen buds can be pressed at low temperatures to make live rosin^[8]. Live rosin is one of the highest-quality on the cannabis concentrate market today. As a result, it’s one also one of the hardest to find and most expensive per gram.

Starting Materials

Whether it’s freshly frozen or not, you’ll need bud or trim to make bubble hash. You’ll also need a 1 or 5-gallon bucket and a bubble bag^[9] set to fit it. You’ll also need a large spoon or something to stir things up with.

Step 1: Prepare Bucket

First line the bucket with the smallest micron filter you have. Continue lining the remaining bags on top so that they gradually increase in size. The largest size bag should be on top and the first one that you remove.

You want to put as much ice as you possibly can without things overflowing. Once you have the bottom of the bucket covered in ice you can start to go back and forth making layers of weed and ice until you reach the top of the bucket. Make sure the top layer is ice and not plant material.

Fill the bucket with water just below the lip so you can stir without making a mess.

Step 2: Gently Stir

Allow the water to sit and decrease in temperature. Some hashmakers like to put their bucket in the fridge for an hour before beginning the stirring process. Once things have chilled, use a large spoon to slowly stir the mixture. As the ice starts to melt, it will get easier to stir and you can increase your stirring speed a bit. Stir for about ten to fifteen minutes.

Step 3: Strain & Repeat

The next step is to strain the liquid until nothing is left but plant matter and ice. The smaller resin glands will have fallen through, back into the bucket for further filtering.

As you move onto smaller sized screen bags, you will be left with purer hash. Once drained, you can fold each bag at the bottom to allow all of the hash to pile up. Keep them separate and label the size of the micron screen. Trying each one out will help you understand the full spectrum flavors and potencies a single strain of hash can offer.

Final Hit: How To Make Hash

High Times Magazine has had articles on how to make hash and hash oil since the eighties. Our first article on how to make hash the old-fashioned way involved rubbing “grass” against a cloth to separate the resin into a bowl. Before the rosin press, hashmakers did what they could to make their product into an easier to smoke solid. They had clothes steamers and handheld torches for heat. Vice grips applied pressure.

Consider this our contemporary guide on how to make hash. Today, there are better tools you can use to make higher quality hash with less effort than the resourceful hashmakers of the past. The quality of the final product will vary depending on the starting materials used.

References

1. ^{^} been around for a long time (greenrushdaily.com)
2. ^{^} cannabis concentrates (hightimes.com)
3. ^{^} solvents (hightimes.com)
4. ^{^} squeezing cannabis parts between hot plates (hightimes.com)
5. ^{^} rosin (hightimes.com)
6. ^{^} full melt extracts (hightimes.com)
7. ^{^} Bubbleman’s tricks & tips (hightimes.com)
8. ^{^} live rosin (hightimes.com)
9. ^{^} bubble bag (www.bubblebag.com)