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Tek Bubble Hash

herbivore21

Well-Known Member
This is the thread for bubble hash technique. For those of you who know me, bubble hash is my most beloved of techniques. My avatar picture (which is not a pig lol!) is an example of the beautiful resin extractions that can be made using this method. It requires no potentially dangerous solvents, but yields much less than other techniques.

You can expect a 5-10% yield of bubble hash from flowers at best. Please keep this in mind before trying your hand at this technique.

If you have any related questions please post them here!

I'll modify this post in the coming weeks with basic starting pointers for Bubble Hash initiates. For now, this is here to get the thread started :)

Because I truly love bubble hash, I thought I'd share a few pictures of Bubble Hash in various states:

Here is a 300x zoom snap of a piece of hand pressed 45-120u 6 star full melt bubble. Hash in the truest sense, being whole unruptured resin glands hand pressed with low heat:

3CxAedH.jpg


Here is a piece of bubble hash photographed @ 300x zoom that has been carefully heated on a sheet of glass so that it bubbles and melts, but did not vaporize:

Zdo1msL.jpg


Here's a shiney hand pressed 25u 6 star full melt temple ball @ 300x zoom:

FWwdlvQ.jpg


Here's a grainy picture of some freeze dried 73u 6 star full melt bubble:

Gn8pMdv.jpg
 
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I figured it would be good to start populating these threads with information.

The 6 star system of hash rating has long been a hot topic in the extract community. Some, like Bubbleman relate it purely to melt factor, some highlight that more should be considered than just the melt. Frenchie Cannoli for example has a very detailed system of grading hash that considers factors such as smell, taste, effects etc.

I agree with aspects of both views. I am one for clear use of terms. In my view, I do not think that the star system should be used to quantify anything but the melt (otherwise it becomes ambiguous! How much of the star rating relates to melt and how much to other factors if we give a single rating intended to describe many different properties?), but I also know that not all resin glands are created equal and we should expect that some extracts that contain nothing but whole resin glands will melt less than others. What I mean to point out is that the melt does not necessarily even equal the purity of resin glands vs other unwanted components.

For example, sessile trichome glands (the trichome glands that do not have stalks, normally found at the distal ends of cannabis bracts) have 1/8 of the resin capacity in the gland cavity than capitate stalked trichomes (the traditional 'ball on a stalk' glands - which hold the lion's share of the resin in a given cannabis plant). These glands are often much smaller than capitate stalked glands and I have found that hashes I have made that mostly contain these glands do not melt as fully, despite only containing resin glands. Holy shit did I just say glands a lot! Sessile Trichome extracts also taste very different, and in one study by GW Pharma's David Potter, were found to contain more CBC than THC from high THC chemovars (that is, cannabis plants grown for specific chemical profiles to be used to make medicine).

First of all, let's go over the different grades of hash.

I wanted to start by disambiguating between the melt factor of 5 and 6 star bubble hashes. These grades of hash are also known as full melt, that is, hash that contains mostly or only resin glands and so melts and bubbles away leaving almost nothing on the nail.

You will most easily know that your hash is 5 star when you dab it on a nail. If it tastes wonderful from beginning to end, bubbles up and melts away leaving a fine dark brown powdery residue (not too much though!) on your nail (it will be black residue if your nail is too hot). This residue is left from the non-melting components of the resin gland (the membrane, the secretory cells etc), as well as any trichome stalks or anything else you might have brought along in the wash.

A 6 star bubble hash typically melts even more quickly, it leaves considerably less residue on the nail, and bubbles more violently and noticeably with large clear bubbles, rather than bubbles that look like they have blobs of 'lava' or something similar floating in them.

Here is a picture of a 6 star bubble hash being melted on the end of a dabber. Note that it has practically melted into a single, large clear dome. Apologies for the amount of light reflected (which somewhat obscures the clarity of the dome), this was taken under a very bright light which was an inch away lol

RjDu4eG.jpg


As can be seen in the picture, this material very much looks like oil now that is had bubbled up, and if I were to post it and say that it was some other non-hash extract, I am sure folks would believe me!

6 star bubble hash will end up looking like any other dab while melting. However, it will leave a slight powdery residue on your nail from the non-melting parts of the trichome gland (these components are filtered out in solvent/rosin processing). This residue is much easier to qtip from your dish than oil residue too :biggrin:

I will work at finding a 5 star bubble to use as my next example, at the moment what I have is mostly 6 star lol
 
@herbivore21 - first of all, you got me at the pic of the temple ball. My birthday is 9 Oct....please remember me! :naughty2: HAHAHA :wink:

I was given a small piece of Strawberry Banana sourced hash this past weekend. It came from the left coast and originates where I am able to occasionally obtain very high quality cali herb.

It was described to me as being made out of the 'shake' left after they do their harvest activities (not sure where....trim table maybe, dunno) and hand worked into a still somewhat pliable hash. It did not 'melt' in the sense that you would want to put it on a nail. But when smoked in a pipe (yes, I combusted it) it left a hard black residue stuck to the screen rather than an ash. This meant to me that it partially melted but also had a lot of other plant material in there.

You and I have corresponded together in the past about our long ago experiences with traditional hashish from points very far east of here. Well, this little bit of hashish took me all the way back there with the taste and aroma. Wow, it was like I was 19 again (well, not really but it did take me back LOL).

I don't know that I will ever start trying to make bubble hash. If our dispensaries finally open, and depending on price of herb, I may take you up on a bubble lesson and try it, but I think squishing may be more in my wheel house. As you said, yields are limited and even under our MMJ law, I cannot grow so herb is expected to stay somewhat dear.

However, I look forward to seeing this thread continue onward and learn some more from you.

Cheers
 
I was given a small piece of Strawberry Banana sourced hash this past weekend. It came from the left coast and originates where I am able to occasionally obtain very high quality cali herb.

It was described to me as being made out of the 'shake' left after they do their harvest activities (not sure where....trim table maybe, dunno) and hand worked into a still somewhat pliable hash. It did not 'melt' in the sense that you would want to put it on a nail. But when smoked in a pipe (yes, I combusted it) it left a hard black residue stuck to the screen rather than an ash. This meant to me that it partially melted but also had a lot of other plant material in there.

You and I have corresponded together in the past about our long ago experiences with traditional hashish from points very far east of here. Well, this little bit of hashish took me all the way back there with the taste and aroma. Wow, it was like I was 19 again (well, not really but it did take me back LOL).
I somehow never got a notification on this post! This was during our DDOS problems so maybe there was a spanner in the works. My apologies my friend!

Oh man, I wish you could have been around for the time when that temple ball was made. There were MANY 6 star temple balls at Casa Del Herbivore at that time! What a time to be alive that was :weed:

By the way, even though full melt is the pinnacle of hash obviously, I love non full melt hashes as well like you are describing! I was just enjoying lots of 4 star hash moments ago in my omnivap.

By the way brother, I strongly recommend that you use your dynavap vapes for hash that doesn't fully melt, the flavor and clouds are insane. It reminds me of those earlier experiences of smoking traditional hashes but with nicer flavor, and without the burning harshness that happens when the last of a hash bowl is combusted!

One thing you'll notice when you try your hand at bubble is that the non full melt bubble tends to have a lot more flavor than the traditional hashes of the same level of melt. It'll give you all of the flavor in the flower, including fruity flavors that often didn't make it into the traditional hashes of yore that we used to enjoy :myday:.

This is simply because traditional hashes are processed with a lot more heat and in some cases, much less care during handling/storage/processing. In some regions, the flowers were/still are very harshly dried and contaminated with dust/dirt etc due to outdoor uncovered drying methods. These outdoor contaminants often get into the final hash, especially with traditional sifting methods. This was renowned as the cause for some of the traditional red hashes from certain regions - a color which in these regions owes to the color of the earth upon which the flower is dried in the open air before sifting.

With this being said, I am anti-fresh frozen and live resin, I prefer cured resin. I just prefer to dry and cure carefully to limit terp loss/decomposition to just those harsher monoterps. The reason that the best traditional hashes were so smooth on the throat is in part because the harsh monoterpenes are long gone due to the processing/drying/curing methods.

IME, after experimenting with various levels of drying, curing and processing with varied levels of heat - I find that it is best to dry and cure, but in more controlled ways to prevent too much terp loss. Smoother hits than the bulk of contemporary hashes made without proper drying and curing, but much more flavor can be had than the traditional hashes we remember. Turns out, we can have our cake and eat it too! :dog:

The polymerized residue that you describe when smoking a good hash with some melt is definitely what I am used to from the same btw :) You get the same sort of residue vaping these hashes actually, but it it a little less black.

I don't know that I will ever start trying to make bubble hash. If our dispensaries finally open, and depending on price of herb, I may take you up on a bubble lesson and try it, but I think squishing may be more in my wheel house. As you said, yields are limited and even under our MMJ law, I cannot grow so herb is expected to stay somewhat dear.
If you can get your hands on high quality trim, this is going to be worth its weight in golden hash to you. I suggest getting friendly with dispensaries and primary producers (whichever is more practical and legal in your locale) until you can find some trim, which gives you the opportunity to make bubble hash very cheaply :biggrin: All trim must be stored with humidity control, 62% boveda packs will work just fine :smile: Trim will lose flavor and effect rapidly to the point that the hash is much less enjoyable if you let it dry out, which it will do much more quickly than flower.

For flowers, you may want to stick with rosin until you've had a chance to get practice with trim. I do encourage everybody when starting out with bubble to work with trim only.

By the way, I'll have a rosin guide in the rosin section of the Extraction Labs coming soon, which may be useful for you when you try your hand at squishing :biggrin:
 
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I wanted to post here to welcome my friends @Drsteez and @Hogni to the asylum! I look forward to our bubble hash tutorial journey! For those of you who do not know, I will be running an online walkthrough with anybody looking to participate here teaching folks to make bubble!

I thought we might start by discussing equipment in preparation for our tutorial.

Could each of you who are looking to participate describe what kinds of bubble bags you have and most importantly, which sized screens you have?

For example, I have a bubblebags 8 bag 5 gallon kit including the following screen pore sizes:

220u
190u
160u
120u
90u
73u
45u
25u

For some info on which bags to use:

I do not personally use all 8 bags with material of a known phenotype and resin maturity. As you get to know your starting material better over the course of a run, you can eliminate the bags that do not collect much.

Mature, high quality flower should get you full melt in most of your bags for most runs. Trim will get you less, and your full melt will be a little less melty (this is due to the predominately sessile trichomes found on these distal leaves, which contain roughly 1/8 as much resin as the capitate stalked trichomes that we are mainly looking for in a bubble run - these sessile trichomes are reported to be a great source of CBC, a medically useful cannabinoid not found in large quantities elsewhere on most plants).

Sugar leaf, ie: the more resinous proximal leaves and perhaps even small parts of calyxes will get more melty collections from the 'money bags' (by money bags, I mean those bubblebags that usually get the full melt collections - YMMV depending on variety.

As some of you may know already, narrow leaf, more equatorial/tropical varieties tend to take a very long time to finish flowering and at the end, the majority of the resin glands are quite small, so your 'money bag' is likely to be the 25u bag, maybe the 45/73 depending on your material.

Broad leaf varieties and hybrids tend to get more of the meltiest hash in the 45-120u bags. If you material was not allowed to fully flower to maturity before harvest, you are not likely to get full melt in the 120u collection - you may even find that the 90u collection is not full melt. 73u and or 90u with most hybrids and broad leaf varieties is generally the most consistently wonderful collection IME :biggrin:

After we discuss the bags that we have, we'll get into discussing the plant material that we are working with :weed:
 
Hey guys! Excited to join the class. Have about a pound of sugar leaf to play with.

At the moment, I have the 5gallon 4 bag system, all from bubblebags.

  • 220u
  • 160u
  • 73u
  • 25u

I have a feeling I should buy another bag aswell, not sure on which size to get, 120 or the 90 or the 45.


Going to start a trial extraction (50g too small for trial? Maybe I'll do a 100g. I'm semi kind of confident in the research I've done and all the reading from the previous classroom, and might aswell pull something nice the first time I do it :))




So as for materials... This is what my station will be looking like..
  • 2 or 3x 5gallon buckets
  • Long handle spoon
  • Towels
  • Nice soup spoon
  • Bowl to stretch the bags over.
  • Ice
  • Cold water.
  • Material (dry) 1 pound.

As for ice, I was wondering how those big solid ice blocks are? I was thinking of getting a 10-15lb ice block, those see through nice solid ones. And then just chop off some big pieces and mix that with some of my homemade crescent ones.




But that gives me a thought.... How will I know the ice block was RO water ice block?


And I have a filter running througu my fridge, I have a water dispensary in there. Does that mean it's filtered enough to be comparable to ro? Or should I just go get ro water and a many many ice trays and go to work?




I'm extremely excited and extremely nervous.

Hope this turns out awesome. Worse case I can hopefully squish out the full melt to some rosin? :)
 
Hey guys! Excited to join the class. Have about a pound of sugar leaf to play with.

At the moment, I have the 5gallon 4 bag system, all from bubblebags.

  • 220u
  • 160u
  • 73u
  • 25u

I have a feeling I should buy another bag aswell, not sure on which size to get, 120 or the 90 or the 45.
For your situation, I think that you will need to purchase two of those three bags. The 45u and the 120u are absolutely indispensable IMO.

The 45u separates much meltier hash (smaller capitate stalked trichomes generally) from less melty 25u collections. In most broad leaf and hybrid plants, 25u collections will be sessile trichomes at best, and generally some other plant contaminant as well as any small fibres that made it into your starting material. The 25u, even when full melt, is not your tastiest full melt if you are using the abovementioned varieties as your starting material. It does however collect more CBC with a number of varieties than the other collections, as I mentioned above. Your 25u is worth keeping, even if it is also worth keeping separate from the rest ;)

One exception I should mention here is that narrow leaf equatorial varieties often have smaller trichomes, and the best full melt from these varieties may be found in the 25u bag.

The 120u bag is crucial on the other end because IME, 160u full melt is rare, if not unheard of. 160u is generally contaminant by my standards, you guys will probably want to rosin what you find in that bag. Your 120u on the other hand will occasionally get full melt if your material has very mature resin. 120u full melt is heaven, as I have mentioned many times around the asylum.

As for ice, I was wondering how those big solid ice blocks are? I was thinking of getting a 10-15lb ice block, those see through nice solid ones. And then just chop off some big pieces and mix that with some of my homemade crescent ones.
I know that bubbleman and some others spend a lot of time stressing the importance of the right shaped, sized pieces of ice. IME, this stuff is really not very important. I most often use store bought ice (the tubes with the holes through the middle that bubbleman hates!) made from purified water. You guys have seen above what my hash looks like, any ice can do the trick.

I need to stress that you need to go easy on the quantity of ice cubes too. Bubbleman et al talk about the ice breaking up your flowers. That is exactly the opposite of what I want when I'm making hash. I want ice to keep the water cold, not to grind my plant material! Trichomes will fall off of their stalks with very little physical encouragement. The circular vortexing movement of the water creates the required motion and force to gently lift the trichomes off of their stalks (many of you will have heard this from Frenchie Cannoli, and the man is right IME!) without breaking the plant material.

Water should be purified, there are a variety of ways to achieve sufficiently clean water. You can achieve wonderful results with various methods of cleaning water. Sub-micron filtration, activated charcoal, silver ions, RO (as mentioned above) and more. All of these and a combination of these can be quite helpful. Some even mess with the ph of the water but let's leave that alone for now!

And I have a filter running througu my fridge, I have a water dispensary in there. Does that mean it's filtered enough to be comparable to ro? Or should I just go get ro water and a many many ice trays and go to work?
That should be good man! :)

Going to start a trial extraction (50g too small for trial? Maybe I'll do a 100g. I'm semi kind of confident in the research I've done and all the reading from the previous classroom, and might aswell pull something nice the first time I do it :))
50g is a little on the low side with sugar leaf, I think 100g sounds good though! There's a lot of labor and you want your collections to be worthwhile.

Hope this turns out awesome. Worse case I can hopefully squish out the full melt to some rosin? :)
If it's full melt, you'll just dab it as is my friend. It is a crying shame to press full melt into rosin. Anything that isn't dabbable can be pressed into rosin or vaped in a flower vape. I prefer vaping 3-4 star hash in a flower vape to the rosin that comes out of it :) Rosin removes the best part of the flavor from hash IMO.

IME, the 90u can be helpful, but it is not critical to the process. I almost never use a 90u bag. If you are going to leave one of the bag purchases out, this is the one not to bother with.

@Killick greetings my friend, I was hoping you'd join us! You've got the sufficient bags with an 8 bag kit, same microns as my own :biggrin:
 
I did a few runs last year and got my feet wet, both literally and figuratively. This year it's all about less ice and less agitation. I'm gonna try be gentle, even if it kills me...
You've got a head start on some of the class my friend, since if memory serves, you may have been my first bubble student! :D

Gentleness is something we'll be speaking about here as we discuss methods more. The goal is that you should not be breaking your plant material up when it is in the water. We break the nugs up before we run them. Ideally, in the water the material should not be further broken down by your agitation very much and even then, only after many runs/collections.

As well, I should highlight that I use a bubblenow machine and do highly recommend use of bubble washing machines to get more repeatable results. I do appreciate when starting out that manual agitation can save a bunch of change, so we can work with manual agitators in class too, as well as some other interesting ideas I have heard from one or two of you in here. I'll let the respective describe their own ideas :)
 
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Ok so I was really busy this week and wasn't able to get the bags.


No problem, with the 4bags I have now, I'll do a run or two tonight to get a good feel. 150-200g per.

I loaded my freezer with nice ice. I'll just dispensary se water as needed because it already is cold.


Doing it at night should keep the temperature down for longer.


Thinking of doing a 15min wash and then let it settle for 10min and then take the bag put, drain it, then dump that water into the 3bags (which is in a separate bucket.)

And just decreasing the time by few minutes for each wash after the first.


As you said, I'll put more water and less cubes. Got a spray force mister.


Anything missing besides the two bags I didn't get?


Sorry... Dunno how to edit om the mobile..


But what's a good way to dry?


After I scoop out the patties and lightly press with the blot screens... Then what
 
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Ok so I was really busy this week and wasn't able to get the bags.


No problem, with the 4bags I have now, I'll do a run or two tonight to get a good feel. 150-200g per.

I loaded my freezer with nice ice. I'll just dispensary se water as needed because it already is cold.


Doing it at night should keep the temperature down for longer.


Thinking of doing a 15min wash and then let it settle for 10min and then take the bag put, drain it, then dump that water into the 3bags (which is in a separate bucket.)

And just decreasing the time by few minutes for each wash after the first.


As you said, I'll put more water and less cubes. Got a spray force mister.


Anything missing besides the two bags I didn't get?
How are you agitating? A washing machine? What kind?

Also one wash for that long will not get you the best quality results. The first wash with trim should always be much, much shorter. Trim does not require much agitation since the resin is already exposed on the outer surfaces, unlike nugs where there can be many glands stuck between calyxes which are harder for the wash to liberate.

Let the trim soak in the water a few minutes before you wash it at all. You want the leaves to be wet and flexible, rather than brittle in the water. This way, the leaves will not break, rather, the heads will be flicked off of their stalks by the movement only. Try a 1 minute wash first, then filter and collect your bags. Your bags must be thoroughly cleaned in between each collection. Use iso on the screens to get any residual resin out of pores (it will clog them with time and fuck up your subsequent runs), then rinse the clean screen with copious amounts of cold water until they are as new and there is no iso smell.

After the first wash and cleaning your bags in-between, do a second wash for 3-4 mins. Keep increasing the wash time by a few minutes with each subsequent wash until you are not getting meaningful amounts of resin in your 73 micron bag collection. This will signal that you have spent that trim.

Use new water for every wash, and add enough ice cubes to keep the water cold at all times.

Do not use a 'work bag' inside your washing machine. By this, I mean the all mesh bag that bubbleman supplies with his bubblenow that he says to keep your material inside of when being washed in the machine. This bag is counter-productive and will make the quality of your end product suffer IME. It limits the movement of your starting material in the vortexing water which limits the agitation of the heads, and if you use too many ice cubes can lead to a grinder style effect on your trim in the water as the ice cubes bash around in the water.
 
Sorry forgot to mention.


I'm using some plastic pasta spoons and a wooden long spatula for manual mixing. Nice and smooth and not too rough swirling with my hand. I'm not using any screen, but if it's needed, I have a few laundry bags that looks good and identical to what is shown in the videos lol. Used for my delicates ;)


OK, I'll do that.

Soak for a minute or two.

Then initial mix for 1minute.

Settle for a minute or two, draim into the filter bags.

Take the wet weed and put it in a bag and throw it in the freezer.

Filter the goods, clean the bags.

Next wash I'll go 3-4minutes and after settling and draining and freezer, next 5-7minute.



As for what's gathered, I'll keep it on the blotting screen which is on a towel. After pressing gently all the water...

Should I credit card it gently?

Should I just throw it in the freezer?

Should I keep it outside on glass? (it's like 83-95 F degrees over at my place in the day time. Good idea to dry it in the sun?)
 
I'm using some plastic pasta spoons and a wooden long spatula for manual mixing. Nice and smooth and not too rough swirling with my hand. I'm not using any screen, but if it's needed, I have a few laundry bags that looks good and identical to what is shown in the videos lol. Used for my delicates ;)
Definitely don't use laundry bags etc, just material loose in the water will do. Stir slowly and evenly in same shape maintaining speed, you want to create a vortexing circular motion in the water.

Soak for a minute or two.
Soak in iced water by the way, keep it all cold.

Keep the room cold too.

Take the wet weed and put it in a bag and throw it in the freezer.
Definitely do not do this. If you put the material in the freezer, you will find that ice cubes that remain will melt and then freeze around your leaves. This will reliably trap resin inside ice that will be difficult to break free in your wash process without too much agitation. Leave the wet sugar leaf aside in an airtight container in the fridge for as little time as possible, or keep it out in a cold room spread as flat as possible again, for as little time as possible.

As for what's gathered, I'll keep it on the blotting screen which is on a towel
I recommend checking out bubbleman's videos on the drying topic :)

Sieve or microplane. Do not store your material in the sun at all, as this will lose a lot of terps. You also risk all kinds of contamination when leaving material outside.
 
Ok got it! I'll keep ya updated haha.


As for microplane.. I thought hastag 26 said that destroys hard worked for trichomes and glands?
This is true. As Hashtag says, if you want to keep your material for any length of time or are drying at room temp or warmer, you will not want to microplane your material. Actives rapidly boil off of microplaned hash moreso than sieved or otherwise unbroken trichomes.

Bubbleman has good info on how to do this. I do not microplane, like Hashtag, but my drying method is not one that you guys will be able to do yourselves.
 
Holy shit man, I deciphered your imgur album from the original image that wouldn't load and that first pic that I've quoted here is looking good! I'm sure that'll be melty. Looking wonderful :D

Is this your 73u collection?

Wait til you're dabbing on some of that material (in the likely event that it is dabbable). The taste of your first full melt is one of those bucket list moments IMO
 
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