What is Hash?

Simply put hash is concentrated form of Marijuana. The basic types of hash are pressed glands and extracted oils. The pressed glands are the actualy trichomes from the plant that are gathered using cold water hash extraction, dry filtration through a screen, by rubbing your fingers together after handling the plants (also known as finger hash), or any other method that allows you to collect the resin glands. The extracted oils, often times called "hash oil" are produced by extracting the THC in a substance in which it is soluable. Some common substances in which THC is soluable are alcohol and fat. When people say hash oil they are generally referring to an alcohol extraction, however an extraction in butter is also technically hash oil. Our goal here is to define for you the different types of hash and show you how to make hash using a few different techniques. If you are interesting in making a marijuana butter, marijuana vodka or are interested in butter recipies please see the Marijuana Cooking page.

• Hash Oil - A very potent extract where the THC is removed from the plant material using a solvent of some kind, leaving behind only a THC laden liquid or oil.

• Pressed (BubbleBag) Hash - The hash most people are familiar with. Color ranges from golden to dark brown, consistency from chalky to tar like. This has is obtained by pressing the glands or extracts into block form, often times combining heat with the pressure.

• Powder Hash / Kief - This form of hash is obtained typically by using the screen method. High quality hash is obtained in this form by using fine screens that only allow the smallest resin glands through with no plant material. This powder is then sprinkled on top of buds or smoked directly, it can also be pressed into blocks to become Pressed Hash.

Making Hash Oil

There are many recipies, myths and opinions regarding hash oil. Many recipies call for heating the mixture and for using various solvents. Since most of these solvents contain a high concentration of alcohol we do not recommend heating them in any way. Also we don't reccoment using Isopropyl alcohol as the stuff most people will buy at the store will not be pure 100% alcohol. The best thing if you can find it is to use ethyl alcohol, most people can not obtain ethyl alcohol however so in this case use Everclear or if you can't get that Isopropyl alcohol will do. Just make sure it is 100% pure isopropyl alcohol.

Step 1 -	break up your leaves or buds into as fine a powder as you can, a coffee grinder works great for this.
Step 2 -	mix alcohol and powder well, use a blender or paint mixer depending on the amount being processed.
Step 3 -	allow mixture to soak for at least 24 hours, mixing occasionally. The longer you soak the material the more THC you should extract (to a point of course), anything past a few days is probably overkill but I've known people who leave it indefinitely and just siphon off the everclear for drinking.
Step 4 -	Filter off the plant material using a fine mesh screen, a metal coffee filter works well for this. If you still have more plant material in your extract than you would like you can additionally filter it through a paper coffee filter. The more filtering you do the more pure the extract will be (little or no plant material), however multiple filterings can be a lengthly process when you are processing large amounts of buds or trimmings.
Step 5 -	Evaporate off the liquid part of your solvent. This is where some people use heat to speed up the process. Beware that these solvents are HIGHLY COMBUSTABLE and great care should be taken if you decide to heat them. Never heat them on a gas stove. Our preferred method here is to pour the liquid into a glass baking pan or dish. Then place it in a warm window or near a radiator to evaporate the liquid off. Make sure there is plenty of ventilation. A fan blowing over the top of the liquid will help it evaporate more quickly. As the substance nears completion you will begin to get a tar like substance forming. While it is still somewhat liquid we suggest you start collecting it in one spot on the dish, eventually you will have evaporated off most or all of the alcohol and will be left with the infamous "hash oil". You will likely need to use a razor blade to scrap up the tar.

Bubble Bag Hash

"If it don't bubble, it ain't worth the trouble"

Possibly the inventor of cold water extraction the bubble bags are still a great solution for high quality hash. They work just like the exactor extractor in that you agitate the product in cold water and then let the glands filter through a number of increasingly smaller screens to filter out plant material and leave only resin glands.

Instead of an automatic setup the bubble bags use a bag-in-bag method. The mixture of water and plant material is mixed in the main bag with the smaller micron bags underneath. Then you slowly pull out each bag and as you go to obtain finer and finer hash. The last bag contains some of the highest quality hash possible.

The results obtained are very high quality hash that "bubbles" when you heat it, producing the name bubble hash.

This type of is hash actually probably one of the easiest to create. To make kief or screened hash you simply run some high quality trimmings or bud over a fine screen, this screen should be so fine that it resembles (or is) cloth. In fact most of the screened hashes I have created were made with fabric purchased at a fabric store. These "hash makers" vary in size from the handheld one pictured at left which holds a half ounce of trimmings, to large rotating barrells that can hold pounds of trimming.

The screen is simply drawn taught over any surface in which the glands that fall through can be collected. The one shown here is very small and could only hold a small amount of plant material and create single use servings of kief. A shoe box size keif maker can easily process ounces of material and create many grams of kief.

The final product depends on the screen used and the amount of time the material is run over the screen. If you use a small screen and only do a single quick run you end up with some of the best kief possible. Though the results pictured from the hand hash maker here are small the affect they produce is not.

Nothing special here, it is just what it sounds like. This is hash that is made from rubbing your fingers together after handling large amounts of marijuana. We aren't talking about pinching your friends nugs, or even splitting up a Z into sacks. What we are talking about here is after you have spent hours trimming a fresh harvest, your back hurts, your nose is clogged your eyes hurt cause you keep wiping resin in them, but finally the time has come to scrape all that resin off your fingers and roll it into a nice big ball. This stuff will expand in your lungs like mad and has a nice fresh taste like no other hash. Finger hash is truly a treat for the few who get to experience it.

There are many ways to enjoy smoking good hash. When breaking a chunk off a block you should heat the block slightly with a lighter first in order to make it more pliable, also this will allow you to judge the aroma of the hash before smoking it. This really has nothing to do with actually smoking hash but is just something I enjoy doing before smoking block hash.

On Bud -	Probably the #1 way hash is smoked is to place a small amount on some buds. This allows you to combine the flavor and high of both into one new experience. This is a great way to make both your buds and your hash more enjoyable and last longer.
Vaporizer -	These are relatively new to most smokers, however they are actually a great way to smoke hash; particularly kief. These heat up the hash allowing it to bubble off it's goodness while you inhale it as vapor. For those interested the Vapor Brothers seems to be the favorite among most smokers.
Hot Knife -	One of my personal favorite ways to enjoy hash is the "hot knife" method. This method generally requires two people which makes it that much more fun. In this method two knives are heated on the stove to red hot. A collection device is fashioned usually by cutting the bottom off of a 2 liter bottle or plastic milk carton. The idea here is that you have something with a mouth piece that the smoke can be collected in for you to inhale it from. There are large amounts of smoke created using this method so a collection device is recommended. Once you have your collection device ready and your knives are hot, one person picks up the knives using hot pads and gets a small piece of hash on one of them (if you roll your hash into little balls and place them on a flat surface you should be able to pick them up just by touching them lightly with the hot knife) then as the other person holds the collection device to their mouth the knives are pressed together with the hash between them. This is done underneath the collection device allowing the smoke to rise up and fill it and contain any smoke that the person is not able to inhale immediatly. The smoker then inhales massive amounts of hash smoke as quickly as possible. Hold on to something, I've seen more than one person pass out doing hot knives. Still an all-time favorite.
Hash Pipe -	These aren't too common, at least I don't see them too much, mine I got from someone who brought it back from Thailand. It is simply a water pipe that holds little to no water and has a very small bowl, with no screen and a single tiny hole. The best way I can describe it is a bamboo pole pierced with a bamboo shoot, even though mine is made with metal. These work great for smoking balls of hash.