The Beginner’s Guide To Hashmaking

You can buy amazing hash at the dispensary, but there’s something special about homemade hash. It’s a little more rewarding to smoke the hash you made yourself. It’s like a home-cooked comfort meal that gets you high. (Wait, isn’t that just an edible?)

If you can’t find strain you like in hash or an extract, you can make it yourself. It’s also a great way to use leftover plant parts or less dense flowers. If you grow your own weed, you can make hash from every part of the plant. The leaves and stalks contain small amounts of trichomes that will contribute to your finished product. 

Why make hash?

You get your flower and you want to smoke it. Isn’t converting flower to hash just a bunch of extra steps? What’s so different about the hash from the plant, versus the flower itself? 

Hash is weed, but its form changes its function significantly.

Hash concentrates all of the cannabinoids and terpenes from the weed while eliminating most of the plant material. The end result is a bigger punch than a joint would give you and a much smoother smoking experience. Since you’re only smoking the resin, you won’t get the herby burnt taste. You’ll be able to appreciate your weed’s natural terpenes more. 

Hash is also a great way to use up the trichomes on all parts of the plant. It can be extracted from leaves, stalks, and branches. If you grow your own weed, making hash is like honoring the entire plant. Those trichomes are perfectly good. There’s no need to let them go to waste.

The tradition of hash-making.

Hash-making is an ancient art. That’s not figurative. It’s literal. People have been making hash for thousands of years. Early Muslims in the Middle East made hash for religious ceremonies. Tibetan monks made hash in their temples. Ancient Egyptians used hash like medicine. Some people still do. 

Over the years, hash has been made in countless ways. Some of those methods are more effective than others. People who handled large amounts of cannabis for rituals or ceremonies throughout history would make hash by scraping the resin off of their fingertips after they finished harvesting and trimming their cannabis plants. While you can technically still do that, it’s messier and less efficient than modern hash-making methods. 

Making bubble hash

Bubble hash, also called ice water hash, is a solventless cannabis extract that’s time-consuming to produce, but very inexpensive. It works by freezing the resinous trichomes off your weed and slowly straining away the plant material until all you’re left with is little beads of hash. You press them together into a block or roll them into a ball, and they’re ready to go. 

If you’re willing to put in a little work, it’s not expensive to make bubble hash. All you need is a ten-gallon bucket and a large bag of ice. Some people use dry ice to make bubble hash because it freezes the trichomes much sooner, causing them to snap off in as little as seconds. 

If you’re not open to the idea of running out at 2 AM in search of a 24-hour dry ice store, this obviously won’t work. However, if you want the process to be easier, you can freeze your weed in a freezer-safe container overnight. 

If you’re going the traditional route, just pour the ice into the bucket and fill the rest of the space with water, leaving yourself enough headroom to agitate without sloshing water all over the place. Dump your weed into the bucket and stir it well for a long time.

Using something like a broom handle or a baseball bat to stir your hash bucket will simplify the process. It’s a lot of work and it takes a while. Consider it your arm workout. 

After you’ve stirred for about half an hour, allow the ice to melt. Use a few mesh bags to strain the bucket, separating the plant material from the fine little pieces of resin. 

It’s worth mentioning that there are special bubble hash agitators that work a lot like small washing machines, but they’ll run you a few hundred bucks. They may be worth the investment if you plan on making bubble hash on a regular basis. It’s something to consider. 

Making rosin

Rosin is one of the easiest DIY hash projects, and it also produces some of the most high-quality extracts. If you’re growing your own weed, you can make live hash rosin from your freshly harvested plants. It doesn’t get tastier or more terp-rich than fresh live rosin. It’s like going farm to table with your weed.

If you grow your own plants, a rosin press is worth the investment. It will pay for itself in a short while. If you’re casually attempting rosin making, a hair straightener with an adjustable temperature dial will get the job done. 

Drop your weed onto a small piece of parchment paper, and roll it up exactly the same way a burrito should be rolled. Make sure the ends are folded closed to prevent the rosin from escaping. Preheat the hair straightener to a temperature around 250 degrees, but stay below 300 degrees. When you hit 300 degrees or higher, you risk damaging the cannabinoids. 

Put the parchment paper-wrapped weed in between the plates of the hair straightener and press down as hard as you can. You might have to keep it clamped tightly for about 20 minutes before you collect a substantial amount of resin. 

Turn the straightener off and unplug it. Wait for the parchment pack of weed to come to room temperature and open it up. The hash will solidify as it cools off, making it easier to handle and preventing spills.