Throughout history, the water-made ice method of producing hash has been a relatively common one. A notable downside to this way of doing it, however, is that the resultant hash is a pile of wet sludge that takes days to dry and be useable. Making hash with dry ice, on the other hand, is both quick and easy, and the result is instantly enjoyable. In addition, many hash experts say that using dry ice actually helps to retain the flavour, which means that hash produced in this way is of the highest quality.
Dry ice, rather than being made of water, is basically just CO2 (carbon dioxide) that has been solidified into ice-like pellets. It can usually be purchased at pharmacies, as well as online, where it is delivered in specific containers made of polystyrene that ensure the ice stays cool enough to survive possibly protracted shipping. The temperature of dry ice is -78 ° C/-109ºF. Thus, it can cause severe hospital-treatment-requiring freeze burns to the skin on contact, making it absolutely essential to wear safety goggles and thick gloves. Best are sturdy oven gloves designed to withstand extreme heat – or similar. Latex or rubber ones, on the other hand, will absolutely not protect the skin against such extreme temperatures.
If dry ice is mixed into a container of ground cannabis buds and shaken, the resin glands will therefore freeze, making them crisp and easily removable from the leaves and or buds. The usual collection bags for hash can be used in the normal way to collect the trichome resin glands. Such hash bags are used primarily to make hash using the water-made-ice method, but they happen to also work perfectly for making the dry ice type, too. They can easily be purchased online, and come with an assortment of mesh-like filters in differing sizes.
Dry ice hash has an exceptionally strong, rich flavour that is loved by hash connoisseurs, especially as many claim that the standard water-made-ice way of making it actually causes losses in both terpenes and flavour. With the dry ice process, the ultra-low temperature completely preserves the taste.
Simply put, hash is just the resin that has been taken (and processed) from the cannabis plant. And using dry ice just happens to be one of the easiest ways to process that resin, turn it into hash as we know it, with excellent results. There are those who enjoy smoking uncompressed resin, or kief as it is known – kief is basically just the sticky crystalline elements that cover the cannabis plant. Those sticky elements are the resin glands that hold all the juicy cannabinoids and the terpenes that is so unique and important to cannabis, and what it can do. Most often, hash is lightish brown in colour, but that can vary depending on its type, and how pure it actually is.
Hash bags are an essential for the dry ice extraction process, and they are basically just fabric bags that have a mesh at the bottom: these bags come with mesh holes in different sizes to produce different results. In a nutshell, the smaller the holes, the less debris will fall through, so what does sift out of the bag is basically pure resin in powder form. The smallest is a 73-micron bag. A 160-micron bag has medium-sized mesh holes, which will allow through some debris – i.e.: bits of errant bud alongside the desired resin, but will still produce an excellent quality finished product. As such, one can customise the strength one wants. The smaller holes equal pure powdered resin, so truly potent stuff.
It can be most cost-effective to use this medium 160 micron bag, so the ratio of the quantity of pure resin to each batch makes it go a little further.
Prior to starting, it is essential to ensure that, owing to the dry ice, one is wearing suitable gloves throughout the entire process – even when collecting the dry iced resin at the very end.
The first step, is to place the ground buds/trim etc. and dry ice inside the bucket. Then, fit the hash bag onto the bucket (as you would a trash bag on a can) so all the contents are underneath the bag – between it and the bucket. Then shake the bucket for at least 3 to 4 minutes. This process means the dry ice quickly cools the buds and freezes the sticky resin glands on the plant, making them easy to collect at the end. At cold temperatures, the trichomes become translucent and brittle. This mechanism of shaking removes them, so tipping the bucket upside down deposits everything into the bag. Then, over a clean surface, the bag can be shaken resulting in the resin going through the mesh bit of the hash bag (onto a clean flat surface) and leaving all the bigger unwanted debris behind. This entire process can be repeated until no more resin comes out of the bag. Using a credit card or standard hash scraper, the resin can be piled up and transferred to a container of choice.
And there, is possibly the best way to quickly extract hash, using dry ice!
