Best Rosin Press with a budget

tstick said:

@charface I'm not sure. I'd never even try to press that much at once so I'm not the guy to ask. I do know that the wider the plates, the less the pressure will be because of the larger surface area. So if you are planning on doing wide plates at high pressure, then you'll need a press -probably bigger than the Dake...but I'm not sure.

I know the Elysian Press can do a lot, but they are really expensive.

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Ive been reading since I posted that and decided to go with the dake and lowtemp 3x5 cage

Now of course Im wondering about the pre press and bags

I saw a pic of a guy who had a pre press set up on the same press as his other plates. I noticed the dakes jack slides side to side so that leads to more questions of course. lol

Are you guys using a pre press?
This pic is from the lowtemp site,



The other controversy is bags vs ptfe or whatever its called.

Also wonder If I will need to insulate
The ram to keep from heating and leaking

Anyway

I usually press about 30g at a time. 3x5 bags and yes I pre-press. Wouldn't have to but it makes a nice size slab to slip into the bag. About the size of a McDonald hash brown but more square. I have 7x4 inch plates on a 20 ton press.
I use a 3x5 mold and table top cheap-o press to pre-press the slab.
Usually use 200f as my heat. I squish slowly until goo appears then giver!
I always do a second press on each bag and get a decent amount then as well. I fold the bag and squish it again. Gonna be a bit darker the second go but not much really. Still quite tasty and worth it.

The Hippy said:

I usually press about 30g at a time. 3x5 bags and yes I pre-press. Wouldn't have to but it makes a nice size slab to slip into the bag. About the size of a McDonald hash brown but more square. I have a 7x4 inch plates on a 20 ton press.
I use a 3x5 mold and table top cheap-o press to pre-press the slab.
Usually use 200f as my heat. I squish slowly until goo appears then giver!
I always do a second press on each bag and get a decent amount then as well. I fold the bag and squish it again. Gonna be a bit darker the second go but not much really. Still quite tasty and worth it.

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Thank you.
Im going with 3x5 plates and I think i seen 2x4 pre press.
Ill for sure do a second press also.

That's the same exact setup I have, too! I don't have the pre-press, but the buds I use are sticky enough to hold whatever shape I press them in. I just hand-form some pucks and then place one between folded parchment paper and press the raw flower sans the bags. I get better return but a few flecks of flower make it into the rosin. The bags I have are 90 micron and they seem to hold onto a lot of the oil....but the result is that the rosin that does squeeze through, is very clean. The taste isn't noticeably different with either method. But, by just pressing raw flower, there isn't much left in the pucks when I try to stack them and press them a second time...might be just a tiny bit left, but not much. I think if I had some 120 or 160 micron bags, I'd get better return. The 90 micron would probably be better for pressing bubble hash.

From my understanding 90 micron seems to be the most used for flower. I've never tried a high micron sized so don't know really.
You can soak the spent bags in ISO or some other solvent to recover the last bit. Save em up and do a big bunch at once. Or put them in a tube and blast em clean.
I think the higher micron size would just add some fine dust into the rosin.

Yeah, I'll probably soak them in 190 proof Everclear and infuse that with something. However, the point of this particular run was to do something with the excess, year-old bud that I had stored. It was never a great strain as a flower....and is slightly improved as rosin....but at least it's useable now and in a MUCH easier way to long-term-store and use as-needed for whatever -from dabbing to dissolving/infusing it....so much more versatile now.

Yup at least your putting it too some use you enjoy. Fresher bud presses best imo. At least not stale anyway.......more creamy which I prefer.

By the way @charface Yes the ram WILL get hot, so what I did was to cut a piece of thick leather into a 2" square and then put that between the ram and the top plate. I let the plates heat up without the ram touching and then when I'm ready to press, I put the leather insulator in-between and press. As soon as the press is done, I let the ram up again so it isn't in contact with the top plate. This is a big advantage of the caged setup because you don't have to have the ram in constant contact with the hot plate. The ram never gets hot enough to risk it leaking....works great.

tstick said:

By the way @charface Yes the ram WILL get hot, so what I did was to cut a piece of thick leather into a 2" square and then put that between the ram and the top plate. I let the plates heat up without the ram touching and then when I'm ready to press, I put the leather insulator in-between and press. As soon as the press is done, I let the ram up again so it isn't in contact with the top plate. This is a big advantage of the caged setup because you don't have to have the ram in constant contact with the hot plate. The ram never gets hot enough to risk it leaking....works great.

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Thank you for verifying that. I had noticed that about the cage.

I really like the cage concept

Huge difference between the 5 by 5 inch plates and the 3 by 5.
Way less pressure for the same results with the 3 by 5. Certainly don't need the 20 tons with them...

gb123 said:

Huge difference between the 5 by 5 inch plates and the 3 by 5.
Way less pressure for the same results with the 3 by 5. Certainly don't need the 20 tons with them...

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I was a little confused by all the math
My takeaway was that only the surface of the weed is touching the plates.

The plates aren't pressing flat against each other. I figured better safe than sorry.
ended up settling on 3x5 w/10t because it was giving me a brain pain.

I'm sure you'll be happy with that setup...small differences at that point. You can change variables like time, heat and pressure. You can do things like lower the heat and add some time. Or the reverse. Or use less pressure and more heat. Each strain seems to press slightly different in my experience so far of about a year and half squeezing rosin. It's also fun. Plus knowing all you have in your product is natural and solvent-less. Seems like a winner to me. Also tastes great.

The Hippy said:

I'm sure you'll be happy with that setup...small differences at that point. You can change variables like time, heat and pressure. You can do things like lower the heat and add some time. Or the reverse. Or use less pressure and more heat. Each strain seems to press slightly different in my experience so far of about a year and half squeezing rosin. It's also fun. Plus knowing all you have in your product is natural and solvent-less. Seems like a winner to me. Also tastes great.

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I'm excited.
Sooo glad to be done with butane.
Also Glad I didn't go all in on bho equipment.

charface said:

I'm excited.
Sooo glad to be done with butane.
Also Glad I didn't go all in on bho equipment.

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I like em all.......lol

smokebros said:

I just got my Dake B10 & 3x5 low temp plates. I'll report back on the results.

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Reporting back. 100% recommend this setup. The plates & controller are top shelf quality, especially with the threaded attachment to anchor the bottom plate to the press. The press itself is top shelf as well. Fantastic design with the pump handle being able to just sit next to the press on the table. Super easy to dial in the PSI with the gauge.

Somebody posted a picture of a DAKE with a pre-press sitting to the left of the main plates. That's because the top traversial plates can be tighten/loosened to your liking, so if if you want to keep it loose you can slide the nose/press piece left and right. Super cool feature.

sweet idea on the dake b-10. has anyone tried using their dake for a horizontal "drip tech" effect? doesnt appear to be the easiest thing to tip over constantly during use of high volume extracting.

Got side tracked but ordering dake 10 tomorrow unless you talk me out of it in leu of something better.

Ih hoping i wont regret getting the 10 instead of a 12
In using 3x5 plates

10 tons is more than enough w/3x5 plates.