Picked up a SICK kief tumbler

ive been wanting to get away from solvent extractions and get into rosin for a while but ive got a lot invested into some closed loop setups and they still have their place no matter what. i decided to build and buy a kief tumbler setup to get my rosin setup going. i was waiting on some specialty parts to be made for my giant tumbler so i decided to pick up a premade unit while i wait so i can get started. this thing is GREAT! im on my fourth run right now and its kicking some ass. i was worried it wasnt gonna yield all that much and this whole endeavor would be a waste of time and money but now im super excited about how things are turning out.

im running my batches for an hour at a time with two dollars worth of quarters agitating everything. the product was prepped by adding bags of silica gel in pillow cases to my trash bag full of trim to make sure my trim is cracker dry and crumbles easily. i know what youre thinking.......an hour is way too long, its gonna be green and contaminated, but no. its light and sexy and even if it has green in the final product(it doesnt) its gonna get pressed in the rosin screens and filtered even finer.

i will get my final weights and measurements when its all said and done in the next day or two. there are still nice little nugs in there which will get loaded into the closed loop to make oil for edibles and topicals etc.

the pile in the picture is from two small test runs of maybe a couple ounces of trim in each run. now what i am doing is prepping the material in a rubbermade by crushing it up in between my hands by rubbing it together and then load it into the tumbler for an hour. yield has increased a lot which means the closed loop runs will be less fruitful but thats ok by me

as soon as all my stuff is extracted i will buy my lowtemp plates and press and get the real show going. stay tuned for more!

Fuck yes! Nothing beats smoking your homegrown Ros!

the pile is getting bigger!

That looks like a nice little unit. What screen size do you have on it?

FWIW...1 hr is not too much at all. I have a Pollen Master unit and when I first got it, I would pull kief at 5 min/15 min/60 min/180 min/360 min intervals to compare quality under a microscope. There's definitely a difference, with more noise being present the longer the run. But, some strains I could tumble for more than 6 hrs without getting any green. Matt at House of the Great Gardener has a final run in his tumbler that lasts for 72 hrs.

Popcorn and b-buds can reduce yield by a couple of percentage points. You're right to get it bone dry. I run popcorn and b-buds thru a 1/4 inch screen before tumbling, else they don't really give up the kief. But, you have a closed loop, so you're set either way.

Have fun. Combine that bad boy with a press and you're in business (mind you, smoking kief cake (refined by dry sift tech or not) is the next best thing to rosin, IMO)

Nice tumbler! Where did you get it/whats its name?

Ever try running it in the freezer? The cord can go through the magnetic door seal easily enough. I wonder if it would seize up? You'd have to let the box get back up to room temp before opening it to avoid condensation on the powder of course.

ondoogyob said:

That looks like a nice little unit. What screen size do you have on it?

FWIW...1 hr is not too much at all. I have a Pollen Master unit and when I first got it, I would pull kief at 5 min/15 min/60 min/180 min/360 min intervals to compare quality under a microscope. There's definitely a difference, with more noise being present the longer the run. But, some strains I could tumble for more than 6 hrs without getting any green. Matt at House of the Great Gardener has a final run in his tumbler that lasts for 72 hrs.

Popcorn and b-buds can reduce yield by a couple of percentage points. You're right to get it bone dry. I run popcorn and b-buds thru a 1/4 inch screen before tumbling, else they don't really give up the kief. But, you have a closed loop, so you're set either way.

Have fun. Combine that bad boy with a press and you're in business (mind you, smoking kief cake (refined by dry sift tech or not) is the next best thing to rosin, IMO)

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its a 150 micron i believe. so far so good on this thing. i wanna leave a little behind because i like to make edibles and topicals with oil. works great.

Haricot Vert said:

Nice tumbler! Where did you get it/whats its name?

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this is from a guy in VA. he sells them on ebay. this thing was packed and padded so well it took forever to get it out and i was anxious to play with my new toy lol

BobCajun said:

Ever try running it in the freezer? The cord can go through the magnetic door seal easily enough. I wonder if it would seize up? You'd have to let the box get back up to room temp before opening it to avoid condensation on the powder of course.

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it crossed my mind but i was thinking the ghetto way in some other container with dry ice. i dont have a freezer that would fit it.

DesertHydro said:

it crossed my mind but i was thinking the ghetto way in some other container with dry ice. i dont have a freezer that would fit it.

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Oh it's a big thing huh? Maybe some day if you get a deep freeze then. Freezing temps should help improve yield significantly. Dry ice just smashes it up and makes very dirty kief. You want a nice gentle tumbling of frozen material, preferably 0 F or lower. It would be a first, I haven't heard of anyone else running a hash tumbler in a deep freeze.

BobCajun said:

Oh it's a big thing huh? [...] It would be a first, I haven't heard of anyone else running a hash tumbler in a deep freeze.

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It's becoming a thing. A few of the cool kids are doing it. [pun fully intended] Matt from House of the Great Gardener is the first person I saw doing that. But, I also suspect not all motors are equal. Actually, I've only seen two people doing this and they both were using Pollen Master units.

finished running everything. 72g of real nice golden goodness. now i just need to order my plates and press and see what happens. i will also get the oil numbers when i run that in the next couple days. i know there is still A LOT left in the material since my return was about 5% the oil run is gonna be FAT

i am expecting around 70% returns on the kief to rosin yield from what i am seeing. this should put me around 50g of nice rosin hopefully. i will post updates as things progress

DesertHydro said:

finished running everything. 72g of real nice golden goodness. now i just need to order my plates and press and see what happens. i will also get the oil numbers when i run that in the next couple days. i know there is still A LOT left in the material since my return was about 5% the oil run is gonna be FAT

i am expecting around 70% returns on the kief to rosin yield from what i am seeing. this should put me around 50g of nice rosin hopefully. i will post updates as things progress

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Very cool. What was your kief yield...if you don't mind me asking? Thru a 150 micron screen, I get anywhere from 8-15% from trim. I usually only get a 32-35% rosin yield on that kief though. Let me know if you get a 70% yield. Good luck.

Kief yield was 72 grams. Percentage was low(5%) but the rest will be pulled out in the closed loop. Hopefully I do better than 30% but this is my first go at it so who knows

DesertHydro said:

Kief yield was 72 grams. Percentage was low(5%) but the rest will be pulled out in the closed loop. Hopefully I do better than 30% but this is my first go at it so who knows

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Oh, okay. I didn't realise the 5% in your last comment was the kief yield. Thanks.