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Test wash of Lemon Hashplant V2, showing that it maybe dumps at 3% or so.
All of my rosin testing/development talk probably doesn’t apply to most of you because you aren’t processing for craft-commercial production. Usually I will test entire plants at a time, and it’s no big deal if one or two are total failures with zero return. But this isn’t ideal if you are growing for personal stash and need that single plant for your med stash.
So here is a way you can determine with fairly decent accuracy, trichome head separation properties and rosin yields! It only requires 15g of live material, some ice, and a 1 quart mason jar.
1. Cut off a few reasonably frosty LIVE lowers and separate 15g of nug/frosty leaf material from the stems. Dispose of fan leaves, non frosty sugar leaves, stems, etc. Remember, we want LIVE material. This is how we retain all of those beautiful volatile terps that often seem to elude us when drying/curing.
2. Break down plant material into small chunks if your colas are fat. US nickel to quarter size should work well. That’s like 1/2” to 1”, or 13mm to 26mm. The more surface area exposed to the ice water bath, the better yields will be.
3. Grab a plastic bag or Tupperware, label the container according to strain/pheno, and freeze for 24 hours. Take your mason jar and pop it in the freezer as well.
4. After 24 hours (you can leave the material in the freezer for as long as you want, it won’t degrade in such a short period of time) remove the mason jar and frozen bud from your freezer.
5. Fill the mason jar with ice up to the half-way point.
6. Put flower on top.
7. Put more ice on top until the jar is 90% full.
8. Fill jar with water. Some ice will melt and you will be left with a jar that is 80% full of your ice/bud/water. The mix should be easy to shake and agitate.
9. Turn jar upside down and let it sit on the lid for 10-15 minutes. We want to let the bud thaw out and saturate with cold water.
10. After waiting, shake the jar for 5 minutes. Then let it rest for 5 minutes. Repeat 2-3 times or until you are sure that the material is spent.
11. Place the jar right side up in your fridge and let the trichomes fall to the bottom and settle. You should see little granular trichome heads swirling around in the jar. If you want, you can angle the jar and let the trichomes settle on the edge like I did to get a better idea of how much is actually there. If it just looks like a milky opaque fluid, do not attempt to wash this strain!
A good washer should leave a nice pile of trichomes on the bottom of the jar. If the entire bottom of the jar gets coated with trichomes to the point that you have a hard time seeing through it, you have a real dumper and you need to PM me ASAP.
The “average” water hash strain will dump at 3-4%, and the above photo is a good example of that wash %. Not enough to coat the bottom to the point of being not-see through. But enough to warrant a wash because the terp retention will be great!
If you do happen to find a strain that you really like and it happens to drop resin during this wash, consider taking a portion to a water hash extractor to get your material processed into live rosin. It’s a wonderful type of extract that is completely solventless. It is the best method for creating a concentrate that is nearly identical to the flower in its living state!
I know we have a lot of flower fans in here. I don’t see a lot of talk about modern concentrates and other stuff. This extraction/processing method is unique in that it will change the way you determine keepers. Not only will you be looking for quality cured flower, but you may also end up looking for a good washer! This is fantastic for those plants that smell absolutely wonderful in flower form, but seem to lose those amazing terps during a dry/cure. Sometimes terpenes are just too volatile to make it passes the dry/cure. This method is amazing for capturing all of the volatiles that otherwise would have been missed. Some plants that you may have culled/disregarded for post cure sadness may end up making it into the final rotation because of this method.
