Cannabis growers often use a magnifier to look at the glittery trichomes to know when to harvest weed. Some growers wait until most of the clear trichomes turn white, and some wait longer until some of the trichomes turn amber before they harvest. But what about when cannabis trichomes turn purple?

What do purple trichomes tell you about cannabis buds?

I decided to make this article in response to a post about purple cannabis trichomes in our free grow forum.

You need a magnifier like a jeweler’s loupe or USB magnifier to clearly see trichomes. (Learn how to see trichomes.)

Marijuana growers often examine the color of the cannabis trichome heads as harvest time approaches. These trichome heads typically turn white when buds reach maximum THC levels, but not always.

If trichomes are normally clear, white or amber/gold, what does it mean if they turn other colors, including purple?

What Makes Trichomes Turn Purple (or Pink or Other Jewel Colors)

What makes cannabis trichomes turn purple: Genetics.

While growers have developed methods to increase the amount of purple on your buds or leaves (temperature swings, cold nights, LEDs, slightly lower pH, harvest on the later side, etc.), the color of trichomes is almost 100% dependent on your genetics. The strain is in charge when it comes to cannabis trichome color.

Purple Lemonade by North Atlantic Seed Co. loves growing purple trichomes

For Most Strains, Trichomes Go from Clear > White > Amber (Yellow)…

With most cannabis strains, the trichomes appear with clear glass-looking heads, turn a milky white when they hit peak THC, and then turn amber (a nice way of saying “yellow”) when the THC is starting to degrade. For optimum potency, most growers harvest weed when the heads are mostly white or just starting to turn amber.

• Clear trichomes – not ready for harvest
• White trichomes – highest THC
• Amber/yellow trichomes – more sleepy effect, THC is starting to degrade

Clear trichomes (not ready yet – these are a sign of low THC potency)

Mostly white trichomes (max THC potency)

Mostly amber/yellow trichomes (THC is starting to degrade, effects are more “sleepy”)

What about purple trichomes?

When Do You Harvest Weed with Purple Trichomes?

Unfortunately, with cannabis strains that grow purple trichomes, you can’t use the color to know when to harvest the buds. So how do you know when to harvest your weed?

• Option 1: Ask the breeder – Most trustworthy cannabis breeders will answer questions about their strains, including hints about the best time to harvest buds. Additionally, the strain description from when you bought the seeds may have relevant information.
• Option 2: Look at the buds directly to see whether they look ready to harvest. Here is a picture gallery of ready-to-harvest cannabis buds to help guide you.

Some cannabis strains produce trichomes in colors like purple or pink. These trichomes may never turn white. When it comes to these “exotic” trichomes, the standard rules don’t always apply. In these cases, it’s best to ask the breeder when the trichomes indicate readiness. If that’s not possible, make sure to look at the buds and ensure they look ready from a visual inspection and use the trichomes as only a secondary indicator.

These trichomes started white as normal and then just turned purple instead of amber.

But for some strains, the trichomes turn purple from the beginning and therefore the color doesn’t tell you anything about potency. That’s why, with colorful trichomes, it can be best to either ask the breeder about when to harvest, or judge the apparent maturity of the plant.

Regardless of the color of trichomes, most cannabis strains are ready to harvest when buds look solid. At this point, all of the hairs on the buds have darkened and curled in. When you can’t tell when to harvest based on the trichomes, use the visual appearance of the buds to guide you. Here is how to look at the buds themselves to determine when to harvest.

Need more help knowing when to harvest cannabis?

• Full cannabis harvest tutorial: https://www.growweedeasy.com/harvest
• Picture Gallery of Ready-to-Harvest Cannabis: https://www.growweedeasy.com/ready-for-harvest-pictures
• Trichome Deep Dive: Picture Gallery of Ready-to-Harvest Trichomes: https://www.growweedeasy.com/what-do-trichomes-look-like-when-ready-to-harvest-ready-to-harvest-trichome-picture-gallery

Harvest your weed at the right time and get rewarded!

The post Purple Trichomes: When do I harvest buds? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

• Intro: Why Extracts Are So Great (And Why You Should Make Them)
• What is The Magical Butter Machine?
• What is the LEVO?
• How to Use the MBM or LEVO
• How We Tested The Machines
• Our Test Results
  • Difficulty
  • Appearance
  • Amount of Extract Yielded per oz of Cannabis
  • Potency (Perceived Potency)
  • Pros and Cons: Magical Butter Machine
  • Pros and Cons: LEVO
• Final Judgement

Intro: Why Extracts Are So Great (And Why You Should Make Them)

Humans have been growing and consuming cannabis for thousands of years and it doesn’t look like we’ll be slowing down anytime soon. In fact, ever since humans discovered weed, we’ve been looking for new ways to enhance the growth of plants as well as the feelings their buds create.

Cut to the year 2024, and humans have a firm grasp on how to grow weed and what to do with it afterward. Enter the Cannabis Extract!

Cannabis extracts are a way for you to take your wonderful cannabis and extract the good stuff, so you’re left with a different, but typically more powerful version of your weed. Cannabis extracts can come in many forms, such as hash oil, tinctures, cannabis butter (aka cannabutter), or even gummies. Cannabis extracts give you a way to experience the effects of cannabis without having to smoke or vape and they also tend to feel much more potent than smoking or vaping since you can ingest so much psychoactive material at once.

Not only are cannabis extracts stronger, fun, and easier on your lungs, but they give you a good way to get rid of older weed that you haven’t smoked or given away. I know that might sound like a crazy concept to some, but once you start growing regularly, it becomes a normal fact of grower-life that you often have way more weed than you can deal with. Extracts give you a way to condense some of that older weed into a tiny space while also giving it a new life as a stronger add-on to your normal smoking/vaping material.

A long time ago, cannabis extracts (like hashish) were made by hand, which introduced a slew of problems, as you can imagine. Luckily, we live in the future and these days, you can get a machine to do 99% of the work for you. All you need to do is provide the materials and a little bit of patience.

Today, we’re going to show you two machines that are well-known for their ability to process cannabis and make amazing extracts. But we’re not just going to look at them, we’re also going to show you how they work, compare them, and decide which machine is the best between the two. Let’s do this!

What is The Magical Butter Machine (aka MBM)?

The Magical Butter Machine is one of the original cannabis extraction-making devices and it’s pretty much ruled the space since it arrived. In short, you add decarbed weed and a medium (like oil, butter or alcohol) and let it loose. Within 1-3 hours, you’ll be left with a potent, beautiful, cannabis-laden mixture that just needs to be strained. Once your mixture is strained and cooled, you can ingest it, but be careful about dosing!

One of the biggest strengths of the Magical Butter Machine lies in its simplicity. The MBM is only comprised of two parts (three parts if you count the cord), so there aren’t many parts to break or accidentally lose. The MBM you’ll see in this article is the original one I purchased back in December of 2017. You heard right, the Magical Butter Machine you see in this article will be celebrating its sixth birthday by the time you read this and it still works as well as the day I bought it. +6 points in my book…

How it Works: You put your cannabis and a medium (like butter or oil) into this device. You pick a couple of simple settings via buttons on the lid, and it chops, heats, and swirls your bud until you have a nearly finished product. You’ll still need to filter the end result, so check out my easy and cheap mason jar technique below.

The Magical Butter Machine forced me to use this filter.

What is the LEVO?

The LEVO is a newer and more advanced take on the Magical Butter Machine. While it doesn’t make any extracts that the MBM can’t make, it transforms the whole process of making extracts into something that feels a lot more sleek and polished. One thing that sets the LEVO apart from the competition is its sleek look, and the fact that it dispenses a finished product that doesn’t need to be strained. It also has another massive benefit: it will dry AND decarb your weed for you! That kind of makes the LEVO a one-stop shop when it comes to making edibles. The LEVO actually has one more thing that sets it apart, but I didn’t find this out until I tested it head-to-head against the Magical Butter Machine.

Make sure to read the whole article to see the impressive last-second surprise the LEVO pulled off!

How it Works: Take a deep breath… First you put the rubber mat into the weed-holder. Then you grind up a bunch of cannabis (coarsely) and put it into the weed-holder. You then put the lid on ol’ holder and put that into the reservoir. You “Activate” (decarb) your weed – via a fancy menu on the front – for about 2 hours. Next, you put a magnetic stirrer and your medium (butter, oil) into the reservoir and let it run for 5 hours. When it’s done, it dispenses weed-oil like a coffee maker. The road is long, but glorious at the end.

The LEVO, almost aggressively shiny

How To Use the MBM or LEVO

Both devices come with their own respective sets of directions and recipes. We advise that you look up their most current instructions/recipes and follow those. However, if enough people are interested in a detailed walkthrough of operating either of these devices, let us know and we’ll do a full write-up

How We Tested the Machines

We tried to keep this test as simple as possible while still being useful. We ran the tests on MCT oil because it seems to be healthy, but you could use coconut oil, sunflower oil, or (non-extra virgin) olive oil. MCT oil will give us a huge benefit over testing butter or alcohol: ease in judging the final product. It’s much easier to make visual judgments when it comes to oil because it’s translucent, unlike butter, which could hide imperfections when it solidifies. It’s also easier to test the effects of MCT oil than alcohol because the intoxicating effects of alcohol can make it a bit harder to tell what effect the extract is having. Also, the LEVO can’t process alcohol (?!), so that was never really an option.

Both sets of extracts were made using the same strain of (absolutely ancient) weed from the same (seriously, prehistoric) harvest of Peyote Critical by Barney’s Farm. We tested some of the Peyote Critical first and it was strong enough to put a dinosaur to sleep. So we know there’s good potency going in.

The Magical Butter Machine doesn’t decarb weed itself, so I did that separately, but the comparison should still be pretty close.

Note: Decarbing (short for decarboxylation) is the act of lightly cooking your weed to activate the contained psychoactive ingredients. Eating weed will only have an effect if you decarb it first! See this page for more info on decarbing: How to Decarb Your Weed for Edibles. Don’t worry; it’s really easy.

Once some of the weed was decarbed for the MBM, I put some of the same weed (not decarbed) into the LEVO and let it run. The LEVO will decarb the weed in addition to making extracts, so Mr. Fancy Pants doesn’t need me to decarb anything on its behalf.

Our Test Results:

After we thoroughly tested the machines (and the products they make), we were able to do a side-by-side comparison and note where each machine outperforms the other. Without further ado, here are our findings!

Difficulty

To be completely honest, I went into this section thinking there would be an obvious winner in terms of ease of use (the LEVO)…and I was wrong! The LEVO requires mostly front-loaded work, meaning you do most of the work in the beginning so that it’s easier at the end. However, the work needed to operate the Magical Butter Machine is mixed. Unlike the LEVO, you need to decarb your weed first. Additionally, you’ll need to strain the weed from your extracts in the end while the LEVO does this part for you. On paper, it sounds like MBM already lost this one.

Despite those differences, the Magical Butter machine ends up winning in the difficulty department as it’s easier to use in pretty much every regard. It requires less preparation to get started than the LEVO, but it also requires far less cleanup when you’re done due to the MBM only having 2 parts that need cleaning. Although you need to decarb the weed for the MBM, doing it myself it felt like less work than having the LEVO decarb for me since I had to “coarsely grind” and pack the weed into a small container for the LEVO (pic above) while the MBM requires no grinding at all. Apparently, roughly grinding a half ounce of weed and prepping it makes it feel like more work than decarbing weed in any of the old-fashioned ways..

The LEVO does a cool trick where it saves you from having to strain the extract, and that definitely added to it’s high-quality feel. But there are cheap, fast, easy tricks you can do to compensate for the MBM’s lack of a strainer.

For example, just remove the lid from a mason jar and put some cheesecloth over the opening. Then press a little divot into the cheesecloth and put the screw-top back on. There ya go, instant filter.

Winner: Magical Butter Machine (weirdly enough)

Appearance
The appearance of the resulting MCT Oil doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it’s still nice to take a look. Sometimes the overall appearance of something can be enough for you to know if you’ll like it or not.

In this case, the MCT Oil that came from the LEVO was a clear winner (no pun intended). As you can see from the pictures below, the oil from the Magical Butter Machine was much more cloudy while you can clearly see through the oil made by the LEVO. That doesn’t mean the MBM oil is worse, but when we’re judging based purely on looks, it’s hard to argue with the clarity and color of the oil made by the LEVO.

Oh, and if we’re judging the appearance of the device itself, the LEVO wins.

Winner: LEVO

Amount of Extract Yielded per oz of Cannabis
The amount of oil extracted from each method was about the same. As you can see from the pictures below, there was a small difference in the ending amount, but that was due to minor capacity differences. Note: the LEVO holds a bit less than 16oz despite its instructions.

Winner: Draw

Potency (Perceived Potency)
Finally, we get to the most important deciding factor. None of the other stuff matters if the resulting extract fails to impress you!

Before I get to it, just know that Nebula and I did extensive testing of our oil to see which one was the best. We tried it in different places at different times of day and…we couldn’t tell the difference.

Even after abstaining purely for testing purposes, the high was indistinguishable.

Winner: Draw

Pros and Cons: Magical Butter Machine

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Makes extracts quickly
• Good, reliable hardware; my MBM is 6 years old!
• Super-simple interface
• Can make tinctures!
• Tons of potent, battle-tested recipes included
• Processes WAY faster than the LEVO

Cons:

• You have to decarb your own weed first
• Doesn’t strain your extract
• The machine itself doesn’t look very cool
• When finished, the MBM beeps like it’s ready for war

Pros and Cons: LEVO

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Sleek in appearance and function
• One machine can dry, decarb and make extractions
• No need to decarb your own weed
• Decarb smell is weird, but very light
• Automatically stirs your extract during processing
• Makes super-clean looking extracts

Cons:

• Takes a long time to process extractions
• More cleaning involved
• Grinding weed and packing it into a container takes much longer than expected
• Can NOT make tinctures
• Contains small parts you can easily lose
• Surface is a magnet for fingerprints
• Included recipes are weirdly vague to the point where they’re almost useless
• Sooo slow! Making oil takes five hours versus the MBM at one hour (at similar quality)

Final Judgement and Conclusion:

This has been a tough shootout between two machines that are very much capable at the thing they claim to do. I think that if you spent the money on either of these two devices, you’d get your money’s worth and you’d be very happy with the results you get.

But if you have to pick only one of these two machines, there’s a clear winner in my opinion: The Magical Butter Machine

The LEVO is a great device and I don’t regret spending the money to get it, but the MBM feels…better. It’s like a good idea that’s been refined over the years until we have its current iteration. One could argue that the two devices are different enough that their strengths and weaknesses even out. I would agree with that for the most part. Where the MBM excels, the LEVO finds a way to make up for lost ground for most issues and that goes both ways. However…

• You need an app to see the LEVO recipes and they still aren’t good.
• The LEVO takes 5 hours to make oil compared to the MBM’s one hour.
• Grinding the weed for the LEVO was annoying. If you do it wrong, you get weed in your extract.
• The LEVO does NOT have the capability to make tinctures.
• The LEVO strains your extract, but it seems like the straining mechanism might be what breaks first. (speculation)

Admittedly, these are minor gripes when you look at the big picture. These devices perform well enough that either one will likely have you smiling for a long time. But if you’re looking for the better of the two, the MBM ends up edging out the competition.

And there you have it! Our summary of the competition between two amazing extract-making machines: the Magical Butter Machine and the LEVO.

What do you think? Did we miss something? Are we just plain wrong on this one? Do you want us to make detailed instructions on using either machine? Don’t be shy! Contact us and let us know and we’ll update any information we missed.

The post Magical Butter Machine vs. LEVO: Which Makes Better Extracts? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

If you know how to make cannabis tinctures and hash oil, you can turn almost any regular food into a weed edible. Of all the edibles I’ve tried, my favorite is the cannabis gummy (aka the “Weed Gummy” or “Ganja Gummy”) for a few reasons.

Weed gummies taste good, travel well, and hit hard.

For starters, weed gummies are small, easy to eat, don’t make a mess, and can be made in countless flavors. And since they’re made using hash oil, you can fine-tune their potency to be insanely high, delicately subtle, or anywhere in between.

The Magical Butter Machine can take a lot of the work out of making gummies.

You can sit a cannabis gummy on the counter, at room temperature, and it won’t melt because it isn’t just Jell-O. That makes these gummies much easier to pack and take elsewhere since they don’t need refrigeration.

Plus, they’re just plain fun-looking. Seriously, look at these while saying “Ganja Gummy” out loud and I bet your day will get 5% better.

What’s So Great About Making Cannabis Gummies?

Gummies have recently surpassed high-potency weed brownies as my favorite edible. [Edit: It’s my favorite now, too! ~Nebula]

You can make drastic changes to the gummies’ flavor with little effort (more on that in the FAQs toward the end). Plus, people love them! When you make cannabis gummies, they don’t tend to last very long, especially with other people around. I had to call dibs on the 4 in the picture below so Nebula wouldn’t eat them before I got the shot!

I convinced Nebula not to eat these so I could take pictures. It was a shaky truce.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that you can’t legally purchase strong cannabis gummies in the state of California. By CA law, edibles have to be limited to just 10mg per portion. That means that the most potent edibles in CA are the ones you make at home. The law is a bit backward in my opinion, but it highlights the importance of making your own weed edibles.

On top of that, you can’t get cannabis gummies in fun shapes (by law) if you live in California, Colorado, or Washington. So if you want potent, fun-shaped gummies, it’s all about doing it yourself.

I’ve tried many recipes for making gummies, but this recipe (based on the one from the folks who make the Magical Butter Machine) is easily the best one of them all. Big thanks to MagicalButter.com for their great recipe!

Important Reminder:

Please do not keep your weed gummies in a place where a young person could get their hands on them. They look like regular candy and any kid (or pet) that finds them will likely eat them immediately!

Which Extract Do I Start With?

Cannabis gummies are made using hash oil. This makes it so that you get high levels of potency without as much of the strong “weed flavor” that accompanies some edibles. However, the extract you start with will further increase or decrease that undesirable weed flavor. There are two main choices when it comes to your starting extract:

Starting with tincture (good method)

• If you start with a tincture, you’ll still end up making it into hash oil during the process of making the gummies. That means you’re going to learn how to make hash oil, too. Most methods of making tincture capture a lot of chlorophyll from your weed which gives the resulting gummies more of that weed/green flavor. It’s much better to make a clean tincture specifically for these gummies using a method like this (The Quick Wash). This method leaves you with a golden tincture as opposed to the brown/black one you’d get with methods like this (Magical Butter Machine – easiest), this (blender – medium), or this (old-school method – which still works great). There’s nothing wrong with tinctures made with the last three methods, they’re just not as good for this purpose.

Starting with hash oil (best method)

• Well-made hash oil has very little green matter in it, so the taste is way more enjoyable. If you have the weed, time, and patience, I strongly recommend making gummies with pure hash oil. See these steps for info on how to make high-grade hash oil which is great for making gummies. I strongly suggest you use the quick wash method whenever you make hash oil. You can also use the Source Extractor to effortlessly create high-grade hash oil with these instructions. Note: Pure hash oil also comes from a tincture, but the method of making that tincture makes a world of difference.

Supplies

The supply list below makes a relatively small batch of gummies. Once you have your potency and flavor preferences locked in, you can make much bigger batches at once by multiplying the ingredients by 2…or more!

Supply List:

• 3 ounces flavored gelatin (any flavor)
• 2.5 envelopes (of ¼ ounce each) of unflavored gelatin
• 1/4 cup fruit juice (ex: apple juice, grape juice, etc., avoid citrus if possible)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• ½ teaspoon flavor extract
  • Go crazy! I’ve tried Vanilla, Maple Syrup, Butter, Lemon, Lime…
• Gummy molds (like these, or these, or even these)
• 1 large bowl
• 1 small bowl or container (for mixing liquids)
• A large non-stick pan
• Cannabis Extract – One of these two cannabis extracts…
  • Cannabis tincture: 1/4-1/2 cup made by any of the methods mentioned on this page, preferably the Quick Wash Method.
    • Tincture isn’t as good for gummies, as alcohol makes them come out more sticky or soft. 
    • How to make tincture: Magical Butter Machine – easiest, blender – medium difficulty, or the old-school method – which still works great
    • Don’t skip the step where you evaporate the tincture to reduce the amount of alcohol going into the recipe.
  • Hash Oil (recommended): The amount needed depends greatly on hash oil potency and viscosity. I would recommend starting with 7 drops of hash oil and eating more gummies as needed. If 7 drops is too many, use fewer drops in the next batch. You can also add more hash oil for stronger effects. For reference, I use 15 drops of oil when making a batch this size.

Step-by-Step: How to Make Cannabis Gummies

Directions:

1. In the large bowl, empty the entire 3oz package of flavored gelatin.
2. Pour 2.5 (1/4oz) envelopes of unflavored gelatin into the same large bowl.
3. Whisk the 2 gelatins until they blend. Set the large bowl aside.
4. In the small bowl, combine the fruit juice and honey, then mix until the honey is dissolved.
5. Slowly pour the juice/honey mixture into the large bowl with the gelatin mixture, and whisk the mixture until it’s thoroughly combined.
6. Set this mixture aside. It needs 5-10 minutes for the gelatin to fully absorb the liquid. (“Bloom the gelatin”)
7. If you started with tincture:
   1. Place your non-stick pan on the stove. Add your tincture to the pan and cook tincture down (on very low heat) until the tincture has the consistency of molasses or glue. This step evaporates most of the alcohol still left in the tincture and leaves you with hash oil. Make sure there’s good air circulation.
   2. Add your flavor extract to the pan and keep cooking until the mixture has a glue-like consistency again.
8. If you started with hash oil:
   1. Place your non-stick pan on the stove. Add your hash oil to the non-stick pan, and pour your flavor extract right on top of it.
9. Pour the gelatin mixture into the non-stick pan with your flavor extract and hash oil, and mix everything together.
10. Cook the combination over medium-low heat until the gelatin has completely dissolved (7-10 minutes).
    1. You can tell it’s done when you can’t see gelatin granules in the mixture.
11. Carefully pour the finished mixture into a measuring cup with a pour spout.
12. Pour the mixture into your molds, and refrigerate them for 1 hour.
13. Once they’re set, the gummies can easily be removed from the molds and eaten.

That’s it! If you followed those steps, you now have a bunch of potent weed gummies waiting to be eaten.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What about dosing? How much should I eat?

If you don’t know your tolerance, eat one gummy (or even half a gummy if you’re new to edibles) and wait 2.5 hours. That’ll give you enough time to digest the gummy and feel its effects. If it’s not strong enough, you can eat more at once next time. For your next batch, you can make them even stronger by adding more hash oil.

Conversely, if you eat a gummy and the experience is too intense, cut the dose down to 1/2, or even 1/4 the next time. When you make gummies next time, you can use 1/2 or 1/4 of the amount of hash oil in the same recipe.

How long do these gummies last?

These gummies supposedly last 2 months in a refrigerator or a full year in a freezer. That being said, I’ve never tested these limits as these gummies haven’t lasted longer than 7 days in my house.

Can I make layers?

Yup. It’s a lot of work, but it sure does look neat! Just repeat the instructions above with two visibly different colors of flavored gelatin. In your molds, pour some half-full with one color, then finish with another color. You can even have gummies with 3+ colors!

Or, you could separate your gelatin mixture into several parts and use food coloring to make each portion of gelatin look different. There won’t be extra flavors, but you’ll significantly reduce the work needed to get the layered look.

Yes, that’s a real 3-layered gummy we made, and each layer tastes different. It was an awesome experience.

Can I switch up the flavor?

Definitely! In fact, you should try switching out some of the ingredients to see how it affects the taste. Below, I’ve posted the ingredient list for the gummies, but I’ve noted which ingredients can be switched out, and a few tasty options to consider.

Ingredient List for Different Flavors:

• 3 ounces flavored gelatin (any flavor)
  • Try changing the flavor of the gelatin!
  • We’ve used: Orange, lemon, lime, strawberry, and “Berry Blue”
• 1/4 cup fruit juice (nothing that contains citrus)
  • Changing the fruit juice also makes a difference.
  • We’ve tried: Minute Maid fruit punch, Minute Maid watermelon juice, and Capri Sun
• 2.5 envelopes (of ¼ ounce each) of unflavored gelatin
  • Don’t alter this one…or, I guess you could try! If you find something interesting, let us know.
• 1 tablespoon of honey
  • You can try different types/flavors of honey or even substitute honey for agave nectar.
• ½ teaspoon flavor extract
  • You only use a little flavor extract but it goes a long way!
  • We’ve tried: Lemon extract, lime, vanilla, orange, maple, and butter!
• Gummy molds
  • It won’t make a difference in taste or potency, but who doesn’t like variety?
  • We’ve used: Weed gummy molds, cute animal gummy molds, and the Magical Butter Machine molds
• One of these two cannabis extracts
  • Cannabis tincture: the shade of tincture you use impacts the flavor! Try different darker/lighter tinctures to see how it tastes. Hint: Lighter tinctures seem to let the other flavors come through more.
  • Hash Oil: A golden-colored tincture is seen as perfect, but experimentation might prove otherwise…

I hope this article has helped you to make some delicious, powerful edibles! Have a good one!

The post How to Make Cannabis Gummies (Weed Gummy Bears) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

• What is Edible Hash Oil (Cannabis Extract Oil)?
• What Type of Alcohol Should You Use?
• Do I Need to Decarb My Weed First?
• Tinctures & Quick Wash
• How to Make Hash Oil – Manual Method
• How to Make Hash Oil – Automated Method
• How Do I Use Hash Oil?

by Sirius Fourside & Nebula Haze

What is Hash Oil (Cannabis Extract Oil)?

There are several ways that cannabis growers can turn homegrown bud into edible extracts. Some of the most popular are canna-caps, cannabutter, and tinctures. But cannabis hash oil may be the most useful weed extract.

Today, learn how cannabis hash oil is made!

Hash oil – also known as Cannabis Extract Oil or RSO – is a popular cannabis extract that many home-growers are producing themselves using their trim (trimmed off, trichome-covered leaves) or bud. Simply put, hash oil is the resin from a cannabis plant suspended in a tiny amount of solution. Ideally, the solution would be totally removed from the hash oil when it’s done.

Why is cannabis hash oil so great?

• Hash oil is a super-concentrated form of cannabis that’s edible and smokable.
• Hash oil is simple to make at home with typical kitchen items. Specialized tools can automate the process.
• Hash oil is easy to store and use when kept in syringes, which can dispense oil in measured amounts.

This hash oil took about 1/2oz of bud! Yikes! (It was worth it)

While some cannabis extracts use coconut oil, butter, or even isopropyl alcohol to bind to THC, hash oil is made with food-grade high-proof alcohol. Growers usually use ethanol or Everclear, but Spirytus, high-proof grape alcohol, or anything along those lines will do the job.

After the alcohol and weed are mixed, the mixture is strained and evaporated, leaving a thick, oily substance that is mostly resin. Since this “oil” is so potent, very little needs to be used at a time, which means that a small amount of hash oil can go a very long way. Hash oil can be eaten, vaporized, smoked, dabbed, or even used for topical applications.

What’s with the name “RSO”? A guy named Rick Simpson coined the term “Rick Simpson Oil” to refer to his style of hash oil. It turns out that RSO is much easier to say/type than “Cannabis Extract Oil”, so people tend to use RSO more often. We prefer “Hash Oil” as it’s more descriptive, but the two terms can be used interchangeably.

What Type of Alcohol Should You Use?

Any high-proof (190-proof or higher) alcohol that is meant for human consumption will work. Although isopropyl alcohol can be used for topical applications, we recommend using food-grade alcohol even in that case. In other words, please don’t use isopropyl alcohol for this tutorial! You can use any 190-proof (or higher) alcohol such as:

• Food-grade Ethanol (similar to what’s pictured below)
• Rectified/Neutral spirits:
  • Everclear
  • Spirytus (high-proof polish vodka)
  • Neutral spirits (clear unaged alcohols that are distilled at or above 190 proof)

You can get your hands on at least one of these options in most places. If you have a local hydroponics store, it can’t hurt to call and ask if they offer ethanol for sale. Some stores carry it because it’s often used to make weed products like hash oil. It’s also good for cleaning trimming shears.

Do I Need to Decarb My Weed First?

For those who aren’t familiar, decarb is short for “decarboxylation”. Decarboxylating (or decarbing) describes the process of slowly cooking your weed to activate all the good stuff in it by turning THC-A to THC.

Now that we’re all on the same page, do you need to decarb your weed before making hash oil?

The answer to this question can vary based on your reasons for making hash oil. However, in my opinion, the answer is “Yes, you should decarb 100% of the time when making hash oil!”

There are two main reasons people don’t decarb their weed before making hash oil:

1. They believe THC-A has medicinal properties
   • The process of making hash oil on its own doesn’t create enough heat to turn THC-A into the more potent THC. If you don’t decarb, you’ll have oil that’s mostly THC-A.
2. They don’t want psychoactive effects
   • THC gets you “high”, THC-A does not. Ingesting hash oil without decarbing the weed won’t get you “high” since it will be mostly THC-A. For some people, that’s a plus.

For the rest of us who do want our oil to be psychoactive, decarbing your weed is an absolute necessity. If you don’t decarb, the oil might still work for you, but it will be substantially weaker. So if you want that “high” feeling, make sure to decarb your weed!

We have a full article on different ways to decarb, but here are the quick steps:

How to Decarb Weed

Supplies:

• Oven
• Baking Sheet
• Foil or Parchment paper (no wax paper!)
• Weed

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250°F
2. Line your baking sheet with foil or parchment paper
3. Place your broken-up or ground cannabis on the baking sheet
4. Bake cannabis for 30 minutes (your cannabis will turn golden-brown)

Decarbing weed: Before and After. [Click on image for a larger version]

Check out our full article on decarboxylation for more info: https://www.growweedeasy.com/how-to-decarb-weed

Tinctures & Quick Wash

One last thing before we start…

Do you have cannabis tincture just lying around your house by any chance? I know it’s a weird question, but some growers have some lying around in the fridge or freezer (a tincture is a cannabis-infused alcohol). If that’s the case, you can skip straight to evaporating the alcohol!

If you don’t have tincture around your house (which is probably the case), you can do a “quick wash” to make the tincture. It’s a super-easy recipe, but it’s also effective despite how easy it is to make. Although you can have a quick wash done in around 20 minutes, you can make it even better by freezing your alcohol and weed overnight.

Your starting mixture will determine the color, flavor, and strength of your resulting hash oil. Tinctures like the one in this tutorial come out dark, and the resulting hash oil will be almost black, which is the “traditional” RSO look. Adversely, a well-done quick wash (like in the instructions below) will produce a gold-colored tincture that will result in golden-brown hash oil. Both methods have their perks and I would encourage you to try making hash oil both ways.

Note: If you’re interested in using tinctures on their own, we have an article on making those, too! Check it out here: https://www.growweedeasy.com/how-to-make-cannabis-tinctures

Supplies Needed:

• 2x Mason Jar
• Decarbed weed (recipe above)
  • If you don’t want psychoactive effects, don’t decarb the weed
• High-proof alcohol (190-proof or higher)
• Paper coffee filters or cheesecloth

Despite how it may look, that’s a well-made quick wash tincture. Gold is the color you’re looking for.

How to “Quick Wash”

1. If possible, place your alcohol and weed in the freezer overnight. This makes the alcohol absorb less unwanted material like chlorophyll.
2. Place your cold, decarbed weed in a mason jar.
3. Pour in enough freezing-cold alcohol to completely cover the weed, plus another 1/4”(1/2cm) or so.
4. Let the mixture sit for 20 minutes.
   1. Tip: I like to shake up my mixture for about 30 seconds after the 20 minutes are up.
5. Place a coffee filter or cheesecloth over your second mason jar.
6. Pour the mixture through the filter.
7. You now have quick-wash tincture!

How to Make Cannabis Extract Oil – Manual Method

Believe it or not, you’re already about halfway through the process. You’ve already made a usable tincture. The next step is to reduce the alcohol in the tincture until the cannabis resin is (almost) the only thing that’s left. This could be accomplished by just letting the mixture sit out until the alcohol evaporates, but that could take many days.

Instead, we’re going to use a double-cooker method to evaporate the alcohol using a stove. As long as you are careful and use low-heat on an electric stove, you’ll be totally fine. Don’t try this on a gas stove because high-proof alcohol vapor combined with an open flame is a recipe for disaster.

A cannabis tincture being reduced to hash oil using a double boiler on a kitchen stove.

Safety Checklist:

• Make sure there is good ventilation in the room you’re using. Fully opening a couple of windows will usually do.
• No open flames. That means no lighters, candles, or gas stoves.
• Keep a fire extinguisher handy. Remember, a fire extinguisher can turn a potential disaster into a minor inconvenience.
• Don’t go anywhere. Plan to stay with your hash oil until it’s done and you’ve turned everything off.

Supplies:

• Tincture
  • Use one of the simple Quick Wash recipes above or check out our tinctures page)
• Double boiler
  • You can make a double boiler using a pot and pan. Click here to see an example picture.
  • Important note: If you make a double boiler using a pot and pan, make sure they don’t fit together perfectly. Steam needs to be able to freely escape from the bottom pot, or there will be trouble.
• Soft-tip syringe
  • These are great for collecting the hash oil. Some oil will get forever lost to the tip of the syringe, but it’s still worth it in my opinion.

7 Steps to Make Hash Oil with Regular Kitchen Tools

1. Fill the bottom pot of your double boiler with about 3 inches of water.
2. Heat the water until it boils, then turn the heat to medium-low
3. Put on the top part of your double boiler. If you’re using a pan, make sure steam can escape.
4. Pour your tincture into the top pan
5. The tincture should heat up and eventually roil a bit
6. Continue to monitor the tincture as is slowly evaporates into an oily, sludge-like substance
   • Note: The longer you cook it, the more the texture will change. Less cooking evaporates less alcohol, which makes it more liquid; more cooking makes it harder/waxier.
7. Turn off the heat and collect your cannabis hash oil. Collecting your oil will be much easier while it’s still warm, so be quick!

How to Make Cannabis Extract Oil – Automated Method

Making hash oil is pretty easy with a stove, but using a machine is even easier.

There’s a device called the Source Turbo extractor, and it does the same job as a double boiler, but with a few added benefits:

• The source extractor recovers about 95% of your alcohol, so you can use it again and again. High-proof alcohol is a bit pricey, so this can save you money over time.
• It’s safer. The source creates a vacuum, so there are no fumes to ignite. Additionally, the Source doesn’t get hot enough to ignite alcohol fumes, so fire isn’t really a worry.
• It’s much easier to do than using a double boiler. You pretty much set it up and come back when it’s done. Still, we recommend staying in the same room with your extractor until it’s done.

Here’s our Source Turbo extractor in action. Notice the little pool of pure alcohol collecting at the bottom.

It’s a really cool machine to have if you want to make hash oil, but it has one major setback: the price! The Source Extractor Turbo costs quite a bit ($600) even though it’s the cheaper version of another extractor made by the same company. I wasn’t happy spending the money to test this thing out, but now that I have it and have tried the hash oil, I feel it was worth the money and I would definitely make the purchase again.

Note: This device is already loud in short bursts. Whenever the vacuum pump turns on, you’re going to notice!

Supplies Needed:

• Tincture
  • Use one of the Quick Wash recipes above or check out our tinctures page)
• Source Extractor Turbo
  • They also have a more expensive version for people who want to make tons of oil at once, but it seems like overkill to me.
• Soft-tip syringe
  • These are great for collecting the hash oil. Some oil will get forever lost to the tip of the syringe, but it’s still worth it in my opinion.

Steps:

The Source comes with a web link that leads to instructions on how to use the device. It’s a quick read and will help you get the most out of your extractions. Here’s an even quicker version of what you need to do.

1. Place your Source on a flat surface and make sure all the parts are aligned.
2. Pour your tincture into the reservoir cup and carefully screw the cup into the Source.
3. Put the lid on your Source, then plug it in and seal the vacuum by twisting the valve on the front.
4. Start the Source and it will make a loud sound as it creates a vacuum.
5. Make sure it reaches full vacuum (the sound will stop), which should take less than 5 minutes. There’s also a phone app to tell you when it’s at full vacuum. If it’s vacuuming too long, turn it off and troubleshoot with the company’s guide.
6. When the extraction is finished, stop the machine, release the vacuum and let the chamber cool for a few minutes.
7. You can allow the oil to cook for as long as desired. The texture will change as it cooks, going from a tincture to oil, to some sap-like stuff, to a wax. Stop it whenever YOU like the texture and consistency.
8. Collect your extract
9. Collect your alcohol from the extractor and store for reuse.

 The Source Turbo extractor is like a crockpot for making awesome cannabis hash oil.

How Do I Use Cannabis Extract Oil?

You can use hash oil in a ton of different ways! The way you use it will depend on the consistency of the oil you made.

• If you boiled it down to a much stronger, liquid tincture, you can just eat it or put it into a liquid with a strong flavor.
• Oils can be mixed into food, put on flowers, or rolled into joints
• Wax can be melted onto weed (called “caviar”), vaporized, or dabbed.
• Since all of the substance you make will be decarboxylated, you can just eat it directly and you’ll definitely feel the effects. Be careful, though. It’s can be intensely strong!

Hash oil can be stored in the fridge, though cold hash oil is almost solid until it’s warmed up. You can eat it directly or add it to anything edible to help mask the taste.

Want to eat oil with zero taste? Use an empty gelatin capsule. Pop one open, squeeze in some oil, and snap closed for easy swallowing. Bonus: These caps are easy to hide in a vitamin bottle.

Nebula enjoying some marijuana hash oil on toast with jam.

The post How to Make Hash Oil (aka Cannabis Extract Oil or RSO) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

What Is A Tincture?

• Edible vs Topical
• Alcohol vs. Glycerin
• What Alcohol to Use?

Safety (Read me!)

How to Make Tinctures

1. Old-School Method (aka Green Dragon)
2. The Ed Rosenthal Method
3. Water Bath Method
4. Making Tinctures with a Magical Butter Machine

Using and Storing Tinctures

What Is A Tincture?

A tincture is a concentrated herbal extract. In the cannabis world, this means it’s an herbal extract that has some of the useful properties of weed. Cannabis tinctures are usually made from alcohol but they can also be made with glycerin to skip the intoxicating effects of the – usually high-proof – alcohol.

3 jars containing cannabis tinctures, each one made in a different way.

Today’s article will teach you 4 different ways to make cannabis tinctures, from the most simple (put weed and alcohol together in a jar and shake) to the most automated (make it in a specialized tincture machine). Let’s get started!

Edible vs Topical

Some tinctures are made to be ingested while some are made to go on your skin. The difference comes from how the tincture was made. If you make tinctures with food-grade materials like Don Q 151 rum (a good replacement for old classic Bacardi 151, which was discontinued in 2016), Everclear, Glycerin, etc., then the tincture is going to be edible. If you’re making tinctures with stuff that isn’t safe to ingest, like isopropyl alcohol, balms, or lotions, then you’re making a topical tincture that should be applied to your skin instead of being eaten. Don’t make edible tinctures with isopropyl alcohol, it’s very dangerous to eat that stuff!

Don’t ingest anything made from isopropyl alcohol! 

Alcohol vs. Glycerin

Simply put, alcohol is better for making tinctures because it’s better at bonding to THC than glycerin.

Alcohol makes tinctures faster than glycerin because alcohol bonds with THC more easily. Any alcohol being used for tinctures should be high-proof to absorb as much THC as possible. High-proof alcohol can be tough to find depending on where you live, so you can substitute it for the highest-proof alcohol you can get, but expect weaker results.

Glycerin is a plant-based solution that is great for tinctures when you don’t want any of the taste or intoxicating effects of alcohol. Although glycerin is a great vehicle for tinctures, it’s not as good as alcohol at bonding to the THC in your cannabis. In fact, some growers prefer to make tincture with alcohol, and then add glycerin afterward. For stronger glycerin tincture, you could evaporate some of the alcohol and add glycerin in its place.

We’re using 100% Food-grade Ethyl Alcohol

Types of Alcohol

If you have easy access to Everclear, you’re already set. Everclear is a great type of alcohol to use for tinctures because it’s pure and it’s edible (which is super important).

You can also use a 151-proof rum like Don Q 151. Although it’s not as good of a choice as Everclear, it’s strong enough to bond to THC easily and it’ll definitely get the job done.

As another option, you can get a super-strong Polish alcohol called Spirytus (thanks Ed Rosenthal!). Although you won’t find it just sitting on the shelves of your local supermarket, you can order it and have it shipped to you from a reputable company like BevMo. Spirytus is stronger than anything that’s 151 proof and is a great substitute for those who can’t get Everclear. Otherwise, Don Q 151 will do the job just fine.

If you can’t get Everclear or something similar in your area, a 151-proof rum (like Don Q 151 rum) is a good substitute.

Safety first!

Making tinctures involves the use of high-proof alcohol. All of the alcohols we recommend are great for making tinctures, but they’re also flammable!

Here are a few steps to keep tincture creation as uneventful as possible:

1. No open flames – Unfortunately, that means no smoking. Even a small spark can be enough to create a massive fire under the right conditions.
2. No gas stoves – It’s insanely dangerous to attempt cooking tinctures near gas-burner stoves. Alcohol fumes + a gas stove is a recipe for an accidental fire. If your stove uses gas, try using a hot plate if possible, but under no circumstances should you take the chance of using a gas burner stove.
3. Ensure Good Ventilation – High-proof alcohol makes fumes that can be easily ignited when they build up. If you keep the area well-ventilated, the concentration of flammable fumes in the air stays low enough that it can’t be combusted. In other words, make sure there’s new, clean air in your cooking area to avoid a flaming mishap.
4. Keep a dry-chemical fire extinguisher handy – As long as you follow the rules above, you’ll be safely making your own tinctures. However, it’s always a good idea to be prepared by owning a working fire extinguisher! You can get extinguishers at hardware stores or online. It’s a good thing to have around your house in case of an emergency whether you’re making tinctures or not.

When it comes to making tinctures with high-proof alcohol, fire is your worst enemy!

Weed to Alcohol Ratios

There is quite a bit of opinion on how much weed/alcohol to use when making tinctures. The amount a person is looking for can vary greatly depending on what effects they’re looking for. Here are some starting guidelines that you can try first and adjust as necessary for your specific case:

• Mild – 1g of weed to 30ml of alcohol (1oz of weed to ~850ml of alcohol)
• Medium – 1g of weed to 20ml of alcohol (1oz of weed to ~570ml of alcohol)
• Strong – 1g of weed to 10ml of alcohol (1oz of weed to ~280ml of alcohol)

Again, none of these measurements are set in stone. If you try one of these ratios and it feels too strong, move to one of the milder ratios and try it again. Too weak? Try one of the stronger ratios. If you’re already at the strongest/weakest ratio and it still needs to be adjusted, that’s no big deal! Just add less alcohol to make the tincture stronger, or add more alcohol to make it weaker. You can also evaporate some of the alcohol to increase potency, or add glycerin to your tincture to decrease potency without adding more alcohol. Tinctures are very customizable!

How to Make Tinctures

Old-School Method (aka Green Dragon)

This is the slowest method, but it’s also the most famous. You’ve probably heard of “Green Dragon” if you haven’t already had it. The fact that it takes almost no extra materials can’t be hurting its popularity…

Supplies:

• Weed
• High-Proof Alcohol
• Cobalt Blue Mason Jar w/ lid (clear and amber glass jars work too)

Steps:

1. Decarboxylate 1 oz of weed.
2. Add the weed to a glass container like a mason jar.
3. Add about 300ml of alcohol to the jar. Close the jar tight.
4. Place the jar somewhere cool and dark for about 3 months. Shake up the jar when the mood strikes you.
   1. Alternate Method: Shake the heck out of the jar over the course of an hour; many people believe this is just as effective as waiting for 3 months. I don’t know if it’s just as effective, but I tested the 60-minute method and it definitely works. It’s like a less-quick, quick-wash.

Old-school “Green Dragon” can take a long time to make!

Make sure to shake your jar of Green Dragon every so often.

The Ed Rosenthal Method

I’m a fan of Ed Rosenthal. He comes up with original (or at least original to me) ways of doing things, but even better, he always has a reason behind his methods. This technique is from his book on concentrates/edibles called “Beyond Buds: Next Generation” and I suggest you pick up a copy. It’s a beautiful book with great info and I’m sure you’ll learn something new!

Supplies:

• Weed
• High-Proof Alcohol
• Amber or Cobalt Blue Mason Jar w/ lid
• Blender/Food Processor
• Mesh Strainer
• Large Metal Bowl
• Another Large Bowl (Metal or Glass)
• Cheesecloth

Beyond Buds: Next Generation by Ed Rosenthal. I own a copy and it’s good!

Steps:

1. Decarboxylate 1oz of weed
2. Add the weed to your strainer, then put the strainer in the large metal bowl
3. Fill the bowl with water until the weed floats, and let it sit for 90 minutes.
   1. This should help leech out some of the chlorophyll from your bud.
4. Pull the strainer from the bowl so the water drains.
5. Collect your wet weed into a ball and squeeze the water out with your hands.
6. Break up the squeezed weed and add it to your blender.
7. Add about 300ml of alcohol to the blender and blend on low for 5 minutes.
8. Let the mixture sit for an hour, then blend again for 5 minutes.
9. Pour the mixture through a strainer into a different bowl, making sure to collect the used weed material.
   1. Make sure to squeeze any tincture out of the material.
   2. The mixture you just filtered is a potent cannabis tincture! Put it to the side so you can store it later.
10. Put the used weed material in a container with fresh alcohol to soak for another hour.
11. Pour the mixture through a strainer again, but this time you can discard the used weed.
12. Pour your tincture through some cheesecloth spread out over a bowl to filter out particulates.
    1. This step isn’t necessary, but it looks nicer.
13. Pour your tincture into an amber or cobalt blue jar that can be sealed.
14. Your tincture is ready!

That’s an ounce of weed rolled into a ball. We played with it more than we should have.

Water Bath Method

The water bath method is a fast way to make tinctures, but it also requires the most care since you have to make sure the water bath doesn’t get too hot.
Oddly enough, this method is the lower-budget version of using a Magical Butter Machine since it does all the same things but needs you to be there to take action and monitor for safety.

Important: Do not perform this method with any open flames anywhere in your house! Evaporating alcohol creates a flammable vapor, and having an open flame anywhere near flammable vapor is a recipe for firey disaster. Please be safe!

Supplies:

• Weed
• High-Proof Alcohol
• Mason jar (for cooking) – you can often find these cheaper in person at Wal-Mart, the grocery store, Home Depot, craft store, etc.
• Amber or Cobalt Blue Mason Jar w/ lid (for storage)
• Coffee Grinder/Food Processor
• Mesh Strainer
• Large Metal Bowl
• Cheesecloth
• A pot for cooking (not for smoking)
• An accurate candy thermometer or another cooking thermometer

Steps:

1. Decarboxylate 1oz of weed.
2. Grind up your cannabis.
3. Add the weed to your mason jar.
4. Add about 300ml of your alcohol of choice to the jar.
5. IMPORTANT: DO NOT CLOSE OR SEAL THE JAR!
6. Fill the pot with 1” of water and place on an electric stove (no gas stoves!) on medium.
7. Use your thermometer to make sure the water is no hotter than 165°F.
8. Place the unsealed mason jar with your weed and alcohol into the pot.
   1. This is called a water bath. See the picture below to see what it looks like.
9. Adjust the temperature as needed until the alcohol/weed mixture gets to 165°F and let it cook for 30 minutes.
   1. Stay next to the water bath and make sure it doesn’t get too hot (above 165°F).
10. Remove the jar from the water bath and let it cool for about 30 minutes.
11. Pour your tincture through some cheesecloth spread out over a bowl to filter out particulates.
    1. This step isn’t necessary, but it looks nicer.
12. Pour your tincture into an amber or cobalt blue jar that can be sealed.
13. You’re done!

Watch the temperature closely when using a water bath.

Making Tinctures with a Magical Butter Machine

The Magical Butter Machine might be the best way to make tinctures. It stirs tinctures more than a human could, it constantly heats the material, and it has infinite patience, unlike a human being. It can stir and heat your tincture for 8 straight hours with no work on your part past the initial setup, which is crazy.

Supplies:

• Weed
• High-Proof Alcohol
• Magical Butter Machine ($200)
• Amber, Clear, or Cobalt Blue Mason Jar w/ lid (for storage)
• Mesh Strainer
• Large Metal Bowl
• Cheesecloth

Steps:

1. Decarboxylate 1oz of weed.
2. Add the weed to your Magical Butter Machine without grinding it.
3. Add 2 cups (or more for a less potent product) of your alcohol to the machine.
   1. 2cups is the bare minimum you can add.
4. Set the temperature to 130°F.
5. Set the timer to 4 hours (tincture)
   1. …or set it to 8 hours for a stronger product.
6. Let the machine finish, then unplug it and let your mixture cool for 30 minutes.
7. Pour your tincture through some cheesecloth spread out over a bowl to filter out particulates.
   1. This step isn’t necessary, but it looks nicer.
8. Pour your tincture into an amber or cobalt blue jar that can be sealed.
9. Tincture time!

This is 2 cups of tincture that just finished cooking in the Magical Butter Machine

This is the machine you see above, the Magical Butter Machine.
Get one on Amazon.com!

How to Use Tinctures

There’s no perfect recipe for how to try tinctures since everyone has different tastes and tolerances. Here’s the best advice I can give for how to try your product:

• Get “Boston Round” jars with droppers. These make it much easier to measure out doses of your tincture so you can repeat what works for you.
• Try “Sublingual Administration”: Place a few drops of tincture under your tongue until it absorbs. This method provides quicker THC absorption with less alcohol intoxication.
• Don’t try tinctures for the first time if you have important things to do. Testing is best done on a free day at home just in case it’s too strong.
• If your tolerance is low, or If you don’t know your tolerance, start with a drop or two of tincture then wait 1.5-2 hours to see how it affects you.
• For those with battle-tested, higher tolerances, try a full dropper and wait 1.5-2 hours to see how you feel.
• You can also add tinctures to a shot’s worth of a non-alcoholic drink with a strong flavor such as cranberry juice or root beer.

Storing Tinctures

• Alcohol tinctures last multiple years if kept in an amber/cobalt glass bottle in your refrigerator. The amber/cobalt coloring keeps light from degrading the cannabinoids in your tinctures.
• Glycerin tinctures can last a few months if refrigerated.

Whew! That was long! Did I miss something? Do you still have any questions? Use the contact form to let us know!

The post How to Make Cannabis Tinctures appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

• What is Decarboxylation? (and how does it increase potency?)
• Should you grind the weed?
• How to Decarboxylate Your Weed
  • Natural Method (Slow!)
  • Baking Sheet
  • Oven Bag
  • Mason Jar
  • Ardent Nova (Decarb machine)

Before making edibles, decarb (cook) cannabis in the oven for 30 minutes at 250°F (120°C) to increase potency.

Note: This university-level book teaches the chemistry of extractions (cannabis, herbs, mushrooms, roots, seeds, etc.)

What Is Decarboxylation?

Decarboxylation is a chemical reaction that makes cannabis edibles feel more potent. The sciency-sounding word describes the process of turning THCA, which isn’t that psychoactive, into the THC we all know and love. Since cannabis typically contains THCA instead of THC before it’s heated or smoked, decarboxylation is essential when processing cannabis for eating. The regular cooking process typically isn’t enough to decarb cannabis fully, and it doesn’t happen naturally in your stomach.

That’s why in most recipes for cannabis edibles or tinctures, decarboxylation (or the informal verb, “decarbing”) is the first step you take.

Don’t worry, it’s simple. Decarbing simply means subjecting your weed to high temperatures (~250°F or 120°C) over about 30 minutes before using it in your recipe.

These cannabis buds are about to get decarbed.

When you smoke or vaporize cannabis, the heat of the fire/vaporizer makes the decarboxylation process happen. The heat turns the THCA in your cannabis to THC, you inhale that THC and feel its effects.

When you decarb, it forces the same transformation to happen, yet leaves all that good stuff on the bud so you can eat it or cook it into something like butter or oil.

Did you know? Heat isn’t the only way decarboxylation happens. Even if you never heat your cannabis, the process of decarbing also occurs naturally over time at regular temperatures. So older cannabis is often already decarboxylated.

Why Is Decarbing Important?

Why decarb? Because decarbing is what makes edibles work! Decarboxylation could be seen as the most important step in making edibles since it’s the process that makes your weed actually feel like weed when you eat it.

It may seem counterintuitive to “cook” your weed by itself. Wouldn’t that burn off all the good stuff and make it less potent? No, it won’t reduce the potency as long as you follow the instructions in this tutorial.

In fact, it’s the opposite. If your buds are not decarbed before being eaten, you won’t feel the psychoactive effects of your weed. You could eat a whole ounce of raw bud and only be left with a breath that smells like a dispensary!

Break cannabis buds up to prepare them for decarboxylation.

Small Pieces of Weed vs. Grinding Your Weed

There’s a bit of debate about how to prepare your bud before decarboxylation. But in our opinion, as long as you break it up a little bit there isn’t a whole lot of difference.

Small Pieces

Breaking your weed into smaller pieces means it all gets baked a lot more evenly than if you had used whole nugs. The downside to breaking your weed up by hand as opposed to grinding is that it’s slightly more time consuming since grinding can be done with machines like a food processor.

Don’t get scared off though, it’s easy to do. If you have enough finger mobility to break up broccoli florets with your hands, you can break up your bud. It only takes a few minutes and it’s free!

I used my fingers to break this weed up into small pieces before decarboxylation.

Grinding

A huge benefit to grinding up your weed instead of breaking it up with your hands is that you can use a machine like a food processor to do all the work for you. You just put some bud in, hold a button for a few seconds and dump out the finished product!

This is the method I typically use because it’s a bit easier to do than breaking up nugs. It’s hard to mess up because you can’t really grind your bud too small/fine. I’ve made edibles with weed ground so fine it ends up as a powder. Some growers claim that grinding the weed can cause it to lose potency, but I never noticed that in my experiments.

You can use a food processor to save time compared to breaking weed up by hand.

I had this older model food processor for almost 6 years. I miss ya, pal.

However, there is a downside to grinding: it’s easier to lose material the finer your weed gets. You can lose some herb to the sides of the grinder, some in transferring containers or some in the container you use for decarbing. If you’re concerned with saving every last bit of bud, you might want to break buds up by hand. That being said, you can save the vast majority of your ground-up material by just making sure to be a little careful about collecting and moving your weed.

Extra Note: Some devices that help make edibles (like the Magical Butter Machine) suggest that you don’t grind up your weed before using it in their recipes. So, if you’re thinking about using a Magical Butter Machine, break your buds up by hand. If you’re going to make edibles without a machine, grinding is a solid solution.

How to Decarb Your Weed: Overview of Methods

Alright, let’s get into details. We’ll go through the popular methods of decarbing, how to do them, what supplies you’ll need, and grade them based on convenience and how much smell they make.

Natural Decarb (Time Method)

Did you know time turns THCA to THC? Weed that sits around long enough decarbs on its own. Just wait for a long, long time. In all honesty, this method is so time-consuming and inconsistent that it isn’t really a viable technique for making edibles. That being said, sometimes it works out. Nebula and I grow a lot of weed, and once we had a particularly high-yielding harvest sitting in jars in our cupboard for over a year as we slowly went through it. After a year, the weed was still fantastic to smoke, but had clearly gone through changes as it had turned into a rich golden-brown color.

We could’ve added it directly to food and felt psychoactive effects without decarbing. But if we had used that weed for edibles, we still would have decarbed it separately just to ensure all the THCA had turned to THC.

Convenience: 1/10
Smell Containment: 10/10

Supplies:

• Weed
• Time

Steps:

• Wait a long time, or use a different method if you want your edibles in less than 12+ months.

There are better ways to decarb than just waiting!

Baking Sheet

This is the most common method growers use to decarb their weed because many people already have all the materials they need to do it without needing to make a trip to the store.

It’s also worth noting that this is by far the smelliest method for decarbing. If you’re going to use this method, just know that your home is going to be flooded by an unignorable, pungent, unmistakably weedy smell. Running a fan with an attached carbon filter helps a lot, but it’s still going to get funky.

Convenience: 7/10
Smell Containment: 1/10 (smelliest method)

Supplies:

• Oven
• Baking Sheet
• Foil or Parchment paper (no wax paper)
• Weed

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250°F
2. Line baking sheet with foil or parchment paper
3. Place your broken-up or ground cannabis on the baking sheet
4. Bake cannabis for 30 minutes
5. The cannabis should change to a brownish color

This is an ounce of cannabis before being decarbed on a baking sheet…

…and this is the same ounce of weed after being decarbed on a baking sheet at 250°F for 30 minutes.

Oven Bags

The oven bag (or turkey bag) method works just like the baking sheet but with a bit less work. You don’t need to line a baking sheet this way, and collecting the finished material is a piece of cake. Also, the bag doesn’t get extremely hot to the touch, so in that way, it’s safer than using something like a glass mason jar. There’s also much less smell than if you just bake the cannabis on a baking sheet.

The downside is that this method takes having something that probably isn’t in your house right now.

Convenience: 8/10
Smell Containment: 6/10

Supplies:

• Oven
• Baking Sheet
• Oven bags (sometimes called turkey bags)
• Weed

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250°F
2. Place your broken-up or ground cannabis in the oven bag
3. Tie a tight knot in the oven bag
   1. This keeps the weed and smell inside the bag
4. Place the bag on a baking sheet (no foil/parchment needed)
5. Bake for 30 minutes
6. The cannabis should change to a brownish color

Place your broken-up cannabis in the oven bag, tie a tight knot, and bake for 30 minutes at 250°F on a baking sheet.

Mason Jars

Glass mason jars are great, aren’t they?

They’re great for curing cannabis, they can be vacuum sealed, they’re an amazing tool for decarboxylation, and you probably already have at least one in your house if you grow cannabis. Additionally, they’re pretty darn good at keeping the weed smell contained; even better than oven bags and WAY better than just baking the weed on a baking sheet.

Convenience: 8/10
Smell Containment: 8/10 (screw the lid on tight to keep the smell in)

Supplies:

• Oven
• Wide-mouth Glass Mason Jars
• Weed

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250°F
2. Place your broken-up or ground cannabis in the mason jar
3. Screw the top on tight. Real tight!
   • A tighter seal means less weed smell will escape the jar
4. Carefully place the mason jar on your oven rack. The jar should not be touching the heating element or sides of your oven.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until cannabis changes to a brownish color.
6. Important: The glass will be very hot when it comes out of the oven! Make sure to use oven mitts when you touch the jar and give it time to cool before opening.

The left is untreated weed and the right shows weed that has been decarbed in a mason jar at 250°F for 30 minutes

Ardent FX Mini (previously called the Ardent Nova)

I didn’t even realize this was a thing until a reader wrote to me about it. The Ardent FX Mini (previously called the “Ardent Nova”) is a machine with a singular purpose: decarbing weed. It’s a set-and-forget style system, meaning you can load it with up to 1 ounce of weed, start it, and walk away. While you’re gone, the Ardent FX Mini will slowly and thoroughly decarb your weed and stop applying heat as soon as it senses the job is done. No need for an oven because it plugs directly into the wall. Plus it makes almost no smell whatsoever; I had to put my nose right up to it to smell anything.

Click Here to Get Your Own Ardent FX Mini on Amazon.com

Downsides to the Ardent FX Mini machine? It takes longer to decarb your buds than the oven-based methods (up to 2 hours instead of the normal 30 minutes), you can only do an ounce of bud at a time (maximum), and it’s expensive ($170).

However, after trying out the Ardent FX Mini, I was converted. I live in a condo in a populous city, so my neighbors are pretty close to me. The total lack of smell was enough to make me a fan of the Ardent FX Mini all by itself, but being able to start the process and go run errands without worry sealed the deal.

Convenience: 9/10 (would be a 10 if not for the price)
Smell Containment: 10/10

Supplies:

• Ardent FX Mini Decarboxylator
• Weed (1oz maximum at a time)

Steps:

First, consult the instructions that come with the device. Here are the general steps:

1. Plug in your Ardent FX Mini
   • The light on the front will turn green
2. Take off the top and purple seal underneath
3. Take out the metal container and load it up with weed, up to an ounce at a time
4. Put the metal container back in, put the seal on top (it fits loosely), and replace the lid
5. Press the button on the front of the Ardent Nova
   • The light on the front will turn red
6. Come back in roughly 2 hours (or whenever you feel like, it stops automatically)
   • The light will turn green again when it’s done
7. It takes about 2 hours to decarb a full ounce

After decarbing weed in the Ardent FX Mini, this is what the buds looked like inside

There you have it! You now have a handful of effective methods to decarb your weed and get ready to make butter, oil, gummies, tinctures, infused food, etc. I ended up decarbing more than 6oz of weed while writing this, so I’ll be making lots of cannabis goodies over the next few weeks!

If you’re not sure what to do with your newly decarbed cannabis, “magic” butter is one of the best options in my opinion. Cannabutter is super versatile and can be used in hundreds of dishes that use butter or just as a topping on a “regular” dish (like a baked potato).

The post Decarboxylation: How to Decarb Weed for Edibles appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

• What Is Rosin?
  • Rosin vs. Resin vs. Live Resin
  • Rosin vs. Bubble Hash/Kief/Dry Ice Hash
  • Before You Start Making Rosin…
• How Much Rosin Will I Get?
• How to Make Rosin
  • Best Method: Make Homemade Rosin with a Press
  • Budget Method: Make Homemade Rosin with a Hair Straightener
• How to Use and Store Rosin

What Is Rosin?

If you’re thinking about making rosin, it’s a good idea to know what you’re getting into! Rosin is a solventless cannabis concentrate that you can make at home. Since it’s solventless, it’s a lot safer than concentrates that involve the use of chemicals, like BHO or Shatter. Rosin is versatile; you can place it on flowers as a “topper”, or you can smoke it as a “dab” if you have the appropriate equipment. In fact, if you’re looking to turn your weed into a dab-able concentrate, rosin is a great way to go.

Freshly made cannabis rosin on a wax tool.

Rosin vs. Resin vs. Live Resin

If you’ve been to a dispensary, or if you’re active in the cannabis community online, you’ve probably heard of these three similar-sounding things. They’re pretty different from each other, but it’s not as complicated as people make it seem.

Rosin (today’s tutorial)

Rosin is the result of putting cannabis under intense heat and pressure. If you stick some weed between two hot plates and press the plates together as hard as you can, a golden/golden-brown substance will spill out. In other words, if you “squish” weed really hard, goo comes out. That substance is rosin!

Resin

When you hear the word resin, it can refer to one of two very different things. One usage refers to “the sticky stuff” on your plants, aka the trichomes. This is the stuff you can collect in a grinder as “kief”. You could also use cold water to agitate resin off your weed (bubble hash) or freeze the trichomes off your weed (dry-ice hash).

Resin also refers to the black sludge leftover in bongs and pipes after extended use. This type of resin is also called “reclaim”, and many people smoke this leftover gunk so they don’t waste weed. Although this can be effective in a pinch, it’s about as gross as it sounds, and we don’t recommend doing it. The stuff is sticky, stinky (not in a good way) and it stains everything it touches.

A ball of black “reclaim”; the gross kind of cannabis resin.

Live Resin

As the newest kid on the block, Live Resin is one of the most sought-after concentrates available. Live Resin is made from freezing a newly harvested plant then using additional means to extract the trichomes from the plant. This is usually done with a solvent and it takes some sophisticated equipment to do.

Wait, I’ve heard these names before…

If you think you’ve heard the terms “rosin” or “resin” before, it’s because you probably have! The lack of legal legitimacy makes it so that many of the terms we use as cannabis growers are repurposed from other stuff.

• Rosin refers to a substance used on the bows of cellos and violins. Rosin makes it easier for the bows to grip the strings of their respective instrument.
• Resin is a thick substance made by plants that is usually composed of terpenes. This definition is perfect for what we’re talking about, except that resin can refer to the sticky stuff from any plant.

Rosin vs. Bubble Hash/Kief/Dry Ice Hash

There are already a ton of cannabis concentrates, so it might be hard to remember what the difference is between them. Here’s a really quick breakdown of some differences between some of the heavy-hitters:

(from left) Cannabis Rosin, Dry-Ice hash, Bubble hash, Kief

Rosin

• Made with high-heat and intense pressure.
• Makes a strong, sticky substance that you can dab or put on flowers.

Bubble Hash

• Combine weed, ice-cold water, agitate and filter to make Bubble Hash
• After drying, you’ll have a crumbly pile of tiny, super-potent pebbles and dust
• Learn how to make Bubble Hash.

Kief

• This stuff just falls right off of dry cannabis if it’s moved around enough
• Makes a golden-green powder that can be sprinkled on flowers.

Dry-Ice Hash

• Like Bubble Hash, but uses Dry-Ice instead of cold water.
• Dry-Ice Hash is essentially Kief, but using dry-ice makes the process more efficient.
• Learn How to make Dry-Ice Hash.

If you’re going to make your own homemade cannabis rosin, there are two main methods: you can use a dedicated rosin press, or you can use a hair straightener. Both these methods will work, but they each have their strengths and weaknesses. In just a bit, we’ll go through each method of making rosin and some of the pros and cons of each technique.

Before You Start Making Rosin…

Rosin is just plain great! It’s impressive, fun to make, and even more fun to use. However, before you start on your rosin making journey, there are a few important pieces of information you should know:

1. Rosin is weed intensive. It takes a bunch of weed to do, and if you’re lucky with a high-quality hydraulic press and a cooperative strain, you’ll get 25% of your weed-weight back as rosin. In my experience, a hair straightener should return between 5%-10% while a non-hydraulic press (like the one I use in this tutorial) will get you 8%-17% That number can get a little higher or a lot lower and that largely depends on your rosin press, your technique, and the weed you start with. Some strains will make lots of rosin, and some will make very little. Seriously, your weed will make a huge difference in determining how much rosin you can press out of it.
   1. If you harvest lots of weed at a time like with this method, you can go crazy making rosin without worry!
2. Making rosin involves high levels of heat. Be careful not to burn yourself during the process of pressing, no matter which method you use.
3. You will have to experiment a bit. Although you can use the default settings provided below, you’ll do even better if you test out different strains, temperatures and length of pressing time.

Captured cannabis rosin looks almost like a Rorschach test.

How Much Rosin Will I Get?

This is a common question growers have before they invest their homegrown weed into making rosin. There isn’t an exact answer since no one can predict the future. However, there are a few factors that will give you a good idea of what to expect from your next pressing.

1. Strain – The strain you use will make a huge difference! Some strains make tons of trichomes and will give you good returns on rosin, some strains will make next to nothing.
2. Pressure – The more pressure your rosin press can produce, the more rosin you’re likely to get.
3. Grow Method (Lights) – Powerful grow lights are more likely to produce weed with lots of resin. So, good lights = more rosin!
4. Heat – In short, less heat (down to 220°F) will produce a better product, but less yield. Higher temps will produce more rosin of lower quality.
5. Moisture – Too-dry buds will soak up much more of your rosin before it can make it to your parchment paper. Buds at about 58-62%RH will work great.
6. Age – Although we can’t say this definitively, our testing shows that newer bud seems to put out more rosin than older bud. This could be a side-effect of moisture, but again, we don’t have proof besides informal testing.

Factors 2 and 4 are largely dependent on your rosin press. In general, you can expect the most rosin from a hydraulic press, a fair amount of rosin from a manual press, and the least from a hair straightener.

All 6 factors will drastically affect how much rosin you’re able to press out of your cannabis. When pressing your rosin, try testing out these factors individually. Not only will you have a good time producing rosin, but you’ll learn the best way for you to maximize the amount of rosin you get in while maintaining the level of quality you want.

As a very rough estimate, you can expect about

• 5-10% return from a hair straightener (in good scenarios)
• 8-17% returned from a manual press
• 20-25+% from a hydraulic press

If you want a high-quality rosin press, be prepared to PAY! These are prices displayed at a local hydroponics shop.
(Note how the price jumps from $500 to $2000. Guess which ones are hydraulic…)

How to Make Rosin with a (manual) Rosin Press

There are better presses out there, but here are some good options for under $400.

Check out the Dabpress 4-ton rosin press ($350 on dabpress.com)

The 4-ton press is the model we own and used in this article; it’s a midrange press that gets the job done! Dabpress offers also offers more powerful presses that we haven’t tried yet. If I were to buy another one, I’d probably get the 12-ton press, which is a huge upgrade that only costs about $200 more. Dabpress presses go up to 30 tons, but you’ll pay a pretty penny at that size.

Rosin Presses that Ship from Amazon:

• 5 Ton Portable Hydraulic Heat Press Machine ($250) – similar to the 4-ton press used in the article, but from a generic company
• Heat Press Machine, 10T Manual Hydraulic Jack Heat Press Machine ($350) – more than double the power, for easier pressing

Pros

• Made for the job (much easier than using a DIY solution like a hair straightener!)
• More efficient; you’ll get more rosin per press.
• Fun! Making your own rosin is actually fun with a press!
• Uses a pump to increase the amount of pressure you can apply.

Cons

• Expensive. A decent press costs a bit and higher-end presses can cost thousands!
• The pump still takes manual strength to operate.

You’ll want to thoroughly read the instructions for your rosin press before you use it. Although the instructions are simple, they can vary quite a bit depending on who makes the press.

What You’ll Need:

• Rosin Press
  • In this tutorial, I’ll be using the Dabpress 4-ton rosin press, but there are higher grade (more expensive) ones available
• Minimum 5g of weed (you’re going to want more, but only press as much as your machine says you can press)
• Parchment paper (do not substitute with wax paper)
  • You can get pre-cut squares or a roll
• Pollen press (round version is most common, but some prefer a square version)
• Wax collecting tools
• 25-micron press bags

Making Rosin

1. Plug in your rosin press and turn it on.
   • You’ll need to figure out what temperature works best for each strain, but 220°F is a good place to start.
2. While your press heats up, grind up 1-5g of cannabis. You can also use whole nugs to avoid wasting resin.
   • You can also press kief, dry-ice hash, or bubble hash.
3. Use your pollen press to turn your weed or hash/kief into a disc of weed.
   
4. Place the disc in a 25-micron bag. This will keep flower out of your rosin.
   • Warning: the micron bag will absorb some of the rosin. It’s annoying, but it keeps your rosin pure and it prevents your weed from reabsorbing the rosin you just pressed out of it. Click this link to see a picture of what it looks like when you get weed in your rosin.
5. Make an envelope out of parchment paper for your weed. Although folding the paper isn’t necessary, it helps keep the coin in place while you’re getting started pressing.
   
6. Place your micron bag containing your weed disc at the back of the envelope.
7. Open the heated plates of your press.
8. Place the envelope on the bottom plate and then close the plates to hold your weed in place.
9. Use the pump to squeeze the weed disc you made (consult your rosin press manual for instructions on how much your can pressurize your press)
   
10. Leave the disc between the plates at 220°F for 60-90 seconds.
    • You’ll have to experiment to find the best heat/time combination for the strain you’re doing, but that’s part of the fun! Leaving it in longer gets more rosin, but at a lower quality.
11. Carefully open the plates (please don’t burn yourself) and remove the envelope.
12. Carefully open the envelope. Note the sticky substance all around your weed. That’s homemade rosin!
    • Do a little celebratory dance. Yes, it’s mandatory. Don’t look it up.
13. Take out the used disc of weed without letting it touch the rosin and allow the rosin on the parchment paper to cool for about a minute.
14. Use a scraping tool to collect your new cannabis rosin.
    
15. (Optional) Press your weed once more to get all the rosin you can.

How to Make Rosin with a Hair Straightener (the low-budget method)

Check out the Revlon Hair Straightener (on Amazon.com)
Revlon makes a dirt-cheap, high-quality hair straightener that can also make rosin!

Pros

• Dirt cheap compared to a Rosin Press. If you have a hair straightener or a very forgiving partner with a hair straightener, you already have most of what you need!
  • If you use your partner’s hair straightener, make sure to say “Thank You” and let them try the rosin first.
• The act of pressing only takes about 20 seconds compared to a Rosin Press that takes 90 seconds.

Cons

• The resulting product isn’t as good.
• You’re much more likely to burn yourself!
• Little-to-no control over the level of heat. This can be fixed by using a high-quality straightener like this one.
• Less efficient. You’ll actually get less rosin per gram of weed than you would if you had used a dedicated press.

What You’ll Need:

• Hair Straightener
  • I used a Revlon Hair Straightener and honestly, I was surprised at the options it had and how well it performed.
• At least 1g of weed (doing more than 1g at a time can be wasteful)
• Parchment paper (do not substitute with wax paper)
  • You can get pre-cut squares or a roll
• Pollen press (round version is cheaper, but square version may work better)
• Wax collecting tools
• 25-micron press bags (for pressing hash/kief)

A few rosin presses collected on a wax tool. Awww yeah!

Making Rosin

1. Grind up 1g of cannabis or just use a whole (1g) nug if you’re feeling saucy.
   • You can also press kief, dry-ice hash, or bubble hash.
2. Use your pollen press to turn your weed or hash/kief into a thin disc.
   • Again, you can also just use a whole nug to avoid wasting resin.
3. Use your parchment paper to make an envelope for your weed.
4. Place your weed at the back of the envelope.
   • If you’re using hash, place the disc in a 25-micron bag first to keep the hash from mingling with the rosin.
   • You can also use a 25-micron bag for weed, but I wouldn’t recommend using one since the bag absorbs so much of the final product.
   • Warning: If you use a press bag, you will lose some rosin to it. I know it hurts, but it’s normal.
5. Plug in your hair straightener and turn it on. Make sure it’s on a surface that won’t be affected by the heat (like a kitchen counter).
   1. Turn it down to the lowest setting if you have the option. If your straightener has a temperature control like this one, set it to 220°F.
6. Put on your oven-safe gloves while the hair straightener heats up.
7. Place the envelope on the bottom heating element of the hair straightener plate and then close the straightener around your weed-envelope.
   
   This is a sped-up rosin pressing done with a hair straightener.
8. Press down firmly on the hair straightener for 15-20 seconds. You should hear sizzling.
   • Seriously, press down hard!
9. Remove the envelope from the hair straightener and put the straightener out of the way so you don’t accidentally burn yourself.
10. Carefully open the envelope. Note the sticky substance all around your weed. That’s homemade rosin!
11. Take out the used disc of weed without letting it touch the rosin and allow the rosin on the parchment paper to cool.
12. Use a scraping tool to collect your new rosin.
13. (Optional) Press your weed once more to get all the rosin you can.

Using and Storing Rosin

Now that you know how to make rosin, it’s important that you know what to do with it!

Usage

Rosin can be placed on top of flowers to make your bud stronger and tastier. It can also be used directly as a dab if you have a dab rig or a portable dab vaporizer.

Storage

Firstly, you’re going to need containers to put your rosin in. Rosin is super-sticky, so you’ll want a silicone container so your product is easier to handle.

There are the “standard” silicone containers you’ll see in dispensaries, and then there are cool wax containers like this or this if you prefer a little more flair.

Officially, it’s advised that rosin only is kept for around 3 days in regular conditions, or up to a week if stored inside an air-tight container in a refrigerator. The reasoning behind this schedule is that rosin will (allegedly) lose its distinctive flavor, and keeping it for a short amount of time will prevent that from happening. Sounds like something a dispensary might make up.

Just to be safe, this is a good rule to follow if your main concern is freshness. It ensures that you don’t waste anything and that any marijuana rosin you make will be super-fresh. That being said…

Many growers just aren’t as concerned with flavor profiles. If your main concern is potency, you can keep your rosin for much longer without a noticeable drop in its apparent strength. I’ve stored rosin at room temperature in a non-airtight container for over 6 months and it felt just and powerful as the day I made it. I’m sure my storage methods might upset some connoisseurs, but it’s the truth and I stand by it!

There you have it! Now get out there, make a bunch of tasty rosin, and send us pictures to show how well it worked out for you.

The post How To Make Your Own Homemade Rosin (dabs) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: What’s the Best Hash to Make at Home?
• Dry Ice Hash vs Bubble Hash: The Process
• Our Test Process
• Our Test Results
  • Differences in Appearance
  • Which is More Difficult?
  • Amount of Extract Yielded per 1 oz of Cannabis
  • Potency (Perceived Potency)
• Final Judgement

Introduction: What’s the Best Way to Make Cannabis Hash at Home?

Hash is a collection of the extracted resin glands (trichomes) from a cannabis plant. The effects of hash are typically much stronger than cannabis flowers on their own because trichomes contain concentrated amounts of THC, CBD and other cannabinoids. Two of the most popular types of marijuana hash made at home are bubble hash and dry ice hash. After releasing tutorials on how to make your own Bubble Hash and Dry Ice Hash at home, we received quite a few emails on the subject of hash. Everyone seems to love extracts in all forms, but there were two distinct opinions that kept showing up over and over again…

Collecting dry ice hash made from 1 ounce of cannabis.

One group feels the dry ice hash is better, and that bubble hash can be time-consuming and doesn’t always get great yields.

The other group thinks bubble hash has the best potency/effects, and that dry ice hash is a less valuable extract.

Hash is basically a collection of trichomes from a marijuana plant (trichomes are the “sparkles” that grows on buds and leaves).

Pure trichomes are abundant in cannabinoids, so any kind of hash is likely to be much more potent than typical cannabis.

Honestly, I think both forms of hash are great. But peaceful coexistence won’t do in this case. Today, both types of hash are getting judged and we’ll figure out if one really is better than the other. In this experiment, bubble hash and dry-ice hash will be judged by these criteria:

• Appearance – How pretty does it look?
• Difficulty – Is it hard to make?
• Yield – How much hash is extracted per ounce of weed?
• Perceived Potency – How strong does it feel?

Alright, let’s get to the comparison!

Dry Ice Hash vs Bubble Hash: The Process

If you’re not familiar with how to make Bubble Hash or Dry-Ice Hash, don’t worry. Here’s the general gist of what you need to know before going any further:

Weed/Trim + Cold + Agitation = Hash

There are ways to make hash that don’t involve cold temperatures (like dry sift, Gumby hash or hand-rolling), and there are ways to make hash without cold temps or agitation (a rosin press uses pressure and heat), but Bubble Hash and Dry-Ice Hash both use the “cold + agitation” formula to create their respective products. If you want to learn how to make these types of hash before continuing, check out the following links for the complete tutorials:

Full Tutorial: How to Make Cannabis Bubble Hash.

Full Tutorial: How to Make Cannabis Dry-Ice Hash.

Differences Between the Types of Hash

Although there are differences in how they’re made, these two solventless extracts are very similar at heart.

Bubble Hash requires you to combine some weed/trim with freezing cold water. The super-cold mixture is then agitated which causes the resin (good stuff) to fall off the weed and into the cold water. That cold weed-water is then filtered and you’re left with bubble hash.

Dry-Ice Hash skips the water altogether but keeps the agitation. Dry ice is made out of frozen CO2, and turns into a dry vapor as it warms (instead of water like regular ice). Dry-ice is so cold that it gets the resin glands to freeze, making it easy for them to break off. The dry-ice and weed are placed in the same type of sieve you would use for Bubble Hash and agitated until resin falls onto a surface where it’s collected.

Our Test Process

To make sure this is fair, we started with the same weed for each test. We took 2oz of flowers from an Ultimate Auto #1 plant and ground it all up to ensure similar consistency. Next, we mixed up the ground-up weed, split it into 2 containers, and weighed them to ensure everything was equal. We got 2 sets of the same Bubble Bags and made both types of hash using 1 ounce of weed for each test. We processed the Bubble Hash by chopping it up, drying it overnight, and putting the Dry-Ice Hash in containers since it doesn’t need further processing. Then came the weigh-in.

This is the 2 ounces of bud we used for this test. It was some of the larfiest buds from the harvest but covered in trichomes. Perfect for hash-making.

And this is the same bud after being ground up before we split it into 2 groups

Note: When making hash, there’s no benefit to grinding your bud/trim this fine. This was done strictly for the test.

This isn’t a super scientific test, but it should give you a good idea of what to expect if you’re thinking about making either of these two hashes. Although there are many other types of extract (shatter, RSO, etc.), these two are the most common for home growers since they’re easy to make, and they’re safe because they don’t use solvents.

The Results of Our Test

Appearance

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. It might be a cliche sentence at this point, but it’s still true. When it comes to whether or not you find something attractive, there isn’t a right or wrong answer. That being said, I feel there’s an obvious hierarchy here. Although both hashes are great, Dry-Ice Hash is just plain prettier. Check them both out and see what you think.

A closeup of the Bubble Hash…

A closeup of Dry-Ice Hash from the same starting cannabis matter. You can see the individual trichomes.

Winner: Dry-Ice Hash

Difficulty

Neither one of these two hashes is particularly hard to make, especially with the right equipment. In fact, if you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to try making both types at home! You can get a feel for the process of making each type, and as a pretty sweet bonus, you end up with two different types of hash to use.

Part of the difficulty with Bubble Hash is that it can be messy since it involves lots of water. There is also one step when making Bubble Hash that can greatly affect the level difficulty: the mixing. Bubble Hash can go from being pretty intensive (when you mix the ice water and cannabis by hand) to moderate (using a hand drill) to pretty-easy-but-wet when you use a mini clothes washer as a Hash-Machine, (like this mini washer, shown below). With the mixing out of the way, it’s just a bit of scraping, drying and chopping before your hash is ready.

A mixing machine makes the Bubble Hash process a lot easier, but you still have the mess of dealing with tons of ice and water.

Once the ice water and cannabis have been mixed together and agitated for several minutes, the mixture is poured through special bags (called bubble bags), and the hash is collected with a spoon. You repeat the process multiple times.

Dry ice hash takes much less time to make. The main drawback to Dry-Ice Hash is, well…the dry-ice. Dry ice can be harder to obtain than regular ice depending on where you live and it costs more. Additionally, you shouldn’t touch Dry-Ice. It’s inherently more dangerous since prolonged contact can give you a mean freezer burn. Still, even with those issues, Dry-Ice Hash is pretty easy to make and if you follow a few easy safety guidelines like wearing oven mitts, the dry-ice won’t cause any problems and ends up being easier to make overall.

Making dry-ice hash. After mixing your cannabis bud or trim with dry ice in a bucket, you put the mixture in the same type of bubble bags and shake the hash onto a table.

Winner: Dry-Ice Hash

Yields: Amount of Extract per 1 oz of Cannabis

Each hash-making process produces multiple “grades” of hash. I weighed each grade separately and added the results together to get the total yield from each method.

Bubble Hash Yield from 1 Ounce of Buds

Here are pictures of the weigh-ins from the bubble hash.

Bubble Hash (decent quality) – 1.52 grams

Bubble Hash (good quality) – 0.25 grams

Bubble Hash (best quality) – 2.64 grams

Total Amount of Bubble Hash per 1 Ounce: 4.41 grams

Percentage of Weight Returned as Hash:15.6%

Dry-Ice Hash Yield from 1 Ounce of Buds

Here are pictures of the weigh-ins from the dry-ice hash.

Dry-Ice Hash (decent quality) – 2.47 grams

Dry Ice Hash (good quality) – 3.65 grams

Dry-Ice Hash (best quality) – 6.21 grams

Amount of Dry-Ice Hash per Ounce: 12.33 grams

Percentage of Weight Returned as Hash: 43.5%

Winner: Dry-Ice Hash by a landslide! Even I was shocked by this discrepancy.

Potency (Perceived Potency)

What’s the difference between “measurable” potency and perceived potency? Both terms are talking about the same thing – how strong the cannabis is – but they’re different in how each one is measured.

A closeup of the trichomes on a live cannabis plant. All types of hash are made out of these mushroom-shaped resin glands.

“Measurable” potency (or just “potency”) talks about how strong cannabis is in terms of objective measurements. This is the scientific way of determining potency. If you went to a dispensary and purchased cannabis, it would tell you the amount of THC/CBD/CBN the product contains to give you an idea of how strong (or “potent”)  it is. Those numbers are measurable potency.

“Perceived” potency describes how strong something feels to the person using it. This means that perceived potency is subjective since it’s based on people’s feelings and can’t be measured. However, there are times when perceived potency is a better indicator than measurable potency, and we think this is due to the entourage effect.

The entourage effect is a way of describing how there are compounds other than THC in cannabis that can change the effects we experience when using cannabis. THC by itself has certain effects, but combining it with CBD, for example, can reduce certain negative effects some people experience with cannabis. We’re still learning what all plays a part in what makes good weed, but we definitely know that it’s not just up to THC or CBD.

This is relevant to our test because Bubble Hash seems to grab a few more friends into its entourage when it’s being made. Dry ice hash is just trichomes; if you look at them closely, you can tell there’s nothing else there. On the other hand, Bubble Hash just comes out different. It’s possible that there’s a water-soluble compound that gets added in, or it could just be the structure of the hash itself. Either way, after some lengthy testing, Nebula and I fully agree that Bubble Hash feels much stronger.

Winner: Bubble Hash

Final Judgment

All this talk about hash has reminded me of how much I love both of these types of hash. Before I render a final judgment on who wins the showdown, let me make a case for why each one deserves to be in your house.

Bubble Hash: Old-school cool with some great potency. A little Bubble Hash goes a long way, and it’s one of the best ways to use your trim.

Dry-Ice Hash: It’s good, easy, and you get a lot of it. Nuff said.

Winner: Dry-Ice Hash

This was a close one. Bubble Hash brings so much perceived potency that it should almost be an automatic win. Almost.

Dry ice hash is a tough act to follow. It’s insanely easy to make and it’s just as fun to make as it is easy. Dry-Ice Hash might not feel as potent per gram as Bubble Hash, but it’ll get the job done and you get a lot each time you make it. It’s less messy to make dry ice hash, and since dry ice sublimates (turns from solid directly into a gas) nothing gets wet and your hash is ready to use as soon as you collect it. As long as you’re just a little careful, making dry ice Hash is almost too good of a deal.

Still, if you learn to grow enough weed you can make both which is clearly the best option. Have fun making hash and let us know how it goes for you!

The post Solventless Extraction Showdown – Bubble Hash vs. Dry Ice Hash! appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: What is Bubble Hash? (Ice Extraction Method)

Supplies Needed

How to Make Bubble Hash with a Mini (Hash) Washing Machine

How to Make Bubble Hash with a Mixer, Drill, or by Hand

Introduction: What is Bubble Hash?

Bubble hash (also known as “ice hash”) refers to collecting hash from your weed (or trim) by submerging the ground buds in ice-cold water and agitating it. This uses ice water extraction instead of solvents for a clean, potent cannabis hash. The ice water and agitation cause trichomes to break off for easy collection. You can immediately dry your hash and enjoy.

Whenever you hear the word ‘hash’, it’s just referring to the extracted resin glands (trichomes, the sticky sparkly stuff) of a cannabis plant. The ‘bubble’ part refers to the method of using cold water and agitation to extract that resin. Dry Ice Hash vs Bubble Hash (Which is Better?)

Cannabis bubble hash has a golden, crumbly appearance

Why make Bubble Hash?

• The perceived potency of bubble hash is just…great! In my opinion, it feels noticeably stronger than dry-sift, kief or dry-ice hash
• Bubble hash is safe to make since there are no flammable ingredients or chemical reactions when making it
• It’s also safe to enjoy as no chemicals are used during the extraction process
• It’s a great use of trim, though making dry-ice hash is easier and produces bigger yields

The main reason to make bubble hash (in my opinion) over other types of hash is that the perceived potency is higher. Again, I can’t stress this enough. Bubble hash feels really potent! The effects simply feel “stronger” than most other cannabis concentrates. If that’s what you want, bubble hash is amazing!

3 Main Methods to Mix Up Your Hash

The cornerstone of making bubble hash is mixing up your weed, water and ice. All three of these methods produce the same quality of bubble hash. It’s the efficiency and amount of work that varies.

1. (Old School) Manual Method: Using a spoon or rubber spatula and hand mixing for a while.
   • Pros: Cheapest method, needs the least amount of tools.
   • Cons: The most physical work and the least efficient. Prepare for a bit of an arm workout!
2. Mixer Method: Using a hand mixer with beaters attached, or a hand drill with a paint-mixer attachment or similar tool attached.
   • Pros: Many people have most of the tools needed. This method is much easier than hand-mixing and more efficient.
   • Cons: Still need a drill or mixer plus a good mixing attachment that’s also long.
3. A portable mini washing machine. A portable mini washing machine can be used as a handy hash-making machine. For the cleanest extraction, get an extra 5-gallon 220 micron bubble zipper bag to hold your weed in the machine. You can also use the 220 micron bag that came with your bubble bag kit.
   • Pros: Easiest method since you don’t have to mix. Also, the most efficient method since all the material is constantly mixed while the machine is on.
   • Cons: Higher initial cost since you have to buy the machine ($80 for the machine + $10 for the optional zippered bag).

Here’s a short video of a portable mini washing machine in action making bubble hash.

Supplies

• Ice – Two 7 lb bags of ice
• Weed – Your dried cannabis (bud or trim)
• Bubble Bags – 5-gallon Bubble Hash Bags with 25-micron drying sheet (preferably the all-mesh kind of bubble bags as opposed to where the mesh is only at the bottom)
  • Tip: Get a pack of extra 25-micron drying screens and dry each of your various grades of hash on their own sheet. This makes it way easier to dry and keep your grades separated.
• Two buckets – Two clean 5-gallon buckets (these are cheaper to buy in a store offline)
• A metal spoon
• A sink area with a sprayer. A clean mister or even just a cup of water can be used if you don’t have a sprayer attachment on your sink.
• A way to mix the weed with ice water
  1. Manual (Mix by Hand): You put the ice, water, and weed in a bucket and mix mix mix. You’ll need a long cooking spoon or a rubber spatula, some patience, and calories to burn.
  2. Hand Mixer or Drill: A hand-mixer (like you would use for cakes) with beaters attached, or a hand drill with a paint mixer attached
  3. A portable mini washing machine to be your hash-washing machine. For the cleanest extraction, separately get a 5-gallon 220 micron bubble zipper bag to hold your weed in the machine. Otherwise you can use the 220 all-mesh micron bag that comes with your bubble bag kit to filter out all the big chunks of weed after it comes out of the machine.

Alright, let’s make some bubble hash!

How to Make Bubble Hash with a Portable Mini Washing Machine (The Easier Method)

1.) Set up drying screens.

Set your 25-micron drying screen(s) on some paper towels and set them aside. This is where your hash will dry.

2.) Layer cannabis and ice into the zippered bag (or directly into the machine).

• If you separately got a 220 micron bag with a zipper, you layer the inside with ice and cannabis. Put ⅓ of the 7lb bag of ice in the bottom of the bag, add your cannabis, and then another ⅓ of the bag of ice on top. Close the 220-micron bag and use the string attached to the bag to tie the zipper closed. Make sure the zipper is completely closed. Place the closed bag into the washing machine.
• If you didn’t get a 220-micron bag that fits inside, just layer the ice and cannabis directly in the machine. You can filter it later with the 220 micron bag that came with your bubble bag kit. But be warned, filtering the water afterward is much more trouble than doing it in a bag.

3.) Top off with the rest of your ice.

• Put the final ⅓ of ice into the machine. Double-check to make sure the bag inside is completely closed and tied before the next step or all your cannabis will come out of the bag into the washer.

4.) Top off the machine with cold water to right below the low mark.

• There should be a mark on the side of the washing machine that tells you how high the water should go. Fill it to below the low mark with cold water. When we’ve filled it to the high mark we’ve had it leak out the back once everything starts mixing and churning. Even at the low mark, there can still be too much water after a bit of the ice melts.

5.) Turn on machine for 12 minutes wash cycle.

• Set the machine to mix up your cannabis for 12 minutes and wait for the cycle to complete.

6.) Let sit for 10 minutes.

• Let the machine sit for another 10 minutes afterward to let the trichomes sink to the bottom. Move on to the next step while you wait.

7.) Grab a clean bucket and stack your bubble bags inside.

• First insert the bag with the lowest number (25-micron), then put the next biggest (73-micron) bag inside that, and finally put the (160-micron) bag inside that.
• Lastly, you’ll need to lastly insert a 220 bag, which will filter away the larger plant matter like stems, leaves, or pieces of bud. Even if you used a 220 bag to filter the water, it’s still a good idea to use one here, too.
• Note: Some bubble bag sets come with 4 or 5 bags and some come with 8. We got a 5 bag set, but we don’t use all of the bags that come with it. Most bag sets come with 25, 73, 160 and 220, but the size of the other bags differ depending on who’s selling them. Some sets come with a 45, 90, or 120 and many growers like to use those bags. However, we only use the 25 (good stuff) 73 (the best stuff), 160 (not bad stuff), and 220 (cleans out the junk) bags.
• The most important thing is to put the size 25 bag on the bottom and make sure each bag after that goes up in number.

8.) Pour weedy water into bucket with stacked bubble bags.

• Pour the weedy water from your washer into the bucket containing your stacked bubble bags.
• Your washer has a tube meant to dispose of old water; this is perfect for pouring your weed-water into the stacked bags. You might need to suck on the tube a little to start the siphon.
• If you added the 220 bag, lift that out before the next step. The 220 bag will remove the large bits of leaf and other plant matter. Don’t throw this this plant matter away because you will run it through the whole cycle again.

9.) Let water drain through the 160 bag.

• Allow the water to drain through the 160 bag for a few seconds.

10.) Pull up the 160 bag and put it in the other bucket.

• Carefully pull up just the 160 bag and place it into the empty, clean work bucket.

11.) Spray the hash towards the center of the bag.

• Use your sprayer (or mister/cup) to wash the hash towards the center of the bag.

12.) Pull edges of bag down over the bucket.

• Carefully pull the edges of the bag down over the bucket until the bottom of the bag (where the hash is) is stretched across the opening of the bucket.

13.) Collect the wet hash with a spoon.

• Use a metal tablespoon to collect the wet hash and place it on the drying screen. This is your first bit of bubble hash! Don’t worry, there’s still a lot more.

14.) Remove the 160 bag.

• Remove the 160 bag from the bucket and set it aside.

15.) Repeat for the remaining bags.

• Repeat for the remaining bags, removing each one slowly one at a time and collecting the hash, ending with the 25 bag. I always try to label which hash is which so I can compare them later.

16.) First run complete!

• The next step is to do a second run with the same bag of plant matter. Yes, do everything again. You essentially want to repeat the entire process to get more hash that hadn’t been released yet.

17.) Repeat steps 2-15 for second run.

• Repeat steps 2-15 to complete your second run. Add ice, water, and the plant matter bag back in the washer, run it again for 12 minutes, let it sit for 10 minutes, then put the resulting water through the series of bags again to collect more hash).
• In some cases, the second run can yield as much as the first run, so don’t skip it!

18.) Chop up hash and let it dry.

• Once you’re done with your second run, use the tablespoon to chop up all your hash into tiny bits. Let it dry out for 30 min and chop it up again. Make sure it’s in tiny bits! Continue this process 2 more times. You’re doing this to help it dry out faster, prevent clumping – and more importantly – prevent mold.

19.) Ready to use in 1-2 days.

• If it’s chopped up enough, your hash should be completely dry and ready to use within 1-2 days.
• Tip: I pointed a tiny fan (like this one) at the drying hash from about 5 feet away on the low setting. It’s not enough power to move the hash even when it’s dry, and the hash is completely dry and ready to use in a few hours!

20.) Enjoy!

• You now have a bunch of great hash! Enjoy and let us know how it went for you!

Don’t have a washer? Want to make bubble hash by hand? Learn how below!

(Manual Version) Make Bubble Hash with a Mixer, Drill or by Hand-Mixing

Making hash with a drill, mixer or by hand-mixing is the same process as with a washing machine. The only difference is that you will agitate everything with a power tool (or by hand) and pre-filter your hash-water with a 220-micron bag before filtering out your hash.

Replace steps 2-8 above with these instructions:

1. Place your 220-micron bag inside one of your two buckets. This is now the ‘work bucket’.
2. Next, add several layers of ice and marijuana trim or buds. First put a layer of ice at the bottom of the bag, then half your cannabis/trim, then another layer of ice, then the remainder of your cannabis and top off with a final layer of ice.
3. Add enough water to make the ice on top float.
4. Let this mixture sit for 20 minutes so all that good stuff (trichomes) get nice and cold.
5. Use your mixer or drill on a low setting to mix up the ice water and cannabis for about 10 minutes. Keep in mind that you’re not trying to blend the mixture into some sort of smoothie, you just want to agitate the mixture to get the trichomes to fall off.
   • Most drills/mixers won’t be able to reach the bottom of your bucket. Make sure to mix everything up with your hand or a big spoon a few times so the stuff on the bottom gets some love, too.
6. Let everything sit for another 10 minutes after mixing to let the trichomes sink down via gravity.
7. Close up the top of the 220 bag with your hands. Then, pull the bag up and let the water drain through the mesh.
8. Once the water has stopped draining, squeeze the remaining water out of the work bag (220), then place the bag of plant matter in a big bowl or container. That cannabis is going to get used again so don’t toss it yet!
9. Grab the unused bucket and stack the remainder of your bubble bags inside. First insert the bag with the lowest number (25-micron), then put the (73-micron) bag inside that, and finally put the (160-micron) bag inside that.
10. Pour the weed-water from your work bucket into the bucket with your stacked bubble bags. You may want to use a little water to rinse the sides of the work bucket to get any trichomes stuck to the sides of the bucket.
11. Go to step 9 above. Now you’ve done everything the washer would have done. Go to step 9 above and continue the tutorial to completion.

The post How to Make Fantastic Bubble Hash from Bud or Trim appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

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You may be asking yourself these common growing questions:

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Luckily, it’s really easy to get a cannabis seed to sprout!

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If you’re considering growing weed, it costs as little as $300 to get started growing or a bit more for a semi-automatic, high-yielding bubbleponics grow system. See examples of yields to expect, electricity use & startup costs for different setups. Read this article to see even more growing styles with different price ranges.

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Cannabis buds are generally green, but can also be pink or purple with certain strains.

“How much will electricity cost each month?”

If you’re just growing a few marijuana plants for personal use, it will cost you $20-$100+/month for electricity, depending on what grow lights (electricity) and nutrients you use. On average, I’d say a hobby-size grower might pay about $50/month to grow, but it depends greatly on your setup and local electricity costs! How much will electricity cost each month?

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• Or check out our page on the controversial defoliation technique

Even More Ways to Increase Cannabis Yields

1. Increase Light Intensity (plus choose right light for desired yields & possibly add CO2)
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3. Provide Right Nutrients (low Nitrogen in the flowering stage, and remember sometimes less is more!)
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5. Harvest Plants Properly (most importantly, don’t harvest early!)
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Two small cannabis plants can yield several ounces of premium weed!

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Read guide on growing weed indoors without anyone knowing. But remember the most important factors to stealth growing: “No tell, no smell, no sell.” Never tell anyone, not even your best friend, that you’re growing. Be on top of preventing smells, and never ever sell cannabis. Breaking one of those 3 principles is how 99% of growers get found out!

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The most common issue a grower runs into is a pH imbalance. Barring that, your marijuana plants likely either have a nutrient deficiency, heat or light stress, or are being attacked by some sort of marijuana mold, pest or bug. Whether you call it weed, cannabis, sinsemilla, skunk, pot, marijuana, or something else, the plant known as Cannabis Sativa is a hardy weed in the wild and can actually be easy to grow indoors at home when you know what to do.

Growing Medical Marijuana

“Medical marijuana” has become a household name. The body of evidence for medical marijuana in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses is growing every day. And for those who need medical marijuana, growing weed indoors is the perfect way to ensure a safe, regular supply of buds, for cheap.

In fact, when you grow weed indoors for personal use, you often end up with way too much. If you catch the growing bug like I did, and if you start enjoying the process of tending your cannabis garden just for the sake of gardening, you’re going to have to find a way to press, cook, freeze, and concentrate all your extra buds. 🙂

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