How To Make Your Own Homemade Rosin (dabs)

Last updated Nov 18, 2023

by Sirius Fourside

Table of Contents


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.

Fresh rosin on a scraping toolFreshly made 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 resinA ball of black “reclaim”; the gross kind of 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:

Rosin, dry-ice hash, bubble hash and kief all hanging out together(from left) 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 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:

"Stop" painted on a oily road

  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 rosin looks almost like a Rorschach test
Captured 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 good rosin press, be prepared to pay, pay, PAY!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 this is a good option for under $400.

Get a Homemade Rosin press to make cannabis rosin at home.

Check out the Dabpress 4-ton rosin press (About $350 on Amazon.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.

 

Pros

  • Easier method
  • 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:

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 rosin.
    Collecting some fresh rosin from parchment paper
  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)

The Revlon Copper hair straighter; a low-budget rosin making tool in disguise
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:

 

Rosin collected on a dab tool
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.
    Demonstration of how to make rosin with a hair straightener
    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 rosin you make will be super-fresh. That being said…

Fresh rosin in a small "dab" container

 

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 3 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.

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