How to Make Full Melt Ice Water Extract - Tutorial

Discussion in 'Harvesting and Processing Marijuana' started by Brother Urb, Oct 27, 2014.

  1. #1 Brother Urb, Oct 27, 2014
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2016
    Hey GC! Let's make some full melt Ice Water Extract aka ice hash, water hash, bubble hash, solventless hash etc. My favorite! It's safe, simple and low tech. Totally my style.

    First let's go over a list of things you will need.

    1. Extraction bags with blotting screen(s) - In general, the more bags in your system the better. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to have at the very least, a 160u contaminant catch before your collection bags. Preferably both 160u and 190u. Without this you WILL get contaminant in your resin, thus contaminating it and ruining the melt quality.

    2. Highest quality cannabis - preferably something you grew yourself, if not no biggie. Full plant, flowers or just trim all work fine. Frozen or dry. I prefer working with dry. Just remember, the highest quality cannabis will make the highest quality extracts.

    3. Highest quality water - While maybe not absolutely necessary, if you have terrible municipal tap water like myself, you might want to use R/O or distilled. I am using 30 ppm reverse osmosis water made with my home r/o unit.

    4. Highest quality home made ice - Made from my reverse osmosis water. What's the point of using top quality water if I am going to mix in a bunch of chlorinated, flouridated, mineralized ice? Not only is it higher purity but the cubes are larger and more solid, thus melting slower and keeping the water colder for longer. It makes quite the difference.

    5. Pressurized Spray Bottle - This tool is very important in making the highest quality extract! It is needed to properly separate your heads and wash contaminant through when possible. It is also very useful to increase yield by collecting everything off the sidewalls, seams and edges of the screen filter.

    6. Buckets - The more the merrier. 3-4 works best for me. 1 for working the material, 1 for extraction, 1 full of r/o water to refill spray bottles and 1 to store the workbag between runs. I also like to have a bin to rinse my bags in. You will see why later.

    7. Spoons - I prefer to use a wooden spoon. Low tech for the win.

    8. Bowl of Ice Water - Not necessary but I like to use this to rinse my spoons after each extraction. This ensures purity as to not mix different size heads or qualities together. It would really suck to contaminate your 90u gold with some contaminant crap leftover on the spoon from the 190 or 160u. This also keeps the spoons icy cold. Icy cold is best when handling resin.

    9. Towels - YOU WILL get water EVERYWHERE. And I mean EVERYWHERE!!!!! Put towels on the floor. Keep some to wipe spills and splashes up. I like to use paper towels to wick the water away from the resin underneath the blotting screen.

    10. MORE ICE! - Never skimp on ice. It would really suck to find yourself in a situation where you needed more ice, letting your water and resin get warmer than you would prefer. I had to refill my spray bottles with ice a couple times through the process. Extra ice is always a good thing.

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    OK, now we know what we need to get started.

    First thing, set up your station for mixing and extracting. Make sure all of your equipment is nice and clean. Get EVERYTHING ready so there is no scrambling about in between. Paper towels under blotting screens. Spray bottle(s) filled with ice and water. Get some towels on the floor. Cool the environment if possible. Notice the open window and fan? It was 5c(41f) that night. I used a fan to blow cold air into the room to get it cold as possible!
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    Next make sure your dry station is already set up. I lined coffee tables with parchment paper, and put 2x2 wood along the edges for 2 purposes. To keep the parchment on the table and to provide a raised surface to lay a cardboard sheet overtop to prevent hairs, dust and fibres from settling in the resin. Approximately 200g of dry sugar leaf and larfy nugs to work with.
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    In my environment, I like to use a bin of cold water to rinse. I put some ice in there to keep it nice and cold. I don't like to use the sink or bathtub. Not cold enough. Suit yourself. I also prefer not to have to wash the screen with alcohol.
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    Next, prep your work bag/bucket. I like to do it like this, some like to spin with no bag. Whatever floats your boat.
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    Proceed to layer your work bag with ice and herb. Ice and herb. Ice and herb. yeah.....................
    And don't forget to top it off with ice. I forgot to snap that pic along with a few inbetween. Ice on bottom, Ice on top, Ice in middles.
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    Now since we're working with dry trim, we need to let the material soak in the water first. This will make the plant matter more pliable and less likely to flake apart into a bzillion little shreds while mixing and contaminate the resin.

    After a 10 minutes soak I begin to mix. VERY GENTLY. Just a poke into the ice and a shift of the spoon and back out a few times. Very gently. I cannot stress gentle any more. Just a couple minutes of this. Let's take a peek. Yep I think it's working.
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    Ok now a good 5 minutes stir. Still very gentle. Nothing vigorous, just a bit quicker than previous.

    It worked! A little over 5 minutes very gentle stir. Please look at this picture carefully. Don't be a dummy and do what I did. For some reason I started flicking the plant matter off my fingertips INTO THE GOLD WATER after pulling up my workbag! What a dumb move. It will get caught in the contaminant catch but still.....
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    Now we set aside the workbag so that we can use it again for a 2nd, 3rd and possibly 4th spin.
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    Now here's a little trick I came up with. Put ice underneath your bags before you pour your beautiful resin water through the bag system. You'd be surprised. It might be 15 minutes or so until you get to that 23 bag and the water temp will be much warmer than what you started with. Putting ice underneath the bags will ensure your water and resin stay nice and cold while spraying/pulling/scouping and rinsing your bags.
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    So now we are going to pour our golden water through the bags and starting collecting our precious glandular trichome heads! As we pull up each bag we will use our pressurized spray bottles to rinse all resin off the sidewalls and stitching, down into the center of the screen. Due to not having 3 arms and needing to do this as quick as possible, I was unable to take pictures of this part of the process but it's pretty self explanatory.

    We will then proceed to continually wash said pile of resin with the spray bottle, pushing through anything that will fit through the screen (smaller sized heads). I will then move over to the table to scoup the resin out of the bag with the metal spoons and onto the blotting screen. After each pull I will drop my spoons back into the bowl of ice water to rinse. DO NOT PRESS the resin in your blotting screen or bag. Simply set paper towels or towels underneath to wick the water away.

    IMMEDIATELY after extracting, turn your bags inside out and rinse the screen in the bin of icy cold water. Not only does this save you from needing to wash your micron filters with alcohol, it also increases your yield. After your 3rd run and rinsing each bag 3 times, we will pour the reservoir water back through the bag system.

    Back to some pictures. I took a couple quick snaps of the wet resin before I scooped it out.

    90u. My favorite. Flash and No Flash. Notice the oils floating at the top?
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    73u yielded next to nothing, not worth scouping imo so I turned the bag inside out and washed it into the 45 bag.
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    And the first run! From left to right and top to bottom. 220 contaminant, 190 contaminant, 160 contaminant, 120, 90u gold!, and the 45+73 as the 2 piles in the bottom left corner.
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    So now I am going to grab my work bag which I had set aside and do a 2nd run, repeating the process all over again. This time I will stir fairly vigorously and for about 10-15 minutes.

    And the 2nd run, 45-119u all mixed together. I removed the 73u and 90u bags after using the 120 as a contaminant catch for the 2nd run. Preferably would have liked to keep the 90 separate but my back was killing me, so I cut a few corners. Try not to cut corners, especially if you are like me and only get the opportunity to make extract every 3 months at best.
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    I ended up doing a 3rd 45-119 run as well.
    So now we need to break up our resin as finely as possible. We want it to dry it quickly in a cool/dry/dark environment. Similar to curing cannabis with exception to wanting a quick dry. I don't microplane because I don't want to rupture all of the heads. So upon the great Sirdabsalot's recommendation, I used toothpicks to gently pull the patties apart, trying to break them up as small and evenly as possible, spreading it out as much as possible. This takes a bit of extra work but is well worth it imo.
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    Check it out. All of this left over in the rinse reservoir, just from rinsing the bags. Waste not, want not.
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    After 7 days of drying in a cool, dry, dark room , it's ready to be jarred up and dabbed away!

    I took some macro shots of most of the pulls just to show you guys how important contaminant catch bags are, and what will be ruining your precious purity when you skimp and use a 3-4 bag set.
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    Starting with 220. Damn it sure is nice to have extra work bags. I used one as a bag in the system just like the others since I have the extra. Look what I pulled! YUCK! Tons of green leafy material, pistils, what appear to be cystolithic hairs or capitate-stalks along with possibly dust and dirt particles.
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    Now looking at the 190. Still what appears to be cystolithic hairs, capitate-stalks, plant matter and even a few heads. Also something orange? What in the world could that be? Glad it's not in my resin anymore. haha
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    Now down to the 160. Starting to see more heads and a little less green. Still tons of hairs and stalks.
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    And now for the good stuff. The first 3 collection bags. 120, 90 and 45(remember I skipped the 73).
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    The 120. Can still see a few hairs and stalks in there. Purity went through the roof as compared to the 160.
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    The 90. My favorite. Pure melty heads. All same pile just different lighting.
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    The 45-119(45+73+90) from the 2nd and 3rd runs. Somehow the 3rd run is a little more blonde than the 2nd. Aside from that cannot tell the difference.
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    And last I decided to throw a shot of the 23 from the first run in there. It's quite blonde this time, possibly from working with dry material. The past 10 or so runs I did with wet trim the 23 always turned out very dark.
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    So blades, now you know how to make and dry your own full melt ice water extract! Dab away, top your bowls or make some edibles! Cheers!
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    *edit* Since I don't have a dnail or proper screen tek I figured I would do some makeshift melt shots and sacrifice a hit to the hash gods.
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    • Like Like x 7
  2. Dude that is a great tutorial! Wish i could + rep you!

    Imho, this is the very best way to make hash. Cleanest purest way.
     
  3.  
    Cheers bro!  I have to agree although I suspect 99.9% pure heads dry sift might just be the pinnacle of extractions!  Will have to try for myself.  That is the next adventure in my journey. :smoking:
     
  4. Well done, man. Very nice write-up
     
  5. Maybe, but one has to wonder how much human skin is added during the process :eek:

    Would much rather have some clean bubble hash! :smoke:
     
  6.  
    No skin.  It's 99.9% pure heads when viewed with a macro photo.  This can easily be obtained with DrySiftWizard screen tek.  A simple bounce of your sugar leaf on a screen and then you collect.
     
    IMG_5722B.jpg
     
    Not that it's really a problem but the only problem with ice is that you lose some terpene content.  There is also room for error in the drying process, especially when made from frozen.  At least to my experience.
     
  7. Yeah thats pretty cool. I suppose sifting it that way without human contact would be purest. And i get what you mean by pollution, mostly bud trim getting in the mix. I got seeds from overseas that had bud crumbles in them from a reputable seller (herbies)

    Never expected to see bud flakes/specks in my seeds :blink:
     
  8. Huge round of applause my friend!!!!!!

    One of the BEST water hash tutorials on the web, VERY detailed with great advice and pictures to coincide with each step!

    Follow these steps Blades!!!
    You will not regret it.

    Warning; Dank FullMelt Bubble Hash is very enjoyable and provides a wonderful high and relieves pain, anxiety and insomnia,.
    However, Smoking/vaping FM is extremely addictive, especially watching it dome, and bubble up while heat is applied.


    FullMelt Bubble. :FTW:

    Excellent job Urb!!!!

    *****Mods***** ....Please please lock and Sticky

    -dabs
    :bongin:
     
  9. Cheers Sirdabs!!! :hello:
     
    I'd love if you shared some pics of your amazing ice water extractions with folks.  It only gives more inspiration!
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. Thanks for the awesome tutorial man. Been drooling over bubble hash since I found Bubblemans videos!! Excited to try making my own. 
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11.  
    My pleasure MagnusD!  
     
    Bubbleman's video's got me started on my quest for full melt. Ya know I had tried bubble hash a few times in the past decade. Never was it ever anything special.  It was just akin to your average kief or slightly better. 3 and 4 bag product. ..... and then I stumbled upon bubbleman's world on youtube.  They were making hash on a boat!  I was thinking... who are these fools making hash on a boat?  Hahaha. Only to find out later it's the bubbleman himself.  So then I watched a couple more videos and then a couple more.  I then started asking him questions in the comments to learn a bit more.
     
    Around the same time I also found subcool's channel and learned of Matt Rize in one of his videos.  Watched Matt's videos and every other video I could find on youtube.  I have watched every single episode of bubblemans from about the past 10 months. Watch a ton of fail video's from various folks as well. I read all 100+ pages in their entire length of Matt Rize's ICE WAX on RIU.  I read countless stuff on ICmag.
     
    Little tiny snippets of information here and there, and seeing what can be speculated as errors by some masters in these videos even.  So you can learn what to do and what not to do. Plus the trial and error of running batches a few handfulls of times.
     
    I have got to say though, my greatest asset has been speaking with THE GREAT Sirdabsalot, particularly on the drying process.   He is very knowledgeable and too humble.  He will never say a master even though we all know it. A true artisan if you ask me. The proof is in the pictures.
     
    And still, there is infinite amounts of knowledge for me to learn.  I'm sure I'm doing 100 things wrong still and can perfect upon that. Many nuances can be tweaked.  Environment could be optimized.  I wish I lived in a locale where the cannabis culture was thriving and I had others around me to learn from.  Unfortunately I am the teacher in my locale but I strive to learn more, which is why I am here. :smoking:
     
    • Like Like x 2
  12. added a series of melt shots to the original post. :smoking:
     
    Sacrificed a hit of my preciouuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
     
  13. great post, deserves a sticky.
     
  14. #14 Bubbashine, Oct 28, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 28, 2014
    Thanks for this real nice tutorial! I watched a TGA vid of sub doing a ice run and he likes the 90 micron best to!
     
  15. One of the best guides I've seen on GC. Thanks Urbmon.

    I need to get some bags. Does it matter what brand or where you order them from?
     
  16. Thanks for the kind words all. :smoking:
     
     
    I'm not 100% sure.  I don't think the brand matters so much as using a 7-8 bag set.  I feel like the brand more about sidewall material and stitching quality.  Longevity of the bags.  Hopefully someone with experience from several brands can chime in.
     
  17. Awesome mate, been looking for a super detailed one of these. Cheers
     
  18. nice tutorial dude. keeping it all cold....always key, gotta grab some bags now!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  19. One of my favorite youtubers made a video explaining the star rating system.  Just wanted to share.  Best IWE channel on youtube.
    Cheers!
     
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gOuSYxl0h0
     
     
  20. This is awesome, I've smoked bubble hash before but didn't think anything of it, i must now try this!


    where did you get your bags from? know of any good places to shop?
     

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