I decided I would try an ice water bubble hash extraction with one of the cheap washers on Amazon. I was going to try BnW’s dry ice method, however the only place that sells dry ice near me is a welding shop that’s out of stock. so I did 5 runs last night of 253 g of small buds, the last one I did a 1 hr wash on and yielded like practically nothing. when I was cleaning up I emptied the 220 bag in the machine and looked over the buds with a loupe and it’s still absolutely COVERED in trichomes. I’m not sure what the issue is. Maybe I should ditch the bag in the machine? I wasn’t going to use it originally but I saw a lot of people having pretty nice yields with it in videos so I got it just to make cleanup easier. I’ll probably try another run without the bag regardless but I thought I’d see if anyone had any input before I waste another hp of material. my guess it yielded well under a half oz.
My guess would be not cold enough, you want the water to be 32º-38º F throughout the wash cycle. I'd use a chilling vessel for the wash water, and insulate the wash vessel as best you can, assuming you can't get the temp of the wash room that low. If that isn't the problem, it could just be a poor strain for washing. Not all strains have decent bubble yields.
Is your material nice and dry? The plant matter dries quicker than the trichomes do. The dryer they are the less sticky and more fragile.
I just did another run with some amnesia haze without the inner 220 bag that I accidentally over dried and yesterday I used a mix of 2 strains that were around 64 RH in their grove bags. In both cases I let them soak for 30-40 minutes to rehydrate before starting the cycle. as for the temp not being cold enough. That’s definitely a strong possibility. I can’t get the temp down in my house but maybe I can try filling some buckets with ice and water to use instead of filling straight from the tap. the amnesia haze I just ran without the bag did seem to do a lot better although that bud was absolutely gleaming with trichomes and they were full sized buds unlike the last batch. I did only 77g this batch and probably got close to half what I got running more than triple the amount yesterday. I also did only 3 runs instead of 5 this time because on the 3rd run I didn’t get enough to justify going again.
you might hit 64 RH with your bud, but that doesn't mean the trichomes are dry. I'm not sure if it's even water that evaporates from them, maybe it's oils, but they do seem to get "dryer" over time. IDK how cured or fresh the bud is, but the fresher they are the stickier the trichomes will be.