How do you get kief

There are several kinds of marijuana concentrates out there today, but kief and hash are some of the oldest and most popular forms for medical marijuana patients. An old school favorite for many marijuana enthusiasts, kief, and hash is unique amongst concentrates because it can be smoked like normal flower.

Read on to learn more about how kief and hash are made, what types you can find on the market, and how they're used. Kief is a fine, light powder that resembles very granular sand that is made by separating trichomes the crystalline structures that coat the outside of the dried marijuana flowers from whole-plant material using a weed grinder, mesh screens or bubble machine. Kief is, perhaps, the easiest cannabis concentrate to make, and therefore, is one of the most popular.

It was introduced to the West in the 19th century when literary giants like Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Charles Baudelaire consumed hashish in Parisian nightclubs. Hashish is made by heating and pressing kief into a firm block. A popular type of hash is called bubble hash, which is a darker, crumbly cannabis concentrate that derives its name from the way it bubbles when smoked.

The simplest way is to collect the powder that accumulates at the bottom of your grinder. This powder is low grade kief. Some specially designed grinders sift and save this powder in a separate chamber to collect a much finer grade of kief. If you're looking to make a larger amount of high quality kief, a trusted method is to push ground flower through a series of silk screens.

The screens are usually layered from most porous to finest to catch very high quality trichomes on the last screen. Others use an ice water bath and agitation machine to knock off the trichomes into the water. The water is then filtered through screens to save the kief which is then dried and pressed into hash.

There are literally dozens of ways to safely produce kief. Any method that knocks the trichomes off the plant and saves them in a container will suffice.

Hashish is made by pressing kief into a solid block or ball using high pressure and very low heat--average degrees or so. Many people like to use a pollen press because it produces a very neat, defined block.

But no special equipment is absolutely required to make hash. An age-old method, one that likely pre-dates the written word, is to roll ground cannabis flowers with bare hands until enough of the black, gooey hash collects on the hands to be scraped off and rolled into balls. This method is easy as pie. Just put some buds in the top and shake it up. The trichomes will sift through the filter and into the bottom tray. For medium or larger batches, a silk screen is the way to go. To get kief through a silk screen, place your cannabis on top of the screen and gently use something small like an old gift card or credit card.

Work slowly and carefully, and remember to pick out any jagged pieces that might tear the screen. All you need to make a hashish drum is a silkscreen, a drum basin like a plastic bucket and a plastic tarp or other similar material to act as a cover.. Stretch the screen over the drum, then cover with bud or trim. Next, secure a trap over the top with a large rubber band or rope so that the plant matter is between the screen and tarp.

Beat the drum basin with sticks, which will make the kief fall through the silk screen and collect in the bucket below. This method, though a bit more labor intensive, has been in practice for hundreds if not thousands of years. One thing to keep in mind for collecting kief is that trichomes are oily and sensitive to heat. For example, a three-stage grinder has a grinding chamber with teeth, followed by a bud collection chamber in the middle.

The ground-up cannabis in this chamber then sits on a fine mesh screen, leading to the kief collecting chamber below. As the marijuana is ground up and falls into the second chamber, it rubs against the screen, causing the kief to fall off the buds and into the collection chamber below.

In this case, collecting kief is as easy as grinding the weed you would grind anyway. A dry sifter unit for marijuana works like the second stage in a multi-stage grinder, without all the grinding bits. After breaking up your plant material, your weed is placed in an enclosed container resting on a fine-mesh screen, similar to the grinder.

In addition, we mentioned a moment ago that kief collected via a grinder likely still contain some plant material — A multi-stage dry sifter will further filter your kief. Dry sifters can come in a variety of different types; some are solid boxes, some are bags, and some have more stages than others. Each stage has a different mesh size measured in microns that will filter out different parts of the kief as it travels down the sifter.

Either way, we recommend shaking your filters over a non-porous surface; marble, glass, or metal would be nice, but parchment paper works just as well. One thing to note: With the way that trichomes are structured, with the bulb of resin at the tip of the hair, a lot of processes for making kief recommend you keep your bud and your work area cold; this helps make the resin more brittle and likely to break away from the plant matter as you sift.

This also segues us into…. Enjoy it! Kief is very delicate stuff and can be torched by high heat very quickly, destroying its potency. Our recommendation is to use it as an additive to your usual marijuana smoking routine; sprinkling a bit of kief onto a joint or a loaded pipe can make for a much harder and noticeable hit.

Kief is also a prime candidate for dabbing or vaporizing, as the regulated temperature of a vaporizer will help prevent wasting any of its goodness. We hope you enjoy the results of all your effort!

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