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A Comprehensive Guide On How To Make Hash

January 20, 2022

Hash is one of the best ways to enjoy cannabis, and its use dates way back in history. Maybe you’ve seen or used it yourself and wondered where it comes from. If so, you’re in good hands—we’ll show you how to make hash quickly and efficiently.

You’ll also learn where does hash come from, some of the best strains to use, how to store it, and ways to smoke this timeless cannabis by-product like a pro. Let’s roll.

Pressed hashish
Homemade pressed hashish

What is hash?

Making hash or hashish is a simple matter of extracting resin from buds or stems of the cannabis plant and pressing it into a solid block

Many types exist, from artisanal charas to complex varieties like rosin and full melt ice water hash. You can make a dense version by simply rubbing cannabis flowers between your bare hands.

Making hashish from kief is done by pressing the fine trichome powder collected from dried flowers. Trichomes hold the resin—the richest part of the cannabis plant containing cannabinoids like THC and CBD.

We compress kief because it oxidizes in warm temperatures, while hash is more resilient to heat if pressed when dry. Hashish is more susceptible to mold if pressed wet.

What exactly is kief?

Kief comes from the tiny, sticky crystals covering the cannabis flower, forming part of the trichome that includes the hair. Accumulate dry powder kief using a mesh screen or sieve.

How to turn kief into hashish? By pressing the fine material into a more solid block. Hash has a harder consistency and chocolate or golden color. Kief is potent, easy to collect, and convenient to use.

Kief can have up to 70% THC content (depending on purity), much higher than regular cannabis flowers that typically average between 12% to 25% THC. Its concentrates can have a mind-blowing 90% THC. Both kief and hash give a much stronger effect from less material.

How is hash made

How do you make hash? Instead of BHO or other solvent-based extractions, most people obtain hash mechanically nowadays through a dry sift or dry ice method.

The premise for these two techniques involves cooling plant matter to separate trichomes from it easily. Don't agitate the material for too long because the crop begins to break down as well, reducing the purity of your hashsish.

Below are some of the different ways you can make hash:

Solvent extraction

Solvent extraction uses hydrocarbons like butane, isopropyl, and CO2 to separate resin from the plant matter yielding the purest product. For example, soak small chunks of material in 99% isopropyl alcohol for 2 minutes.

Strain the alcohol mix into a shallow glass dish and leave it to evaporate at room temperature in a well-ventilated space. You'll have a concentration of all the cannabinoids stripped from the plant, which is your hashish oil.

You need to be very careful with this technique because butane is highly flammable. The complications of chemical solvent extraction makes many hobbyists shy away from such methods.

Dry sift

Place frozen cannabis on a fine mesh screen and rub your product across. Agitate the buds for around 5 to 10 minutes until you notice less frost on it, meaning trichomes don't stand out as much.

Press the resulting filtered kief that has a chalky consistency into solid bricks, making kief hashish.

Dry ice

For this technique, you can start with around 7 ounces of roughly chopped cannabis filled with one-third dry ice in a bubble bag or bubba bag. Let the mix sit for around 10 minutes to freeze the trichomes, then stir the mix for 5 minutes.

Shake the mixture above a collecting bucket to get kief. Dry the slightly wet material and compress it to make your homemade hashish.

Dry ice
Dry ice

Bubble hash (Ice water cannabis concentrate)

The bubble hash technique involves mixing the cannabis with ice and water, letting water mixed resin pass through a bubble bag. These porous bags (usually made of vinyl) are typically designed to fit inside a 5-gallon bucket.

You can use a single bubble bag or layer up to four sizes. You can get bags ranging from 20 to 225 microns. Take the wet hash from each bag, spread, dry, and press it. Resin collected in the bucket is the finest, so wait for it to settle (sediment) and pour out the top liquid. You can combine the hashish and reuse the mixture to get more.

Pressed rosin

This technique creates the purest hash, but yields are admittedly lower compared to other methods such as solvent extraction. Press buds under high heat to make the resin ooze out easier. The heat shouldn't be so high that it de-carboxylates the weed.

Charas

With this method, you traditionally harvest from live plants. Make it by hand-rubbing a flowering plant that's close to harvest and then scraping your palms of any tar-like resin collected. You'll get the same black gold in your hands, similar to how it is made in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Why make hash at home?

We all have our favorite style of consuming cannabis; raw flowers, edibles, concentrates. Hash is a fantastic option and something you can easily whip up at home. Here’s why you should make hashish at home:

  • Salvage cannabinoids in the stem, sugar leaves, fan leaves, trim, and tiny nugs. Parts others would consider cannabis waste.
  • There are many quick, easy, and inexpensive ways to make great homemade hashish. You don't need to have much gear, and it isn't as difficult as many people think.
  • Homemade hashish can be as strong and as tasty as newer solvent hashes.
  • You control the quality when making hashish yourself.

How to make hash from different parts of the plant

There are many easy ways of how to make hash at home. Commercial cultivators use machines that wash large volumes of plant matter to make it, but you can achieve similar results with simple techniques at home.

Use the following methods to get hashish from different parts of the plant.

How to make hashish from stems

Branches contain very few cannabinoids compared to flowers or sugar leaves of the cannabis plant. Stems burn at a higher temperature, creating a very harsh smoke because they're denser. The best alternative to smoking them is making hash from kief—though you need a fair amount of material.

Here are other options of how to make hashish from stems:

  • Make hash oil from shoots after grinding the plant matter into powder and extract using solvents.
  • Collect stem charas from leftover branches.
  • Grind the stem and agitate it above bubble bags or a fine mesh screen to get kief.

How to make hash from kief

Making hash from kief is easy and requires minimal supplies. Rub plant material over a sieve to collect trichomes that fall through. Scrape the kief and compress it to make hash.

You have so many options when it comes to pressing kief for making hashish. You can:

  • Roll kief around with your fingertips
  • Put kief into the corner of a plastic sandwich bag and squish it repeatedly to get hash. 
  • Fill a jar with boiled water and roll it back and forth over the parchment paper holding your kief.
  • Wrap the kief and set it on the heel of your shoe. Passively walk and stand on it for 15–30 minutes and unwrap for the newly pressed hash.
  • Dry iron kief that's warped in a thin cotton cloth.
  • Use a carjack to compress your kief and get hash.

The options are endless.

Kief
Kief

How to make hashish from cannabis flowers

Hash is the ultimate concentrate. It existed long before modern technology in the Middle East and Central Asia. How to make hashish from weed flowers? It’s an effortless process because you don't need special equipment or solvents.

You can use any of the solutions discussed in this article to make hash from cannabis flowers. Buds have the highest quantity of quality resin.

How to store hash

Hash has one of the longest shelf lives of any cannabis by-products. Store your final product in a dry, cool, and dark place to reduce the chances of mold proliferation. Use an airtight glass jar to keep your stash fresh.

How to store hash for years? Keep it frozen. Dry wet hash by spreading it over a large surface area and waiting, sometimes for days, for moisture to evaporate before compressing it again.

Even though hash does lose the flavorful terpenes over time, especially on the outer surface, THC quantity and other cannabinoids remain the same.

How to smoke hash?

Hash can be smoked on its own or with flowers. Only veteran stoners can tolerate the long-lasting, psychoactive, and intense effect of the pure, potent stuff.

All you'll need is a dab rig, bong, pipe, or bubble to light up. You can also roll it into a joint. Fresh homemade hashish may produce a harsher smoke than aged resin because the latter has dried out more and terpene has worn.

What is the best cannabis for producing hash?

Fresh marijuana provides the stickiest and most aromatic hash. Only about a third of the strains available today have the proper bud and trichome structure that yield well with solventless extraction.

Here are favorite hash strains, featuring tons of trichomes to get your homemade stash.

Gorilla Glue (GG)

It's no surprise that Gorilla Glue is a favorite among hash makers due to its heavy coat of sticky resin glands, hence its name. GG and many of its crosses are very resinous, with typically large trichome heads and high yields. This strain is an obvious choice when it comes to making hash.

Gorilla Glue (GG)
Gorilla Glue (GG)

Girl Scout Cookies (GSC)

Girl Scout Cookies has bulbous flowers that shine due to the high amount of trichomes present. You can get large quantities making kief hash over a sieve to collect trichomes after grinding dry GSC flowers. 

The fragrant, dessert-like aroma and potency of GSC make hash-heads go gaga over it. There are many GSC crosses as well that provide a high resin production, great for making hashish.

Girl Scout Cookies (GSC)
Girl Scout Cookies (GSC)

Sunset Sherbet

This indica dominant stunner brims with fruity sensations and a strong effect. A luscious flavor found in the fresh homemade hashish of Sunset Sherbet makes you want to take a hit every time. Putting this hash to the side even after you’re stoned can be tough.

Sunset Sherbet is easy to grow and doesn't require much attention. This strain offers high yields and thrives in many outdoor conditions. Making hash from this elite strain stuffed full of trichomes is a no-brainer.

Sunset Sherbet
Sunset Sherbet

White Widow

White Widow got its name from the thick coat of trichomes on the buds that make it appear as though it's white. This famous strain is renowned worldwide for its potency and making hash.

White Widow is easy to grow, thrives in many outdoor regions, has high THC, and each hit is an infusion of earthy and pine flavors. It ticks all the right boxes.

White Widow
White Widow

OG Kush

OG Kush produces dense and aromatic buds that are great for making hash. This strain is super potent and has an unmistakable aroma of lemons, fuel, pine, and anise rolled into one.

OG Kush varieties, phenotypes, and many of its descendants produce stout trichome structures that make gooey golden to amber glandular heads begging to be decapitated.

OG Kush
OG Kush

NYC Diesel (NYC D)

NYC Diesel is a tall sativa that produces a strong high. An irresistible floral citrus aroma from the buds and smoke lingers in the air for hours after being consumed.

NYC D has typically large and conical buds that produce high yields of greasy, tacky, clear to gold-tinted transparent trichomes from the protrusive finger-like calyxes. Making kief hash from NYC Diesel is a breeze.

NYC Diesel (NYC D)
NYC Diesel (NYC D)

FAQs on how to make hash

Here are answers to some of the most common questions we see regarding how to make hash.

How do you make hash by hand?

Making charas or hand rubbing weed is a vintage technique for making hash. Hand rubbed hash is popular in countries like India and Nepal, and growers have continued with this tradition for thousands of years. All you need is to rub flowering cannabis plants to collect the resin that sticks to your hand, forming little balls of hash.

As easy as it may seem, making charas is a time-consuming process. On average, collectors can rub for an entire day and only collect up to 0.35 oz. of hash, while experienced cultivators can get up to 0.5 oz. each.

Use a pair of latex gloves to protect your hands, for cleanliness, and to make it easy to separate solidified hash after freezing the gloves.

You can collect homemade hashish when you see the trichomes form on your cultivar, but it's best to wait for around two weeks before harvest to let the plant regenerate new trichomes on reaped buds. Apply a moderate amount of pressure that doesn't damage your plant.

How much hash will an ounce make?

If making hash from kief, you can expect 0.1–0.18 oz. of hash from an ounce of quality dried and cured cannabis flowers. 15 to 20% yield is a good target for dried, well-cured cannabis. 

The amount of trichomes mostly depends on the quality of your buds and strain. You mostly want to go for quality over quantity when making hash. The technique you use greatly affects yield as well.

Do you need kief to make hash?

You don’t because you can also get hash through other means, such as solvent extraction or rosin press. Making hash from kief is the easiest method of getting quality hash, though.

Press kief into hash without special equipment. Even simply rolling kief around your fingertips for finger hash does the job.

Is hash stronger than kief?

Yes, hash is stronger than kief because the former is a more concentrated form. This comparison, of course, relies on a side-by-side test of extract from the same plant. Kief is just one way of how hash is made.

A solvent extraction method gives a purer product, but it’s complicated, and many stoners don't subscribe to chemical use techniques. You can layer bags in a series to capture more pure kief under each level when making bubble hash.

What is the difference between hash and bubble hash?

Hash encompasses all varieties of the product, including kief that’s compressed into a solid block. Bubble hash or water hash is a relatively easy way of how to make hashish. Most users consider bubble hash to be cleaner and purer than concentrates made with solvents.

You'll need ice water and bubble bags to make bubble hash from weed. Let trichomes settle on the bottom of the liquid and dry the residue on each sieve. Bubble hash gets its name from how it bubbles when you expose it to heat.

Kief hash pile
How to make hash at home

The art of hash

We doubt that you'll ever want to buy commercial hash again once you experience the pleasure of working with nature and enjoy clean, clear highs. Remember, homemade hash is tasty, pure, clean, and easy to make.

The method you choose to get hash is down to the material and equipment at your disposal. Kief collecting on the bottom of your grinder won't go to waste now that you know how to make hash.

We have one of the largest collections of verifiable cannabis seeds worldwide, including the most terpene-rich varieties for extractions. Buy one of the recommended strains for some personal stash of monster hash and get started today.


About the author: Parker Curtis

Parker Curtis has around a decade of cannabis-growing experience, specialising in soil-less and hydro grows. He’s mastering outdoor, greenhouse, and indoor grows.

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