Extraction Any advice for general Rosin Press use?

[AFNG]

Ordered nugsmasher mini yesterday and waiting for it to come. Pretty excited.

Looking for tips and tricks and things to consider or any other info you have to share.

How do you get most pure and potent rosin?

How long does it keep good for and how do you store it?

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Ordered nugsmasher mini yesterday and waiting for it to come. Pretty excited.

Looking for tips and tricks and things to consider or any other info you have to share.

How do you get most pure and potent rosin?

How long does it keep good for and how do you store it?

There is a steep learning curve to pressing rosin. Your machine advertises 2.5" x 2.5" plates and 3.5g capacity 2 tons of pressure. I have 3" x 4" plates and 12 tons. I find 4 g just right on my rig so 3.5 might be pushing it a bit on yours. You really only need Bud & Parchment to begin pressing. I really like the Raw silicon pre-cut 6"x6" parchment but it was not available the last time I needed it and I went with the Slick Paper 10" x10" silicon paper. I cut them to 5" x 10" and fold them in half. They are much "slicker" than the Raw paper and sometimes the packet slips right out of the press. You may need 5"x5" silicon parchment to fit?

You need to play around with the press a bit to try to determine the volume that works best. You will need a pre-press and rosin press bags but you need to have an idea of the volume you will be pressing before you buy or make these.

If your Bud is very fresh (just cured) 62% moisture then make the first press @185°F or less for 5 minutes for the most flavorful rosin for dabbing. The older the bud the less critical the temperature is and I press all of the older stuff @210°F 3 or more minutes. Your volume will be less at the lower temperature but the quality (more terpenes) will be better. Then all second press is done at 210°F 5+ minutes. Each puck gets two presses.

Next comes the hardest part - collecting the rosin off the parchment. This shyte is so sticky. When I first started gathering it it went everywhere except into the little silicone containers. Once it gets on your fingers or any other surface that is not glass or silicon it is wasted. If you are lucky the rosin will be workable at room temperature. If it is too oily you will need a cold surface to work on. I use a frozen ice pack sandwiched in between two aluminum cake pans held against the inner surface to keep the pans cold. You will use your pick-up tool like an eraser most of the time not a scraper. This just takes practice. Then have a lighter to heat your tool to scrape the rosin off in the container to get the last bits.

Then once you have an idea about the volume that works for you get a pre-press and rosin bags. Rosin bags will increase your yield by 25% or more so they are well worth the effort. The 90 micron bags work best for me. @Ripper has a tutorial about how to pack and fold a rosin bag to prevent blow-out when pressing.

Next is using the rosin "chips" left over from pressing. I collect them and when I have about a a gallon of them I process them with Ethanol like RSO. I get about 100g of wax consistency product from this extraction. It looks like tar and tastes like shyte but will get you flipin high. I use it in chocolates and add a bit of terps for flavor.

There is much more but this will get you started.

 

[AFNG]

Thank you so much for that response!

 

[AFNG]

@Mañ'O'Green
I finally have some time to write a better reply.

From what I understand the nugsmasher presses are designed to be used with their rosin bags to ensure a proper pounds per material square inch or something like that. They also claim the way it's designed you get the same yield from any of there presses at least up to what they rate them for to press at a time. I'll definitely have to do some experimenting though with doing different amounts for pressing.

So you say lower temp is higher quality. Is it just more terpines?

Do you freeze chips until your ready to use them?

Thanks again.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@Mañ'O'Green
I finally have some time to write a better reply.

From what I understand the nugsmasher presses are designed to be used with their rosin bags to ensure a proper pounds per material square inch or something like that. They also claim the way it's designed you get the same yield from any of there presses at least up to what they rate them for to press at a time. I'll definitely have to do some experimenting though with doing different amounts for pressing.

So you say lower temp is higher quality. Is it just more terpines?

Do you freeze chips until your ready to use them?

Thanks again.

Not just terpenes but yes terpenes.

No, No matter what you do with them short of co2 extraction all you are going to get is tar, so no I do not bother with freezing them. I used to just keep them in a gallon zip-lock bag on the work bench. A opossum decided it like to eat them and would sneak into the garage if I left the walk door open and eat them - ALL of them. Now I put them in jars. I think the opossum got hit by a car last month as there was a dead one in the main street not to far away. I know she had babies last year so they are probably still around.

 

[AFNG]

Not just terpenes but yes terpenes.

No, No matter what you do with them short of co2 extraction all you are going to get is tar, so no I do not bother with freezing them. I used to just keep them in a gallon zip-lock bag on the work bench. A opossum decided it like to eat them and would sneak into the garage if I left the walk door open and eat them - ALL of them. Now I put them in jars. I think the opossum got hit by a car last month as there was a dead one in the main street not to far away. I know she had babies last year so they are probably still around.

I can already tell like you said there is a TON of information on all of this. Do you have other resources you can suggest to read up on this subject?

So if I wanted the most potent rosin without solvents would I have to essentially collect and press the trichomes? Are there terpenes in the trichomes or are those mostly found in the plant material?

Seems like trichome collection (while minimizing other plant matter) would be best with older or drier buds?

Sorry for so many questions. I like to know everything I can about subjects that interest me and I'm at the point of having no clue what I don't know and what things I need to consider to get different outcomes. I know I also need to know what different methods there are and their pros and cons so I can make a decision what's most important to me as well.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

First of all rosin is solvent-less by definition. No solvent is used in the extraction process. Several press vendors have blogs with tons of information.

Yes you can press keif or bubble hash and it will indeed be higher in cannibinoids but really I do not see the need for all the extra work. The average rosin is 70% actives and the rest is waxes, lipids, protiens and plant materials. So if your plant is say Green Crack and it is 23% THC then there is 700mg * .23 = 161mg THC in 1 gram of that rosin. The thing is there is still 77% of the actives not accounted for yet. These are what gives each of the extractions such wide character.

Have you seen my rosin chocolate bar recipe video?

 

[AFNG]

No I have not seen it, I'll do a search. Thanks

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

 

[AFNG]

Been doing some more reading and think I am getting better understanding of everything.

You don't want to use to much pressure when pressing so you don't blow out bag and essentially contaminate your rosin.

Lower temps preserve the terps which are good for aroma, flavor, and the effects you feel so it's higher quality. You can add heat to extract more but then your also getting more waxes and lipids and other things?

Moisture content is important of buds being pressed because if they are too dry they will absorb the rosin so you'll yield less but to much moisture and you'll get more water mixed in?

If you get a budder / wax like consistency you can actually put that in a 25um or so bag and repress starting really low with low pressure to squeeze out terpenes, waxes, ER . Repeating process while slowly increasing temps which will leave you with thc-a crystal inside the bag. Effectively increasing potency to near 100% but stripping away everything else including terps.

General variables seem to be temp, strain, pressure, time of press, moisture content and age of flower.

Freezing freshly harvested plant and pressing can also help keep some terps that naturally go away during curing process.