If you’re looking to get stupid high, you’ve probably heard of kief. There is a plethora of ways to use kief, including smoking it in joints and pipes, making edibles, vaping it, and pressing it into hash.
However, there are a lot of people who have either never heard of kief or are unsure of what it is, and we here at Leafbuyer love nothing more than to share things with people to educate the public on safe cannabis use and industry news.
Here’s some information on kief and some insight into making hash from kief.
What Is Kief?
Kief, pronounced as “keef”, comes from Arabic, meaning “pleasure” or “intoxication”, which is a very fitting moniker, since kief is one of the most concentrated forms of cannabis you’ll get, and of course, it’ll give you both pleasure and intoxication. Traditionally, kief has been pressed into cakes of hash for storage purposes, but can be vaporized or smoked in either form.
Kief is an ultra-potent, powerfully concentrated form of dried cannabis. It’s made by extracting the resinous, cannabinoid rich trichomes from dried cannabis flowers. The trichomes are the most important part of the cannabis flower. Since the trichomes hold more cannabinoids, including THC, than the rest of the plant, concentrating them will lead to an unmatched high. By separating the trichomes from the rest of the flower, you’re left with kief, which is much stronger than any cannabis bud you’ll be able to find anywhere.
Lucky for you, most dispensaries sell kief, so you can give it a try before you decide whether to go any further with the process of making hash from kief.
If you smoke a lot of joints, you probably own a grinder that has collected a lot of kief. After a few months, the amount of kief in the kief catcher, typically found at the bottom, is usually enough to sprinkle on top of a fresh bowl, but there are a lot of other methods to extract much larger amounts of kief. You can use dry ice and cannabis to make hash from kief.
Making Hash from Kief
If you want to make hash from kief, you’re going to first need a ton of kief. The easiest way to get hash is by using dry ice. It’s the safest and by far the easiest and most effective method for making hash with kief. There are a few things you’ll need to get started.
You will need:
- A sanitary 5 gallon bucket.
- Cannabis, you can use trim, flower, or a combination of both. Just make sure that if you’re using trim you use trim that is resinous and covered in trichomes. The trichomes are the important part.
- Dry ice. Depending on the amount of trim/flower you have, the amount will be different, but 3 lbs will usually cover about 6 ounces of cannabis. You can get dry ice from most grocery stores, but if you want to save yourself some hassle, always call to double check before you drive down there!
- Bubble bags. You can pick these babies up from any growing supply store, or you can order them online. You will need 3 standard sizes, 73, 160, and 220.
- DO NOT use latex or any other skimpy glove. Thick, insulated gloves are needed to protect your hands from the dry ice. Barbeque gloves or snow gloves will usually get the job done.
- Again, sanitation is key. You don’t want to taint your kief with something dirty. A clean ruler or something with a flat edge will do fine. Credit cards, paint scrapers, etc.
- A clean workspace. The kief is going to go everywhere, and it’s important that the table you use is sanitized. It’s also got to be large so nothing ends up on the floor and goes to waste.
To make hash from Kief:
- Put all of your cannabis into the 5 gallon bucket. It’s going to make a world of difference for you if you grind it up first, but you can still get kief without grinding. If you want to get your money’s worth, grind Put a chunk of dry ice into the bucket with the cannabis.
- Take the size 73 bubble bag and put it over the opening of the bucket. Shake up the cannabis for a few minutes without tipping it over. This is the process of freezing the trichomes so that they fall off easily.
- Turn the bucket over. The cannabis and dry ice will now be in the bubble bag, but still attached to the bucket.
- Give it a good shake and watch in amazement as the kief begins to pour out of the bag
- Use the scraper to collect all of this into a pile. From here you can either press it, or store it in a container of your choice.
- After this process is complete, you can use the other two bags following the same process for higher grades of hash.
by Nicole Flanigan
