failure on two first runs

hey there guys

i am using the 1 gallon kit. i put them in a 1.3gal bucket, pour it halfway full with icy cold tap water, add my trim and then the ice. i stir for 15 and let sit for 30. when pulling the bags, all the trim is in the first one. the next 3 are nothing but water, and there is some mud colored water in the last bags but thats not enough to actually be called hash.

i am using trim which gives a very mild actual high when smoked so it cant be bunk. ive used 30-40g both times. should i grind it up real fine like with an electrical grinder? i just threw it in the water, added ice and stirred for 15 minutes.

i hope someone can answer whether im doing something wrong or is my trim not good enough to give me even 0.3g of bubble at 30-40g of dry weight.

thanks in advance ;)

Well, hard to say, but the first thing I would say is that gentle stirring isnt really enough agitation. You can mix 'gently' by hand, but you should see some foamy bubbles on top of your water/ice/trim mix to tell its been agitated enough.

Have you tried having all your materials and equipment cold (stored in a freezer for several hours) before starting? At least freeze the trim for several hours first, and that will help some. And use lots of ice, keep it all cold cold cold all the way through.

I would not grind your material in a coffee grinder, you will just introduce a lot of fine particulate into the mix that will adulterate your hash.

"i am using trim which gives a very mild actual high when smoked so it cant be bunk"
OK, how much of that 'mild high' do you think you would have to collect and concentrate to get 1 good hit of killer high? Thats what we are doing with the bags, concentrating a mild high to a stronger (and tastier) high. Also we are collecting the glandular trichromes off the outside of the material only, and not the relatively small amount of 'embedded' thc in the plant material. If you have little or no trichromes to collect in your material to start with, then you will have little or no hash to collect corespondingly.

Now to yield. The often quoted numbers on ice water hash returned are 3-10% These numbers will vary dependant on several factors including strain, quality of starting material, method and length of agitation, and the skill of the hashmaker. Some people make the mistake of weighing the hash before it is fully dry, and may claim higher percentages.

For instance, you can look in the forums and find my 'Hash from Trash' thread, where I did a photo essay on making hash from my crappiest veg trim that wasnt even worth smoking (but still had some trichomes on it). On those runs I only got a little under 2% return, and I was stoked to get it. But that was total garbage (literally) that I started with so any return was comming out ahead. Quality of starting material = quantity of quality hash, IMHO.

Dont give up, keep asking questions, and practice to improve your technique. Welcome to the wonderful world of bubblehash. :)

Yukon hit it. What you put is is what you get out pretty much. If its low quality trim try mixing it a little bit longer, I mean since you probably would rather get something then nothing, quality might be so/so.