Dry ice methods

So I know people have already posted their experiments on this, so I thought I would share mine... I am still relatively new, but learning new things every day.

I decided today to try some dry ice in the mix, and maybe this is common knowledge but for anyone out there contemplating this... A little goes a long way, and add it at after everything else. I froze my bubble xl solid and had to put on wet suit gloves and stir my work bag by hand haha. I had put normal ice in my work bag, then filled the machine with icewater, then added 5 lbs of dry ice I had previously crushed into 2-3 inch pieces with a mallet. I then added some more icewater to top off the machine, and when I turned it on, nothing... I noticed it frosting up everywhere, and reached down to the bottom and found a solid chunk of ice had formed... so that batch got done by hand.

The results are a beautiful nearly white taffy like substance that I can't wait to try! I used ogre, wet trim, and it is by far the best looking run I have ever done! I will post pics on this thread later tonight or tomorrow.

after that I defrosted the machine, found a fair percentage of the dry ice still usable, and took what I had learned and applied it to the next batch. This time I put normal ice and the left over dry ice in the work bag, icewater (with a bit of left over ice from the last run) in the machine, turned it on, then added 2.5 lbs of crushed dry ice.

This time I used ogre again, but dry not wet trim. the results were a massive amount of very pale, lovely looking extract, which I also cannot wait to try. It is not as amazing looking as the extract from the wet trim, but by far one of the best looking runs I have ever done.

So, I guess what I have determined is, dry ice is great, it is cheap, and using it reduced how much normal ice I needed, so it actually made the whole process more cost effective. Fog bubbled out of my machine which was pretty cool, so that is an added bonus, and my extract looks better than it ever has in the past.

If anyone else wants to share their experiences in this thread I would love to hear them

So after a couple of hours of drying "nearly white" is not so nearly... though I feel like maybe I can get a better picture maybe in the sun tomorrow... the lighting in my drying room is dingy at best! none the less I am still happy!

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/43/hsh001.jpg

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I would love to see a comparison done personaly.. as the dry ice method.. ( although your hash looks nice).. generaly will fill your hash with non active contaminant.
I would love to see you do the same amout of trim for each.. dry ice method and wet washed method.. imo opinion.. dry ice is a first step in a multi step process to clean the hash after you've extracted it.. as with no water.. all that would float will not sink and fall thru your screen..
Where as with wetwashed method.. you will produce a higher result almost everytime.. 98% plus pure heads under the microscope..

My two cents..

Ps your dry ice hash is the nciest i've seen posted so far

Bubble man

That does look nice and I too would love to see a side by side comparison. I have used dry ice in lesser quality material with negligible differences, and I have used fresh and dry frozen trim and pulled stuff that started almost white looking and darkened over the drying period (I've had stuff go really dark and stuff stay pretty light, seems to depend on the weather, aka humidity, since I don't have a real drying room or chamber).

How long was your run time? I have a friend who swears by the dry ice as it increases his yields, but then again he till it stops "steaming" and tends to just use dry ice.

How much starting material fresh and dry? and I hope you'll post overall yield too ;-)

Thanks! I am really just experimenting at this point, my theory being that since dry ice is colder than normal, I can use less of it, and maintain the same temperature, which lets me have more water flowing in the machine, and less ice bashing stuff around. I would love to do a control experiment, but sadly am through all my material at this time, but I will certainly try to do something a little more scientific next time around!

Hmmmtasty, I used about 1500 gms of wet frozen, which gave about 35 gms of the best, and about 35 gms of not quite as good... i did about 1700 gms of dry frozen, which gave about 70 gms of the best, and 30 of not the best. I dry everything in a room that stays 70 degrees, with a de-hum keeping the relative humidity @ about 40% I run everything for 10 minutes at soft, pull the bags, then re-run @ 15 minutes normal... I only count the first runs in the above numbers, as the second run stuff, while is still really good, isn't really worth talking about (:

Your yield sounds very similar to what I usually get running dry material, maybe a tad bit higher(maybe does contain those non-actives BBMan writes of) as I usually range 13-17% yield of the good stuff, I'm very interested to see the final product though, wonder what it'd test at too, especially compared to non-dry-iced of the same strain using the same method. Too bad they don't have labs for laymen and hobbyists to get their stuff tested lol

The original runs that I did when I posted this thread came out phenomenal, Which I, many runs later can only attribute to the material.. It was a pretty stressed out Ogre Kush, that due to the stress was so suggary that when trimming it, it left little piles everywhere... the end result looked a lot like stuff people make using less savory techniques (butane)... I have not been able to replicate those results... which is a shame!! I think it can only be due to the quality, and freshness (less than 2 weeks from harvest) of the material... I have however refined my methods quite a bit and am going to post them in a fresh thread right now! Thanks everyone for your input and openness, this forum is invaluable!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bubbleman

I would love to see a comparison done personaly.. as the dry ice method.. ( although your hash looks nice).. generaly will fill your hash with non active contaminant.
I would love to see you do the same amout of trim for each.. dry ice method and wet washed method.. imo opinion.. dry ice is a first step in a multi step process to clean the hash after you've extracted it.. as with no water.. all that would float will not sink and fall thru your screen..
Where as with wetwashed method.. you will produce a higher result almost everytime.. 98% plus pure heads under the microscope..

My two cents..

Ps your dry ice hash is the nciest i've seen posted so far

Bubble man

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I'd be interested to know more about what non active contaminants are added and a little on the chemical process of how its added by using dry ice as I've considered using some myself and since dry ice is just frozen co2 and I'm confused as to how it could add anything. Thanks