Hi guys! I'm new here, just got my bags yesterday, so of course made my first run...yesterday. I'm totally stoked to have a way to get some quality product off the trim from my husbands garden. Toyed with the alcohol method, thought about butane, just can't get my head past the chemicals involved, it just bothers some deep seated inner standard, ya' know? Skuffed some by hand, with a glass jar and a little paintbrush (don't ask, needless to say it was time consuming, but in the end got some high quality stuff, looks ridiculous under 100x ) When I saw the bubble bags I knew I had found the answer to my pipe dreams, so to speak.

I have read a lot of stuff on here now and know I am going to make some big changes for the next time, I already had my trim (dried) so I couldn't do anything about that, although next time even if it's dry I think I'll freeze it longer. How long does it take something dry to freeze? that was one of my problems I think. I got more stuff than I thought I would, but not as high quality as I had hoped, which makes sense of course. I have a one gallon 4 bag kit, I know I need more bags to get out more contaminants for a more refined product. I hand mixed with a wooden spoon for about 6 minutes, however I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough mixing it. My little 100lb self was stirring like no tomorrow trying to get the stuff from the bottom into the mix instead of just the top but felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job, I fear that I may have over mixed as a result. I guess I just need to get the hang of stirring all that ice, maybe I didn't have enough water in with it? how much water should be in the mix? I let the water pre chill in a bucket with ice to make sure it was really cold. I felt like I wasn't getting all the stuff off very well so I got out my magnifier to see how much stuff looked like it was still on the leaf and it looked like a lot. I did notice that there were a lot of stalks with the heads knocked off though. Is that what I'm going for? the heads more than the stalks? When pulling the bags I used the bowl method, at the last minute I decided to add a sham-wow thingy over the bowl based on some tip I read here. that seemed to make it dry out really well but maybe almost too well? it was getting dried onto the screen, I used cold water in a spray bottle to redirect it but I think maybe I scraped against the screen with the spoon too hard to collect them. maybe rupturing the heads? would that explain why some of it seem to be in such hard little chunks I can't break up any further? I put it on the cardboard and chopped it up to break it up to dry. I noticed especially the 25 has these little clumps that are very hard and don't chop up well, they just go *ping* and fly off the tray.

I know that was probably a long confusing ramble any tips or help would be greatly appreciated. Here comes the real issue though...

there are threads in everything, both runs all three grades. some as short as 1cm some as long as an inch and a half, they are totally clear looking and super fine,covered in my beautiful product...those are just the ones I can see. under my 100x magnifier I can see tons of them that are dark colors or even red, are these from the bags? the are in every layer and couldn't fit through the screen. did I stir too hard? but that would just be the blue. did I scrape the screens too hard? did I not wash them out good enough when they were new? were they threads from the factory? has anyone else had this problem at all? it looks bizarre cause you can't really see the threads they just make parts of the pile move that you aren't touching or cause pieces to look like they are "floating". obviously I don't want to be smoking these threads...

I need some ideas before I run my next batch. By the way, you guys are all great, and even though you don't know me yet I've been reading all your advice for awhile you are like sage big brothers to me, well shoot, bunches of you are probably younger than me, but hey, I'm little. hahahaha. Thanks in advance for the help.