Originally Posted by
YukonBikerGuy
Well, first off, I think that you must take several factors into account.
Only the water soluable terpenes are removed by the water method, not 'all'.
Hash production can vary by strain with either method, some will give more, some will give less.
For either method, how long are you 'mixing'? You could tumble buds in the pollinator for long enuff that a bunch of the pot would get powdered and end up in the hash, the longer it tumbles, the more hash you get, but its also of lesser quality because of all the contaminant in the dry sift that you plan on pressing into hash. Making bubblehash with a machine is similar, the longer you mix a batch, the more conatminant gets in which increases volume but decreases quality.
What size pollinator/Bubblenow are you planning on using? The larger ones can process more in the same amount of time.
The tumbling and the washing are automated, but you still have to collect the dry sift (and press it into hash if you want to), or pull the bags to collect the bubblehash. Dont kid yourself, those machines make it way easier, but unless you have a slave tied up in the back yard, both methods involve doing some work to get the hash.
I'm not sure about returns on a rotating drum system(check the manufacturer's info), returns for bubblehash run 3-10%
For how much can be processed by either method in a given batch, again check the manufacturer's info, they tell you how much you can put in the machine. Figure out how long it takes YOU (others may have different methods that take more or less time than you) to run a batch with that method, then do the math for your 12 hour window.
Personally, I would like to have both machines, and run the dry method (short mix)and then the wet method (short mix) on the same material, then use the material for cooking with to really maximize extraction from a given batch.