Has your state just recently legalized recreational marijuana? You might be excited to get started on making your own products with this new-found freedom. One of the most popular ways to use cannabis recreationally and medicinally is through concentrates.
Concentrates are so popular because they have a pure cannabis taste, due to natural extraction, and are higher in potency than regular herb. Several options for making your own concentrates are through using ethanol, butane or CO2, which can lead to a leftover residue. Instead of using harsh chemicals or dangerous extraction methods, why not try something a little safer and easier? With a high-quality rosin press, you can make your own concentrates right at home.
The Basics
How this works is you use heat and pressure to extract the chemicals from the cannabis plant material. One of the best parts of this method is that it is solventless. You don’t have to use harsh chemicals, and you get all of the useful components in the plant like its terpenes, cannabinoids, and oils. Using the full plant, you get the added benefit of the “entourage effect” that you wouldn’t find in pure chemical compounds.
Here’s What You Need
- Rosin Press
- Non-stick parchment paper
- Metal dabber to collect the rosin
- Cannabis flower
First, You Heat Up Your Rosin Press
The first thing you’re going to need to do is to heat your rosin press. With lower temperatures between 150 and 220 degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll get more flavor but less rosin. Lower temperatures also make the rosin that has a honey-like consistency. For the higher temperatures between 220 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll get more rosin but with less flavor with a sap-like consistency.
Next, You Load Your Flower
Take your cannabis flower and put it on a parchment paper and fold it closed making sure that the paper completely covers it. You can use the full bud, kief, or hash to bring the oil out. If you are using the full flower, using smaller nugs will help yield more rosin. Out of all of the different types of cannabis, kief and hash will have the highest quality, but they won’t give you as much rosin as the full flower would.
Then, You Press Your Flower
Press your parchment-covered bud into your rosin press. If you are using the full flower, then press for 15-60 seconds. If you are using hash or kief, press for 30-90 seconds.
Finally, You Scrape The Rosin
Take your cannabis flower out of the parchment paper and use your dabber to scrape up the rosin. You can repeat step 3 until you get all of the rosin out of your plant. Now you have successfully created your own rosin! Congratulations!
Choosing the Right Rosin Press
If you are just making rosin for personal use, then sticking to a modest style like a manual rosin press would be the perfect fit. A manual rosin press is small, portable, and cost-efficient. However, if you need a press for commercial use, using a manual press would get exhausting, and the plates aren’t big enough for large batches. Getting the heftier machinery like a pneumatic or hydraulic rosin press will save you a lot of time and money.