I’m new to using my freeze dryer and mostly working with small quantities of B-cuts from my own produce, which are all frozen fresh. I’m drying at a 45°F shelf temperature for 16 hours with -30°F chamber temperature. My loads don’t even fill a full tray in length in my medium-sized HR freeze dryer.
When I remove the trays and try to break the thicker parts of slabs with a dull dab tool, I feel a little resistance, but it’s not as hard as stabbing solid ice.
When I pass the frozen hash through a sieve, it works well until it sits for a second, warms up to room temperature, and then starts clumping together and turning into a moon sand-like texture.
So is my hash dry or do i need to dry longer? I appreciate all help!
Are you flattening the slabs out on the tray? I know you said they don’t fill the length of the tray, but is the hash thin? Thick slabs are harder to dry.
What is the ambient temperature of the room you are sieving in? Make sure to start that process as soon as you pull a tray out.
Try squeezing a grain of the hash sand between your fingers or a piece of parchment paper. You’ll know if there’s moisture.
Freeze drying tends to leave large chunks of ice as opposed to a layer over the mass in terms of left over moisure. If it went from sandy to moon sand, then you are definitely dry. You just have a fairly decent product! Good hash melts. Really good hash? Sifting no longer becomes an option lol.
So really just watch out for chunks of ice in the strainer.
*tip for meltier hash, restart the freeze dryer and run the diagnostic screen by pressing the leaf logo, this will get you to a screen of options for heating, vac freeze and relay. Set it to test freeze. This will run the freezer at max and will get down to -50f. Leave the hash in the tray for 5-10 minutes and it will be manageable for a longer period of time out of the dryer.
I wasn’t doing the best job, I believe. When I was scooping, the texture wasn’t quite right - it wouldn’t really flatten when banged against a table. I just did a load where I left it more runny.
It’s hot in NorCal right now, about 80°F. Probably not ideal, hahah!
Noted about the large chunks of ice: nothing like that in the strainer so far! Just small pebble-sized chunks that don’t want to break up. I am relieved that the clumping might just be because it’s decent hash!
Does anyone have tips on good settings for my press? I have a pure pressure, I have been doing 180F for about 2mins, 30secounds of which is at a lower pressure (14PSI) than the rest of the time at 35PSI, I have only been pressing a single 2x4 bag at a time trying to dial in my method
80f and probably humid af. About as rough as it gets, but learning how to make hash in less then ideal conditions will invevitably lead to improved techniques. Might be worth doing your sieving in a freezer.
On the press note: if this is getting pressed, and isnt compatible with the sieve, just place it on a parchement in a flat pile, parchment over it and press it together. You can use a pizza cutter to then cut the hash into portions you can easily bag. Dont forget to double bag.
Bonus points: vacuum seal the pucks to get any air out of the puck for a smoother process all together
Okay 1. If you have the budget. Upgrad that mofo
As it stands, you have the “blow out 5000”.
I honestly cant give ya much other than that. The step wise motion of the 2 phase air control tends to cause thca isolation in the bag leading to low yields or blow outs. Longer warm up times at 5psi will help prevent them but really if ya can, upgrade. It then becomes an incredible, pretty stupid proof tool.
Id go up to 190, if you do the vacuum sealing the rosin flows very quickly and getting faster flow at those speeds does more for preservation than the slightly lower temp ( contact time difference and precenting on plate nucleation )
Use a larger micron outer bag. I like 15um in 25um.
dang so upgrade to the v2 controller for it? might make sense why I have had few blowouts I’ll go up to 190, and should I try to go to 1min on the warm up under 5 PSI? then 1:30 for actual press time (or until flow has stopped)?
155°F on the cheapest dab press ($200) with a ten ton jack jammed into it has done well by me. That’s interesting advice about low temp vs flow speed though
do you have a pressure guage on it? pure pressure went into quite the deatail on force exerted on a bag, how the smaller the bag the more pressure is exerted. They talked about ideal pressure.
its an interesting read. I made a spreadsheet that will caluate the range of input pressure needed for a specific bag size. Although it accounts for the size of ram the pikes peak has. it would need to be adjusted for your piston
Honestly you’re going to find yourself not paying attention to the PSI at all except to know how good the material you’re pressing is. I rarely find myself going over 1k on the gauge with a 4x7 LTP press with an electric hydraulic pump.
Assuming X Y or Z is enough for whatever press is assuming also -
A. All of your packing is going to be 100% uniform and density will be like throughout the bag. This is not something that will happen.
B. The qualities and resins of what you press will be similar. What you will get in a 45 micron bag is not what you’ll get in a 70 micron bag which is not what you’ll get in a 90 micron bag which is not what you’ll get in a 120 micron bag which is…feel me?
Also pure pressure is a company that has been going to hell in a handbasket… I would ignore most all of what they have because to sum it up they’re a company that sells you a 20 dollar chopstick so you can turn their inside out bags the right way out…when every other company will just send you a right-side-out bag in the first goddamn place. Slowly ramp up your pressure after a 30 second heat-up until you see the rosin actually starting to come out…let it slowly work it’s way out, ramp up pressure very very slightly, press more.
Rosin and solventless extraction in general is more like Jazz…you have an idea of what and where you should be, but really the meat and potatoes of what you’re doing is paying attention to the band and rolling with the punches while you take cues. Getting hung up on hard set numbers will ruin any sort of quality or satisfaction in the process.
I will repeat it one more time. The pikes peak press or anything pure pressure makes SUCKS. If you like having a super loud 5 foot air compressor in the same room as you and a keypad that’s constantly prone to failure (the entire right side shit the bed on the one I was using) with a needlessly overcomplicated pressure stabilization system that does the same thing while doing a worse job than fucking springs, they make great machines. Their ‘recipe’ system assumes both A and B are solid, non-changing values. Add a fucking idiot wook into that mix and you’ve got a recipe for tons of wasted hash and one moron going 'WHAT!? I PRESSED THE ‘MAKE THE HASH’ BUTTON AND DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO PREVENT THE MASSIVE BLOWOUT!".
Start at 190f, drop by 5f increments if the flow is good on the next bag until it’s more stubborn to get out.
As far as your filling issues, it’s easy to fix. Freeze a few cookie sheets and ball jars, put parchment on said sheet, sieve hash onto parchment sitting atop frozen cookie sheet, dump hash into frozen ball jar. Store in freezer. Take frozen pebbles of what didn’t get totally purged of moisture into another frozen ball jar and collect it until you have enough to run it’s own tray or whatever’s most useful to you. When filling bags use automotive funnels that are skinny with large holes to dump into. Freeze those too. Anything not frozen will have hash sticking to it.
I love how you guys talk so much trash on pure pressure, I was pretty stoked on the purchase (second hand for a good price)
I’m still happy with it though, I really didn’t want a bottle jack style and wanted something that would be “repeatable” I swear I’m not a wook who wants a “make bash button”
I’ll go up to 190, and should I try to go to 1min on the warm up under 5 PSI? then 1:30 for actual press time (or until flow has stopped)?
