Mycotoxin would be the concern but generally you could pasteurize the material without substantially altering it.
Usually you can request plate count vs PCR, it is the gold standard for microbial and much less fallible than all but the best developed PCR/qPCR methods
@Thedawg hit the nail. I press flower because I am not at the disposal of extra revenue for a freeze dryer, but I enjoy being able to make my own tinctures and carts from my rosin. I average around 15-18% yields from my starting material. The rosin crude averages around 50-70% TCs. So @eeerock nailed it on the fire in fire out.
I know I can taste PM spores in EtOH or Butane extracts, and can filter that taste gone at 0.2um. Just pasteurizing would not be my go to.
As far as mycotoxins, it’s aspergillus that is the big issue. I don’t believe ethanolic extracts of PM or Botrytis (wine) have been implicated in any health issues, but I certainly can’t point at hydrocarbon data.
So filter sterilization is awesome and 0.1 um will certainly remove all of the spores/living microbes. In fact, filtering at 0.1 um is sufficient for sterile drugs for injection usually.
What I was speaking to primarily was material which does not have any real indications of mold in terms of flavor or toxins but still is near or above the regulatory limit (which in some jurisdictions can be quite low). Baking your hash will not make it taste less moldy or keep it from making you sick if you got the wrong kind of wee beasties. Filtering will also not solve the mycotoxin issue but there are other remediation options
Figure out how to hash ur flowers.
Either bubble hash or by dry tumbling.
Then premold, wrap in coffe filter. Chemex brand.
Wrap that in stainless steel mesh and press with a 20 ton press.
U can mold and prewrap all the pucks before u press
This is totally a beginners forum, you just must be a persistent beginner
Are you isolating the bubble at each micron, 70/90/120, or are you doing a mass pull i.e 149-45 and removing the in-between bags?
I started with all 5 bags, but it does not seem worth the effort. I have been using just the smallest and largest micron bags.
For my regular rosin approach I usually do the bulk grab using just the 149-40 (ICExtract bags). I’m considering doing a lil test run with some whole plant fresh frozen lifter just to see if its something worthwhile. Confident that its not scaleable but interested in the outcome. Any exp with wpff hemp?
Are the icextract bags worth the money? They look like a good company.
I’d like to think they are. In the past I’ve used a couple knock offs that I found on Amazon and I would notice chlorophyll beyond the 180 bag so I figured I got what I paid for. I love the 220 work cubes/bags for their ease of use and ability to keep things clean. So overall I’m happy. I’ve had them for 2+ yrs and they’re still trucking along.
So doing the good ol’ bang out kief using a 190um bubble bag and dry ice then color grading and pressing into forms with a pollen press or with your hands cause of moisture content and then presssing those hash balls or pucks you’ll get a better yield than just pressing bud?
squish isn’t my thing.
is the yield (extraction efficiency) better from the same material kiefed vs squished as buds? dunno. it might be. losses to the plant material are certainly why squishing low potency material is not a win.
I imagine the answer to that would be strain dependent as well as operator dependent.
[quote=“SnSTreeFarm, post:29, topic:93569”]Any exp with wpff hemp?
[/quote]
Nope.
Idk what scaleable is to you, but I would just buy the screen material and put it in as the bottom of plastic trash barrels. I have read about using washing machines, but I am not on that level yet.
A friend of mine ran some of my bubble hash through her in house analytics and it came back nd thc. I have to get that verified by a third party lab, because it seems so implausible.
I use (4) 7 gal washers with (2) 220 work cubes per washer, sometimes 3 if im trying to save overall time. 300 to 500g per washer would be my guess.
I don’t really see much advantage to banging out kief over just pressing some fire flower. If it’s lower quality or trim it could result in a better quality product though. As for yield like @cyclopath mentioned moisture content is definitely key especially for flower. If your flower is too dry it’s going to want to absorb the oil instead of letting it flow freely. 62% boveda packs before pressing can significantly increase yields and quality on dry flower.
Pressing flower may give you something to dab but unfortunately it also gives you fragmented plant cuticles, waxes, and lipids. Gets your quartz all dirty like.
Hash rosin is definitely very different than flower rosin. Hash rosin will generally melt much cleaner like you said. I love both but I prefer the taste on flower rosin most of the time. Some people just love that hashy taste though. If you put aside yield it all just comes down to personal preference IMO.
Well I’m done experimenting and wasting material without any return. Just ordered a Best Value Vacs 1lb Apollo closed loop in professional trim. I bet I get a better quality and higher yield return period, fuck the press I want solvents now especially since it’s closed loop. I’ll post some pics of the new rig in action and what it produces with numbers to boot, ie ratios of rosin to material ect… More to come…
I banged out a bunch of kief with the filter bags, was good smoked nice by itself, and then packed into the 25 micron filter packs… No blowouts or anything crazy just no yield… A couple of .1’s perhaps off of a whole filter bag full of kief, say 7 grams±. I think my press just hates me, same strain with butane in the past produced just fine. Roughly in the 10%+ range when blown, meaning 10% return on input material. I get like 2% when pressing bud not much better when doing kief, if any… Granted as others have mentioned, and is definitely the rule of thumb, fire in fire out. I am using trim and undesirables so at 10%+ return I’m blown away, no pun intended… 
. I am however going to have to abandon the pressing method, just too much work and too much loss or at least thats my 2 cents on the whole pressing subject!
OH and for the fellow who joined me in the wtf to guy who bashed me for asking for help, “persistent beginner…” hilarious… Karma is a bitch Mr. miner, hope I have the opportunity to return the favor for ya someday…
Bunch of washers. Bunch of freeze dryers. Bunch of presses. Bunch of tumblers.
All running like clockwork.
Always a smart choice to have solvent / hydrocarbons and solventless.