Thanks man, got it downloaded, will try to get the software switched this week. Appreciate the help
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First live hash rosin press in the books. Shout out to @SubstituteCreature for some awesome pointers. The freezer bit makes collecting and bagging live bubble hash super easy. With a cold nylon paint brush the frozen trichomes just brush right off
Sweet strawberries washed @ 3% return from FF
Aloho washed 3% return
Wrank washed 4% return
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Awesome, takes me back.
Question for the rosin people here: has anyone seriously explored replacing water hash with dry sift/static as the initial separation step?
Not talking about novelty batches, I mean as a real production workflow.
I keep hearing static discussed like a possible replacement for IWE, but I’m not seeing much evidence of rosin makers actually abandoning wash/freeze dry for sift/static at scale.
The part I’m especially curious about is fresh frozen handling. Dry material seems straightforward for sift, but what does FF dry sift/static actually look like in practice? Are people tumbling in a walk-in freezer to avoid thawing? Does the material still need freeze drying afterward? And if it does, how much time/work is really being saved versus just running a normal IWE workflow?
Especially now that some people seem to be shortening freeze dryer time on the IWE side by pulling more free water off with a shop vac before loading trays.
Has anyone here actually done this or run the economics?
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So - in my experiences the only way sift hash is viable is if you are literally doing a long-long-long cure on really really nice nug. Like REALLY nice nug. There’s a few different issues involved with it because you just simply can’t do efficient static tek unless the RH of the material and the room alike are fucking LOW. Like single digit. Just in general humidity affects any sort of static generation in a huge way - NOW - if you think about that regarding your material that means you’ll have to dry it out to an insane degree, bone dry. What does that do to the material? The vast majority of the volatiles and ‘fancy’ terps will be dried off and straight cooked - at the same time this will affect oxidization of the trichomes because that little bit of humidity in the plant keeps it just a LITTLE bit moist but once you start nuking that it’s on a slow decline.
Hands down, in all my experiences trying to make absolutely everything I could into rosin before I just said fuck it and bought a freeze dryer, maintaining the integrity of any sifted hash is absolutely fucking annoying and you can see how much the stark environmental differences change what you get out of it. I literally had to start refining the sugar the second the trimming machine stopped spinning and then run it straight to the press and it still came out in a way where yeah it looked nice off the plates but as time went on with the curing process it immediately got dark to the point where it likely wasn’t gonna be something I could offer to anyone.
In a business environment it would be kind of hard because you’d have to be so quick on the draw and have to have employees that sorta understand the time crunch they’d be on in getting that ready asap yet versatile enough you can put the same people (or another separate person who understands hash very well but that already craters cost per jar) on that job who can refine and press the sugar asap. That’s why any time i’ve seen static touted as a big time saver it’s usually people trying to sell old school style hash - but even then i’m not seeing huge ‘Ricky’s Driveway’ style hash bricks of full melt. It makes me wonder if it’s even possible with straight straight straight full melt because as anyone knows that’s washed dumb fucking fire, you barely need ANY body heat at all for that to melt immediately and become goop which seems like a death sentence for static collection.
As far as the shop vac thing…to me it seems rushed but then again I never was the ‘big ol watery scoop’ type at all and don’t see myself ever becoming because if you know how to jiggle the bags right you can get most of the water out in the first place - although I feel that getting 100% of the water out is an awful idea because if you catch the water coming out of your freeze dryer if it’s good nug you can smell terps like a MOTHERFUCKER. It makes me wonder ‘how much of that if sufficiently wet will stay within that hash patty/trichs and how much will get leeched out in the freeze drying process’. If it’s the same percentage of terps that’d get yanked yet every time wouldn’t it be advantageous for your end result to have a bit more water in it vs. less? But, until someone actually does the Pepsi challenge and quantifies what comes out that’s only speculation on my part.
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Panda !!!
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I think supply chain needs to be optimized for static. Your points are all extremely valid. I think Ice Water Hash production wins with current infrastructure and on product “freshness” for the consumer. Freshness meaning the preservation of volatiles and aromatics with minimal degradation.
You’ll always lose volatile compounds over time and accelerate loss under heat, decreased pressure, or oxygenated environments. You’ll decrease loss by keeping it cold, inert atmosphere, and increased pressure.
A lot of product and environments merit static. Morocco @Roguelab is perfect environment for it. Arizona is perfect for it.
Genetics probably pay a big role(the biggest role?) in success for different extraction methods. The cuticle thickness of the trichrome will help determine if it will survive intact through the abuse of extraction, but will add to the long-chain fats to the product(bad).
I like product diversity in the marketplace. If the product is good, I buy it. There’s a tool for every job, and you have to make an educated decision when buying machinery. The sellers of equipment will always say their product is the best, with pure conviction.
I can take the same material you’d use for bubble and make sift. In about 1/2 the time it takes to freeze dry your wet hash, fresh frozen dry sift will be dry and ready for static. It doesn’t take a long time. It’s actually cutting down your time frames in half due to the amount of active water content. Which also the stigma of dry sift needing to be from super dry material is false. That just comes from folks who don’t have the means to be able to work with fresh frozen materials. Which to reiterate doesn’t HAVE to be within single digit temps but is preffered. I can process just as well in 40° as I could in 10° 
Static can also be utilized to refine bubble further and faster than having to wash/rinse bags screens. 
Also as for the air drying comparative to a freeze dryer, dry sifted hash can be dried with vacuum ovens just as easily while maintaining the hash to have little to no oxidation. It’s just a matter of parameters. I myself have data logged recently to confirm this. Would take less than 6 hours to dry a good sized batch.
As far as vac tek separation goes it’s a niche, but also takes just as much time as a static tek per clean ups and collection. The process itself for both takes less than 10-15 minutes in total. But ya know I’d love to just wash for 45+ minutes then collect for 20-25, then reset collection and so on. Honestly the process time frame comparison is cut into fractions comparative to having to wash. And that’s from someone who’s washed and sifted at large scale of over 4000lbs a week minimum. Soooooooo for it to be looked at as a subpar method anymore imo is a terrible opinion. It’s just as good if not more precise than having to wash. Now it’s just a matter of the technicians and facility being able to maintain parameters and not having to cut corners or make excuses. Each has their place, but hands down bar none, sift holds more compounds and volatiles, that washing will never be able to compare to as you’re washing/rinsing them away and then having to take more time under vacuum to dry is obviously a scenario that evaporates them even further.
Fresh frozen dry sift as in dried material that is ran with dry ice? Or is this fresh frozen flower that has all that moisture content being tumbled with or without dry ice?
Fresh frozen bio mass that is tumbled, with or without dry ice/ Ln2 or liquid co2.
For years I’ve always preffered fresh frozen over everything else.
I can consistently run 40k + lbs bi weekly and hit the same numbers with dry sift that someone would with bubble and then some due to being able to collect much faster.
as someone who’s ran both process and quite literally all the post process teks available within the sift side of things I can hands down say I’d rather sift over wash any day. Yes most view sift as a week long process if not more, but due to viability from bulk production machines now available through companies like @SamboCreeck.com you can cut your process times down to hours instead.
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