So 2 others and I went to the cabin to make hash and ice wax in a cold environment, using the cleanest, coldest water we could get our hands on. The cabin is around 9k ft in the Sangre De Cristo mountains in CO. What we learned was amazing and hopefully will help a few of you, specifically the folks in dry ass, CO!
We had a healthy batch made with fresh frozen trim, a batch made with cured (although slightly overdry) trim, a batch made with bud and a batch made with primo inner trim...
The temps were higher than predicted so making our own ice proved impossible. We used bagged ice, but didn't have to use much because the water was so cold coming out of the well. Water temp was 37-39 degrees out of the faucet. The first two batches (fresh frozen and cured trim) both turned out great. We stuck with Frenchy's method and used one room for drying. The drying room was kept around 55 degrees, the processing room was colder than that at around 45 degrees. The cabin has only 3 rooms with the center being the living area which we used to warm up now and then...and to enjoy the view!
First batches were drastically different as the frozen was much darker than the cured/dry. The frozen was tough to break up for drying and stayed in larger, stickier chunks. The cured/dry was a very good texture and broke up easily and appeared to be identical to the texture of Frenchy's.
Frenchy advised to wait 2-4 days before pressing. We waited about 24 hours, and it seemed very dry already so we decided to press..
First Press, the left package is from frozen the right two from cured/dry.
After several presses, the frozen
The cured batch got extremely hard when pressed. It was brittle and clearly not right. I ended up making a ball out of it by soaking it in boiling water (inside a freezer bag) which I did to preserve what little moisture was left in it. The frozen was better/softer/waxier because it retained a bit of moisture because it couldn't be cut up as finely. The smell/quality of this hash is good, but not perfect due to waiting too long to press.
The next half day was spent making ice wax using the Rize method but also taking a lot from myfather from this thread. He brought up some points that prove to be very valid and must be considered when working in CO. Since this really isn't a thread about that, I will just show what our pure bud 70 micron looked like, prior to pressing/grating... it could have easily been chopped/dried/pressed frenchy style, but we wanted some of both.
And the finished product
So Saturday night the temps finally lowered to below freezing... We had buckets of water on the deck that had light films of ice on them... we removed the ice and used just water and the top shelf inner trim.
The results were the cleanest, most beautiful trichromes we saw all weekend. All were viewed through a 30 power handheld. We only photographed this batch...
The amount we had was too small to hot press, so we hand pressed this
The weekend was a blast and results were too, although we failed a bit on the canolli. Bottom line, in CO you have to press between 3-5 hours after pat drying in the bags and cutting it up. There is just no way around this unless you hood your take with plastic or some other method of slowing the drying process. Later in the week, I did a batch and pressed after 4 hours... the texture was perfect
What we learned:
1) In a cold environment, yields don't seem to be different whether hand stirring, machine stirring, lots of ice, minimal ice, or straight water that is below 32 degrees.
2) In CO, the dry air is just different. It really dries fast and if you let the granuled product dry too long, you will get a hard texture that doesn't smoke as well and loses flavor.
3) Drying fast and pressing works GREAT and the flavors and high are simply amazing.
4) Things happen SUPER fast in CO. Learn to see the dryness of your product. Check it often and as soon as the outside begins to darken, it is pretty much ready to press. We saw this happen in as little as 3 hours or as much as 5 hours. This held true with grated ice wax too.
5) As soon as you get either product finished (pressed or grated/dried) it must go into an airtight jar immediately! (please, I beg you, don't ask why I am emphasizing this).
6) The one thing that simply cannot be described is the smells of well made product. The smells all weekend were so amazing. The taste of the product is superior to anything I have purchased at the finest of dispensaries, medical or not. I am a picky bitch when it comes to flavor and this really has changed my view of hash/wax.
Thanks again, Frenchy... I hope some of this lends information to others and hopefully others can add to the conversation as to how different environments influence their making.
Peace,
Doobs