Step-By-Step Guide To Making Dry Sift Hash At Home

Bubble hash, finger hash, rosin, charas… Although there are numerous ways to make hash, dry sifting is one of the easiest and most popular methods. You can render a very high-quality product that is very potent and will vaporize easily. Another advantage of dry sifting is that you don’t need expensive equipment for it. All you need is a fine mesh screen (aka sifter box) and a good amount of your favourite weed.

Dry sift hash: what is it?

Dry sifting, just like other hash-making methods, isn’t really something new. In the top hash-producing regions such as Afghanistan and Morocco, it is a technique that has been used since ancient times.

The principle behind dry sifting is simple: When dried cannabis is rubbed against a mesh screen, the trichomes are separated from the rest of the plant. A fine powder known as kief (which essentially consists of pure trichomes) will fall through the screen and collect underneath.

Although fairly easy, it can take some time and several rounds of sifting (i.e. shaking, rubbing, or smashing your weed with a tool) to get all your kief powder, especially if you’re sifting a whole lot of marijuana. But in the end, you will be rewarded with extraordinarily pure and very potent kief that you can press into hash. Below, we have a step-by-step guide where you can learn how to make awesome dry sift hash yourself!

Dry sift hash vs bubble hash

Hash aficionados sometimes debate over which method is better: bubble or dry sift? We all know how preferences can differ, but most do think that dry sifting makes for a better final product.

One reason is due to how bubble hash is made (e.g. stirring buds in a bucket with ice water). This process is more abrasive to the buds, and requires more effort on behalf of the hash-maker. With dry sifting, you can just re-run the material a few times and adjust the quality of your hash. Re-running bubble hash, on the other hand, is very tedious if you don’t have the right equipment and enough bags.

Some say that there is also a marked difference in taste between bubble and dry sift hash. It’s possible that this has to do with the water used to create bubble hash. Water isn’t exactly the best solvent for extracting the good stuff in cannabis. For instance, aromatic substances (terpenes) may not dissolve at all. This would explain why many find dry sift hash to be more flavourful than bubble hash.

One big advantage with dry sift is that it’s straightforward and doesn’t involve any expensive equipment. You can get a wooden sifter box for under €20, or make one yourself! A quality pollen press also doesn’t cost the world. So, for just around fifty bucks, you can access all you need for some nice dry sifting action! You can make top-notch hash that melts and vaporizes well, and that you can easily store.

How to make dry sift hash

Enough with all the talk about the awesomeness of dry sift hash, it’s time to get serious. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make dry sift hash.

What you need

• Plenty of dried and well-cured cannabis (choose your favourite, but resinous strains like Gorilla Glue or a Cookies variety can give you the best results).
• Wooden sifter box
• Object for scraping (playing cards, credit card, piece of wood, etc.)
• Pollen press (hash press)
• Small funnel or sheet of paper (so you can more easily fill the press with kief)
• Large grinder, trimming shears, etc. (optional, for breaking up your dry weed)

Instructions

1. Open your sifter. Take a generous amount of dry cannabis and evenly spread it out on the screen of your box. The amount of weed will depend on the size of your sifter.

   

2. Close the top lid of the sifter box.

   

3. Shake your weed in the box for a few minutes. With some DIY sifters, like those where your weed is situated beneath a flexible cover, you can “card it” by swiping a credit card across it to break the bud down. Card it gently for 10–15 minutes (depending on the amount of weed).

   

4. Open the sifter box and mix the now broken-down weed well, and spread it out again for a second run.

   

5. Close the lid once again and give your weed another round of shaking, carding, and rubbing.

   

6. Open the sifter box and remove the screen with the now depleted weed on it. Underneath the sifter, you will find lots of fine kief powder collected.

   

7. Scrape the kief powder together into a nice pile. You should have about a handful of pure trichome goodness!

   

Press your kief powder into hash

8. Open the pollen press and fill it up with kief. This can be done using a small funnel or carefully filling it manually. Don’t overfill it.

   

9. Screw the top part with the handle back onto the pollen press.

   

10. Using the handle on the pollen press, screw down tightly (until you no longer can) to firmly press the powder.

    

11. Open the pollen press at the bottom by removing the lower part. Now, crank the press a few more times and out comes a nice, tightly pressed cylinder of hash!

    

12. Use an old playing card or knife to carefully separate the hash cylinder from the press. Your hash is ready!

    

Top tips for making dry sift hash

Cooler is better. You will get the best results when your weed is chilled and when you’re working in a cool area. Reason: the colder your weed, the more brittle the trichomes become, which means they'll separate from the buds with greater ease. The cold will also make things less sticky so it’s easier to work.

Do it like the pros; put on a warm coat and do your dry sifting outdoors in winter for excellent results! Alternatively, you can put your weed into airtight containers and chill it for some hours in the freezer.

Use different size mesh for even better results. With a sifter box that has a single screen, you can make decent hash, but it likely won’t be the purest you could be getting. Experts use several different sizes of mesh and do their sifting in stages. Use multiple screens—coarse ones first, and then subsequently re-run your sifts with finer and finer mesh. This will give you the finest hash.

Grading dry sift hash

If you want to examine the overall quality of your hash, there are some characteristics you should keep an eye out for. Good dry sift has a golden colour and a consistency like fine beach sand. The hash should smell like bud. The more intense the smell, the better the terpene content and flavour when you smoke. But these factors aren't the most accurate way to determine quality. This is why dispensaries have now started to rate hash using a grading system.

The hash grading system for dry sift makes use of the melt principle, where hash is rated as full melt, half melt, or just kief. The melt refers to how well a dab of hash vaporizes off of a nail.

• Full melt (5–6 stars)

This is the purest connoisseur-grade hash, which is essentially pure trichomes with no impurities. This hash is best consumed in a dab rig, but you can also smoke it, vaporize it, or use it to make edibles. This type is rare and very expensive, and only the most experienced hash-makers can render this quality at home.

• Half melt (3–4 stars)

Half melt doesn’t vaporize as well off of a dab nail, but it’s still excellent for smoking in a bowl, for twaxing, or for crumbling into a joint. Some people buy less-expensive half melt to refine further at home in hopes of creating a full melt product.

• Kief (1–2 stars)

Kief is the lowest grade of dry sift. This is the same unfiltered stuff you can find at the bottom of your grinder—a mixture of trichomes and other plant material. Unlike the melt grades above, kief won’t melt, but will crackle and burn when smoked. But this doesn’t mean that kief is worthless. It’s still great in a bowl or joint, and is perfectly good for making edibles and for twaxing.

How to use dry sift hash

A straightforward way to enjoy your dry sift hash is to crumble and mix it with some bud or tobacco, then roll it into a joint. But this isn’t to say you couldn't use it for edibles or some twaxing decoration for your joints, although some might say the latter two are a waste of good hash.

What makes dry sift great is that the firmly pressed hash coins you get when using the pollen press are more practical to carry and store than bags of weed. If your joint-rolling skills are just average, tobacco mixed with hash is also easier to make into a joint than doing it with bud.

How to store dry sift hash

If you want to store your dry sift for a long time, make sure to keep it away from high humidity, high temperatures, and oxygen. Put your hash into airtight containers and store these in your fridge. If you just need to keep your hash for a few days, storing your hash containers in a cool, dark cupboard will do.

Luke Sumpter

With a BSc (Hons) degree in Clinical Health Sciences and a passion for growing plants, Luke Sumpter has worked as a professional journalist and writer at the intersection of cannabis and science for the past 7 years.

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