What Is Hash? How It's Made, How It Differs From Weed and How People Use It

What is hash?

Hash (short for hashish) is a cannabis concentrate made from the plant's resin: the trichomes, the sticky glands on the surface of the buds and sugar leaves, are separated from the plant material and pressed into compact blocks. Because it's mostly resin, hash usually packs a lot more THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive compound) than the flower it came from. In Spain it's also nicknamed "chocolate," for obvious reasons.

Its effects are similar to weed's, with euphoria and a sense of contentment, but stronger because of the higher THC concentration. That said, low-quality hash can be cut with a whole lot of junk: dirt, henna, plastic, oil and much worse stuff like animal hair or dung. Still, as a general rule, hash is far more concentrated than the plant it comes from.

How is hash made?

Hash is a psychoactive concentrate made from cannabis resin, and producing it takes a few specific steps. Here's how hash is made:

1. Collecting the resin: hash comes from the resin glands, or trichomes, that cover the outside of the buds and leaves. These glands carry high concentrations of THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis.
2. Separating and pressing: once the resin has been collected and separated from the rest of the plant, it's pressed into compact blocks. What you end up with is basically pure resin, which is why hash hits harder than weed: the THC concentration is much higher.
3. The sifting process: to make hash, the resin has to be knocked loose from the dried leaves, usually with the plant material chilled. The material is then sifted, and the tiny resin heads fall through the screen. This can be repeated several times to get more resin.
4. Crushing and molding: after sifting, the resin is worked into a fine powder. That powder is then molded and pressed into a brown block.

How do people use hash?

Hash is mostly smoked, either crumbled into a joint with tobacco or weed, or in a water pipe or bong. For a joint, you crumble the hash, mix it with tobacco or weed and roll it up. A bong gives you a smoother hit: you put the hash in the bowl, light it and pull the smoke through a tube after it's been filtered through the water. You can also vape hash, which heats it below the point of combustion so you're not inhaling the toxic byproducts of burning plant material. Less common options include cooking hash into edibles or applying it to the skin in a salve. Keep in mind that using hash can have health downsides and is illegal in many places, so do it responsibly and know your local laws.

How do you make hash at home?

There are tons of ways and techniques to make hash. The oldest and easiest is dry sifting. But first, what's the difference? Weed is the dried, unprocessed flower of the female cannabis plant, while hash is the female plant's resin, separated from the plant by mechanical or chemical means. Dry-sift hash is the mechanical route: you work with dried buds and no solvents at all.

So how do you make dry-sift hash from weed, and what do you need? We'll walk you through it.

What do you need to make hash?

Traditional hash is made with a simple process: agitate the plant material so the trichomes break off, then separate them with a screen or mesh.

You can make your own from buds or from trim (resin-coated leaves and small popcorn buds). Buds give you a bigger return than trim, but don't assume the quality will be way worse: you can get really good hash out of your trim.

Before you make hash: what should you know?

• Not every strain will behave the same or give you the same results: some yield more, some less, and hash quality can vary depending on how the plants were grown. For example, many growers find that cannabis grown with organic fertilizers has a better aroma than cannabis grown with mineral nutrients.
• Environmental factors like temperature and humidity also affect the color, smell and look of the hash, in other words, its quality.
• Ideally, freeze the dried buds or trim you're going to use for extraction. It helps preserve cannabinoids and terpenes, keeps the plant matter intact and boosts your yield.

When it comes to dry-sifting resin, there are several methods and tools that make homemade hash really easy.

How do you make dry-sift hash?

Using a grinder with a kief catcher

This is the easiest method if you've never made hash before. All you do is grind your weed in a grinder with a kief catcher. Every time you grind, the resin glands collect in a separate chamber of the grinder, and you can scrape them out whenever you want.

Kief-catcher grinders come with one big upside and one downside:

• The upside: you don't have to do anything extra to collect kief. Just by grinding your cannabis buds with one of these, you'll gather nothing but the purest kief.
• The downside: it's really slow. You'll have to grind a lot of buds before a decent amount of kief builds up in the chamber.

Using a shaker

A shaker (or sift box) is a cylindrical container with two lids and a mesh screen at one end. It's a great method for anyone because it's so simple.

Here's how:

• Break up your weed, either by hand or with the grinder.
  Then put the weed in the container and stick it in the freezer for at least 1 hour. The colder the better, since frozen trichomes snap off much more easily.
• Take out the container and shake it gently for about 5 minutes. Remember, just shake. Carefully open the lid on the side where the resin collects and scrape the resin out.
• Repeat as many times as you like. Just keep in mind that each pass gives you less hash, and lower quality than the first few runs.

Using a hash tumbler

If you've got a lot of weed or leftover trim from harvest and drying, and you want to turn it into hash, a dry-sift tumbler machine lets you pull a lot of hash in one go, automatically.

With one of these washing-machine-style tumblers, the process is a lot like using a shaker. Here's what you do:

• Grab your grinder and break up the weed. It needs to be broken up to collect as much as possible; if you don't, you'll only get the resin from the outer layer of the bud.
• Put the weed in a bag, jar or other container and stick it in the freezer for at least 1 hour. The colder, the better. Then load the frozen weed into the machine's mesh drum and close it.
• Plug in the machine and run the motor for a few minutes. Times depend on the speed and the machine, and every manufacturer recommends something different. Finally, pull out the mesh and collect the hash from the tray at the bottom. You can repeat the run as many times as you like before swapping in new material.

Making hash with dry ice (CO2)

This method uses extraction bags and dry ice.

Heads up: dry ice isn't regular ice made by freezing water. It's frozen CO2, or carbon dioxide. Since it isn't water-based and turns straight into gas, it won't get the resin glands wet; it flash-freezes them so you can knock loose a lot of resin.

Besides the dry ice, you'll use extraction bags like the ones for bubble hash (ice water hash) to separate the kief from the buds and plant matter. You'll also need a large, clean tray or surface to catch the kief that falls through.

Here's how to make homemade dry ice hash:

• Grab your grinder and break up the buds.
• Put the weed in the freezer for at least 1 hour. The colder it is, the better your results.
• Set out a big tray to catch the kief that comes through.
• Take the weed out of the freezer and put it in the extraction bag.
• Add the dry ice, wearing insulated gloves.
• If you've got a lot of weed, layer the weed and dry ice as many times as you need so it's spread out as evenly as possible.
• Close the top of the bag so nothing escapes and start shaking it gently. For the best quality, keep the shakes gentle and sharp.
• Finally, scrape up your homemade hash with a card, and repeat if you want.