Pressin flower

Can I cut and press my flower straight from harvest or should I dry cure then press? Don’t want mistakes and figure someone’s got the answer.

For those who aren't in the know (or have a habitual issue with remembering stuff), what is "pressing"?

If you are talking about pressing out the oil then you need to dry and cure.

To be more clear, you need to dry, and you should cure.

Rosin press.

The best rosin is called "live rosin" and it's made from fresh frozen flower. Most terpene retention possible.

Curing flower prior to pressing for rosin is a bad idea for many reasons.

Get the flower dry but not too dry. If it's too dry then your rosin yields go way down.

There are a lot of videos you can find on youtube for rosin press in action. Purepressure has some awesome videos.

I admit that I’ve only done a small amount of pressing so you definitely know more than me. I thought live rosin was made from freshly frozen that was the separated into hash and then pressed? Why should it not be cured? I thought that was till preferred for flavor?

TreeFarmerCharlie said:

I thought live rosin was made from freshly frozen that was the separated into hash and then pressed?

Click to expand...

Yes and thats called washing. but the idea is preservation of all the terpenes possible.

Curing allows for degradation through oxidation and terpene evaporation (thats why you smell your weed). The best rosin (from pressing flower) comes from material that is dried just to the humidity number you get your yields at and pressed immediately or prepared and frozen for later pressing. The reason is to lock in terpenes.

You don't need to cure the flower, you won't be smoking it anyways, all you care about is those resins so don't let them degrade anymore than you must to facilitate processing.

You could either press flower, some even just do that naked and collect the oil around the edges for a few dabs, or 76u bag larger amounts and press larger batches depending on plate size and pressure available, or for larger amounts on strains with high wash numbers you could freeze the dried material and wash it for whats basically bubble hash, then freeze dry that and press it through 25u screen. One can also get weed really dry, deep freeze it and then make dry ice hash and press that through the 25u screen. Thats a good method for small scale IMO since you can avoid the freeze drier.

Somewhere I have a video I made of a drip tech press that was pretty cool a few years back but best yields are from allowing the rosin to escape from more edge length so presses like the Pikes Peak or Longs Peak are pretty much the Cadillac press right now, you can operate them on their side as drip tech or upright for flow out both sides. gopurepressure.com is their site, they have linked youtube channel <- link there, with some bad ass rosin flowage. One where they press a slab of fresh frozen washed hash and get the massive golden goo of live rosin... They make it look so easy prepping that log and wrapping it in the screen, I look like a monkey fucking a football tryna do that lol. It's not easy to do well.

I have their Pikes Peak press and it's fucking bad ass. Takes up a lot of space though especially with a compressor since you need a big one. Not something for an apartment lol.

If you get on instagram there are some good extract artists on there.

The big thing is you really have to spend some serious money on gear if you are gonna process large amounts and it's very labor intensive. The cost of disposables from dry ice, to bags/screens to parchment and gloves all adds up fast. If you get a good deal on stuff buy a lot, especially if it's the 25u stainless screen sheets. You go through those like hotcakes if pressing lots of hash. The 45u bags are difficult to press hash through depending on the trichome head size, it's easy to press it all through, you gotta go real slow and gentle on the pressure and give it time to melt then ease it out or you press the works through the seams of the bag like the playdo hair toy.

Them bags to, you gotta turn them fuckers inside out, do yourself a favor and buy the bag flip tool lol. Sucks to be fucking around with a pencil eraser turning them inside out manually lol. Those are fun to load too lol cut your own funnel or buy theirs. The pre press mold is a must.

They make smaller and simpler presses, I don't know that they make the best press for that category though.

My buddy setup a mobile processing lab he's driving around oklahoma. He got all the gear, freeze driers, vacuum ovens, presses... He pulls up and he and his crew of help (about 6) shows up onsite and processes your product. He will make you whatever you want, diamonds, whatever form you want.

Thank you all so much for the information it was really helpful. I’ll probably dry it enough and cure it since I don’t have a press it’s going to be more of a hair straighter and parchment paper situation. Hopefully once I have the equity I’ll be able to get the big boi tools.