To make fresh frozen hash, harvest when the resin heads are ripe, handle the plant as little as possible, bag it loosely and get it into a deep freezer within hours. Keep it frozen solid until the wash, then put it straight from the freezer into the ice water. The hash it gives is called live hash.
What is fresh frozen hash?
Fresh frozen hash is hash washed from cannabis that was frozen right after harvest instead of being dried and cured. Freezing holds the plant close to its living state, so the terpenes that drying and curing wear away are still there when it hits the ice water. That is why hash from fresh frozen is called live hash, and why rosin pressed from it is called live rosin.
How to harvest cannabis for hash
To harvest cannabis for hash, cut when the resin heads are ripe and handle the plant as little as possible from then on. Reading the heads under a loupe is covered in when to harvest. After the cut, every touch knocks resin off: buck the buds from the stems or freeze whole branches, and skip the hand trimming, because the wash separates leaf from resin anyway.
Fresh frozen harvest, step by step
A fresh frozen harvest goes from the plant into a deep freezer within hours of cutting and stays frozen solid until it goes into the wash. Step by step:
- Cut when the heads are ripe.
Check under a loupe and cut at the peak. From here on, the aim is to touch the plant as little as possible.
- Buck it or keep it whole.
Pull the buds off the stems, or freeze whole branches. Leave the trimming: the wash will separate leaf from resin.
- Bag it gently.
Use food-safe bags or bins, filled loosely so the buds don’t crush, with as much air pushed out as you can.
- Freeze it the same day.
Get it into a deep freezer within hours of cutting. The longer fresh material sits warm, the more it changes.
- Label every bag.
Strain, date and weight. Fresh frozen is mostly water, so the weight on the bag says little about the yield to come.
- Keep it frozen until the wash.
No thawing and refreezing. It goes from the freezer straight into the ice water.
- Plan for a power cut.
A freezer full of harvest is a lot to lose. A backup generator, or at least a plan, is part of the setup.
Washing fresh frozen vs dried material
Washing fresh frozen and dried material are two different jobs, and Bubbleman says so plainly. Dried material shatters in the wash and fills the bags with leaf, so it needs the 220 µm work bag, sometimes two of them. When he first ran dried trim in his lab the way he runs fresh frozen, the contamination was more than he could describe. Fresh frozen stays more whole, but it is heavy with water: his wash vessel takes about 30,000 grams of fresh frozen material, or about 5,000 grams of dry.
That water weight is why fresh frozen yields look small. As Bubbleman puts it, drying loses about five times the weight, so 1,000 grams fresh comes down to around 200 to 250 grams dry, and a yield quoted against fresh weight can’t be compared with one quoted against dry.
From the archive: Bubbleman on fresh frozen and dry
From the archive, Bubbleman on fresh frozen and dry in his own words, from two live Sunday shows. Tap a time to hear that moment.
I’ve started my lab back up here in Delta BC… we’re washing five days a week… we’re not using fresh frozen, we’re using dried sugar trim, which is surprisingly beautiful.
On washing dried trimI like to start with dry and train the people in understanding the dry weights… then once we’ve gotten 10 or 15 days of dry under our belts, we’ll start washing fresh frozen, where I know that there’s a lot to learn… the subtle nuances shift and change.
On learning dry before fresh frozenThis unit will take 30,000 fresh frozen grams, or it’ll take about 5,000 dry.
On how much the wash vessel holds
Season 12, Episode 33, Inside the Lab With Bubbleman: His Processing SOPs
This will pick up so much leaf and plant matter and contamination that I can’t even explain it to you… that was my mistake, thinking I was running fresh frozen.
On why dried material needs the 220If you’re a hashmaker, when you dry your material, you’re losing 5x, right? So you get a thousand grams and you’re going down to 200 grams. That’s your dry ratio.
On fresh weight versus dry weight
How long fresh frozen keeps
Fresh frozen keeps for months in a deep freezer as long as air can’t reach it, but its quality slowly slips, so wash it as soon as you can. The cold chain rule a guest from The Original Resinator gave on Hash Church’s cryo episode is the one to remember: once you freeze it, keep it frozen.
Fresh frozen, live hash and live rosin
Fresh frozen, live hash and live rosin are three links in one chain. Fresh frozen is the frozen plant. Live hash is the ice water hash washed from it, by the same method as any bubble hash, straight from the freezer and never thawed. Live rosin is that hash pressed with gentle heat.
Fresh frozen questions
Fresh frozen questions, answered short:
What is fresh frozen cannabis?
Fresh frozen cannabis is cannabis frozen right after harvest instead of being dried and cured. It is washed into live hash or pressed into live rosin.
What is live hash?
Live hash is ice water hash washed from fresh frozen cannabis. Because the plant was never dried, it keeps more of the terpenes that drying and curing lose.
Can you make bubble hash from fresh frozen?
Yes, you can make bubble hash from fresh frozen, and it makes some of the best. It goes straight from the freezer into the ice water, without thawing.
How long can fresh frozen stay in the freezer?
Fresh frozen can stay in a deep freezer for months if air can’t reach it, but its quality slowly drops, so wash it as soon as you can.
Is fresh frozen better than dried for hash?
Fresh frozen isn’t always better than dried for hash; it is different. It keeps more terpenes and makes live hash, while well dried sugar trim washes into beautiful hash too, as Bubbleman’s own lab runs show.
Sources for this fresh frozen guide
Sources for this fresh frozen guide:
- Bubbleman’s Fresh Frozen Astroboy Birthday Bash, Bubbleman’s World on YouTube
- Hash Church Season 12, Episode 22, The Cryo Episode, Part II, with The Original Resinator: the cold chain and backup power, Buzzsprout
- How to make cold water hash with Bubble Bags, washing fresh frozen trim, bubblebag.com
- Hash Church Season 12, Episodes 32 and 33: Bubbleman washing dried and fresh frozen material, linked above