How to Dry Bubble Hash (With or Without a Freeze Dryer)

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Why drying bubble hash matters

Drying bubble hash is where a good wash is kept or lost. Hash comes out of the bags full of water, and water trapped in resin goes bad: pressed into a ball while wet, bubble can grow mold on the inside. Dried slowly in a warm room, it can turn greasy, smell off and lose the terpenes that made it worth washing. Bubbleman’s line is that he could teach a monkey to make bubble, but the hard part is drying it. The washing itself is in how to make bubble hash.

How to dry hash without a freeze dryer

How to dry hash without a freeze dryer, the way Bubbleman has taught it since the first Bubble Bags:

1. Press out the water, lightly.

   Put the wet hash on a pressing screen, fold a towel over it and press gently with a roller or your hand. Press too hard and high grade resin welds into a cookie that won’t break up or dry.

2. Break it into powder while it’s wet.

   Microplane the cookie, or push it through a stainless steel kitchen sieve so it falls as a fine powder. Bubbleman shows both on his channel: sieving bubble to powder and microplaning.

3. Spread it on thick cardboard.

   Use thick corrugated cardboard, the kind pizza boxes are made of, not thin cereal box card. The cardboard wicks the water out of the hash. Parchment works too; plates, plastic and metal don’t.

4. Keep it cool and dark.

   Dry it somewhere cool, dark and dry. Some hash is fine in a room at 70 °F; the highest grades want a much colder room.

5. Give it at least a week.

   Bubble Bags’ FAQ says five or more days and Bubbleman’s tips say seven or more. Dry hash is crumbly and light, not cool or tacky to the touch.

6. Don’t press it until it’s dry.

   Pressing wet hash into a ball or brick traps water inside, and mold can grow there. Rosin is the same: wet hash spits and pops in the press.

7. Store it sealed, then let it cure.

   Once it’s completely dry, keep it in a sealed glass jar. Dried right, hash can cure and keep for years.

How to dry bubble hash with a freeze dryer

To dry bubble hash with a freeze dryer, freeze the wet hash on trays and let the machine pull the water out under vacuum, so it goes from ice straight to vapor. That is sublimation, and it is why freeze dried hash keeps its heads whole instead of being shredded the way microplaned hash is. Bubbleman’s notes from his lab, as he runs it on Hash Church:

• Weigh it wet and note how wet it was. A slurry holds far more water than hash squeezed out and flattened by hand, so it dries slower and changes the pressure in the chamber.
• Don’t overload it. With every tray full, his freeze dryer takes two days, sometimes part of a third.
• Read the vacuum with care. As the water leaves, the pressure reading falls on its own, which is why so many people think something is wrong with their machine.
• Defrost after every run. The water pulled out of the hash ends up as ice inside the chamber, sometimes inches thick.
• Sieve it when it’s dry through a tight screen, to break it up and catch anything that doesn’t belong in it.

Can you dry bubble hash in a regular freezer?

You can’t really dry bubble hash in a regular freezer. It keeps wet hash frozen and safe until you can deal with it, but without a vacuum the water leaves very slowly. Use the freezer as a holding step, then air dry or freeze dry.

Drying bubble hash without losing terpenes

Drying bubble hash without losing terpenes comes down to cold, dark and quick. Heat and light drive terpenes off, and so does a long, slow dry in a warm room, which is why the best grades get the coldest rooms or the freeze dryer. Bubbleman is straight about the trade: asked on Hash Church whether his freeze dryer costs terpenes, he said maybe, for the very highest grades where every little bit makes a difference.

Should you microplane hash or sieve it?

You can microplane hash or sieve it, and either one turns a wet cookie of bubble into powder so it can dry. A microplane grates it fine and fast; a stainless kitchen sieve breaks it up more gently. What matters is that it goes onto the cardboard as powder, not as a pressed cookie, because a cookie dries on the outside and stays wet in the middle.

Questions about drying bubble hash

Questions about drying bubble hash, answered from Bubbleman’s instructions and his episodes:

Sources for this drying guide

Sources for this drying guide, from Bubbleman’s own published material and his show:

1. Bubble Bags FAQ: how to dry and store your extract, bubblebag.com
2. How to make cold water hash with Bubble Bags, on pressing and breaking up the cookies, bubblebag.com
3. Bubbleman’s top 5 tips: dry it right, then cure it, bubblebag.com
4. Tips with Bubbleman, installment III: drying and curing bubble hash, Bubbleman’s World on YouTube
5. Hash Church Season 12, Episodes 32 and 33: Bubbleman freeze drying in his lab, linked above