Ice water hash (bubble hash) is cannabis resin separated with ice water. Cold water makes the resin heads brittle, a gentle stir snaps them off, and they sink through a stack of micron bags that sort them by size. The best of it bubbles when heated, which is where the name bubble comes from.
What is ice water hash?
Ice water hash, better known as bubble hash, is trichome heads, the tiny resin glands on the flowers and sugar leaves, collected without the plant they grew on. The heads hold the cannabinoids and the terpenes, so separating them concentrates everything people grow the plant for.
Ice water doesn’t dissolve anything. Butane and ethanol pull out only what dissolves in them; cold water just breaks the heads off whole. Bubbleman’s way of putting it on Hash Church: solvents take what their chemistry lets them take, while “the bubble and the dry sift methods are pulling out everything, all of it.”
How ice water hash is made
Ice water hash is made in four moves: chill, stir, filter and dry.
- Chill. The plant goes into water kept at 4 °C (39 °F) or colder, with plenty of ice. Cold makes the resin heads brittle.
- Stir. About 15 minutes of gentle stirring, with a wooden spoon or a wash machine, knocks the heads off. Stir too hard and broken leaf comes with them.
- Filter. The heads sink through a stack of mesh bags, from the 220 µm work bag on the outside to the 25 µm bag in the middle, and each bag holds back a different size.
- Dry. Each grade is scraped off, pressed lightly to squeeze out water, broken up and dried for a week or more, or freeze dried.
Bubbleman’s full method, with water temperatures, stir times and the bowl trick for getting resin off the screens, is in how to make bubble hash.
Why ice water hash melts
Ice water hash melts when there is almost nothing in it but resin heads. Plant matter doesn’t melt; it chars and leaves ash. The cleaner the heads in a grade, the more completely it melts under heat, and the very best bubbles, which is what led Bubbleman to name his bags Bubble Bags. Hash that melts away completely is called full melt, and hash makers rate how well a grade melts on a star scale.
Which bag holds the best of it depends on the plant. In Bubbleman’s eight bag set, full melt usually lands in the 90 and 73 µm bags, the 120 makes a great grade, the 45 a big secondary grade, and the 160 and 25 catch what the set calls food grade. The micron size guide goes bag by bag.
Ice water hash vs bubble hash
Ice water hash vs bubble hash is a question of names, not methods: they are the same product, and water hash and ice hash mean the same thing too. Ice water hash describes how it is made. Bubble hash describes how the best of it behaves under heat.
One difference does matter. Ice water hash is not the same as dry sift hash, which is collected on screens without any water. Both can reach full melt, but they are made differently and they smoke differently.
Where ice water hash came from
Ice water hash came into its modern form in the late 1990s, and Bubbleman was there for it. As he tells it on Hash Church, the machine that started it was Reinhard Delp’s extractor, a cold conical tank where resin settled out by how mature the glands were rather than by size; Delp came up with it in 1997 and patented it in 1998. Mila Jansen’s Ice-O-Lator bags followed at the Cannabis Cup that November. Bubbleman sold his first set of Bubble Bags in March 1999, to a grower known as High Grade on the overgrow.com forum.
The early kits were simple: a 220 µm work bag and then a 73, with everything in between landing in the 73. Bags were added one at a time. The 160 went in to pull contaminant out of the good grades, the 250 was dropped for a 45, and last of all came the 90, which took the kit from seven bags to eight. Bubbleman’s story picks up from there.
From the archive: Bubbleman on how water hash began
From the archive, Bubbleman on how water hash began in his own words, recorded live on Season 12, Episode 15, The Edibles Episode, with Marigold Sweets and Space Gems. Tap a time to hear that moment.
Reinhard Delp comes along and he creates the triple extractor… everything’s falling down, not based on micron size. This is what the bags came out and did, but based on the maturity level of the resin gland and how easy it breaks off the plant.
On the first ice water extractorHow you got your grades was not through micron isolation, but it was through the maturity, which was super cool.
On grading by maturityMy bags came out in… March of 1999. I had bags earlier that were being R&D’d, but I first sold my first set of bags to High Grade, the DWC bucket grower on overgrow.com.
On the first Bubble Bags saleI have people all the time tell me that they have been using my bags since ’94. And I’m like, that’s amazing. That’s like literally five years before I came up with them.
On early bag stories
What ice water hash is used for
Ice water hash is used three ways: smoked or dabbed as it is, pressed into rosin, or cooked into edibles. Full melt grades are clean enough to dab, and lower grades smoke well in a bowl or a joint (see how to smoke bubble hash). Pressing bubble hash with gentle heat gives hash rosin, which many makers rank at the top of solventless. The coarsest grades, like the 190, go into cooking.
Ice water hash questions
Ice water hash questions, answered from Bubbleman’s instructions and his episodes:
What is bubble hash?
Bubble hash is ice water hash: cannabis resin heads separated with ice, cold water and a gentle stir, then filtered through micron bags. The best grades bubble when heated, which is where the name comes from.
Is ice hash the same as bubble hash?
Yes, ice hash is the same as bubble hash, and so are ice water hash and water hash. Dry sift, made on screens without water, is a different product.
How strong is bubble hash?
Bubble hash is much stronger than the flower it comes from, and the top grades are the strongest. On Hash Church Season 12, Episode 15, Bubbleman described the old 73 µm full melt, from before the 90 µm bag existed, testing at over 70 percent THCA.
Do you need a machine to make bubble hash?
No, you don’t need a machine to make bubble hash. A bucket, a set of bags, ice and a long wooden spoon will do. Bubble Bags’ instructions say a gentle wash machine gives the most consistent results, while a kitchen mixer tends to lower the quality.
What sets the bubble hash price?
The bubble hash price is set by the grade: full melt from the 90 and 73 bags sells for the most, the coarser 160 and the fine 25 for the least. Prices swing widely between markets, so compare grades, not just grams.
Sources for this ice water hash guide
Sources for this ice water hash guide, from Bubbleman’s own published material and his show:
- Bubble Bags FAQ: how full melt is made and what each bag catches, bubblebag.com
- How to make cold water hash with Bubble Bags, step by step, bubblebag.com
- Bubblebag tips with Bubbleman: getting trim ready to wash, Bubbleman’s World on YouTube
- Hash Church Season 12, Episodes 14, 15 and 17: Bubbleman on the history of water hash and the Bubble Bags kit