To make rosin, pack your material into a rosin bag (90 to 160 micron for flower, 25 to 50 for kief and dry sift, 15 to 37 for bubble hash), fold it in parchment and press it between heated plates: about 180 to 220 °F for flower, lower for hash. Raise the pressure slowly, scrape the oil off the parchment and store it cold in glass.
What you need to make rosin
To make rosin you need a press, rosin bags, parchment and good material.
- A rosin press with heated plates and a way to control the pressure. Rosin pressing started out on hair straighteners, but they give you little control over heat or pressure.
- Rosin bags in the right micron for what you are pressing, and parchment that won’t tear. The Press Club, one of Hash Church’s sponsors, makes both.
- A collection tool and a glass jar to keep the rosin in.
- A hygrometer and a sealed jar, to check the flower’s moisture before you press.
How to press rosin: settings by material
How you press rosin depends on what is in the bag, since flower, kief and hash each want their own bag size, heat and pressure. The starting points from The Press Club’s guides:
| Flower | Kief or dry sift | Bubble hash | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bag | 90 to 160 µm | 25 to 50 µm | 15 to 37 µm |
| Heat | 180 to 220 °F | 180 to 200 °F | 160 to 190 °F |
| Pressure at the bag | 1,000 to 2,000 psi | In between | 350 to 750 psi |
| Return | 15 to 25% | 30 to 40% | 60 to 70% and up |
Low Temp’s pressure ranges run a little higher, about 1,200 to 2,500 psi for flower and 500 to 1,300 for hash. Treat every number as a place to start and adjust for your plant.
How to make rosin at home, step by step
How to make rosin at home from flower, step by step:
- Check the moisture.
Flower presses best at about 60 to 65 percent humidity. Seal it in a jar with a hygrometer and wait for the reading to settle.
- Break it up and bag it.
Remove the stems, break the buds up lightly and pack them into a 90 to 160 micron bag with the seams on the inside.
- Heat the plates.
Set them to about 180 to 220 °F for flower. Lower keeps more flavor; higher gives more yield.
- Fold it in parchment.
Fold a sheet of parchment around the bag so the rosin has somewhere clean to flow.
- Preheat, then press slowly.
Close the plates until they just touch and let the bag warm for about 30 seconds, then raise the pressure gradually, reaching full pressure near the end. The whole press takes about 90 to 120 seconds, or until the rosin stops flowing.
- Collect it.
Open the parchment and gather the rosin with a clean tool, letting it cool for a moment if it’s runny.
- Store it cold in glass.
Keep it in a sealed glass jar, cold and dark. Silicone reacts with rosin’s terpenes over time.
Rosin press temperature
Rosin press temperature is a trade between flavor and yield. Many terpenes start to break down near 200 °F, so lower heat keeps more flavor and gives a little less oil, while higher heat squeezes out more and tastes flatter. Low Temp’s rule of thumb is to stay at or below 220 °F for any standard rosin; cold presses run around 140 to 180 °F for up to five minutes, hot presses for 45 seconds to a minute.
Rosin press pressure
Rosin press pressure means the pressure at the bag, called platen psi, not the number on the press’s gauge. Divide the total force by the area of the bag: Low Temp’s example is 20,000 pounds of force on an 18 square inch bag, about 1,111 psi. Bigger bags spread the same force thinner, so check the math whenever you change bag size.
Rosin yield
Rosin yield depends far more on the material than on the press. Flower gives back about 15 to 25 percent of its weight as rosin, kief and dry sift 30 to 40, and bubble hash 60 to 70 percent or more. Well grown, resinous flower, kept in the cold chain, beats any setting change.
From the archive: Bubbleman on flower rosin
From the archive, Bubbleman on flower rosin in his own words, recorded live on Season 12, Episode 22, The Cryo Episode, Part II, with The Original Resinator. Tap a time to hear that moment.
I froze flower. This was when rosin was very new… It was dry flower, it wasn’t even fresh frozen… I left it there for six years, and it was not sealed properly… Well, I made flower rosin with that flower, like six years after I put it in the freezer.
On a forgotten bag of frozen flowerIt was some of the loudest rosin I’ve ever made… if I opened it, someone would literally smell it across the room. So yeah, preservation, man. Cold chain.
On what the cold kept
Making rosin from hash or kief
Making rosin from hash or kief uses a finer bag, less heat and less pressure than flower, because there is far less plant to hold back. The full method, for dry sift, bubble hash and live rosin, is in how to make hash rosin.
Rosin making questions
Rosin making questions, answered short:
How do you make rosin at home?
To make rosin at home, pack flower, kief or hash into a rosin bag, fold it in parchment and press it with heat until the oil flows out onto the parchment, then scrape it up and store it cold. The same steps work for making rosin from weed, kief or hash; only the bag, heat and pressure change.
What temperature do you press rosin at?
Press rosin at about 180 to 220 °F for flower and about 160 to 190 °F for bubble hash. Lower temperatures keep more terpenes; higher ones give more yield.
What micron bag is best for flower rosin?
The best micron bag for flower rosin is 90 to 160 micron. Finer bags hold back more plant oils and fats; coarser bags give a little more yield.
How much rosin do you get from flower?
How much rosin you get from flower is usually about 15 to 25 percent of its weight, depending on the plant and how well it was grown and stored.
Can you make rosin with a hair straightener?
Yes, you can make rosin with a hair straightener, and that is how rosin started, but you get little control over heat or pressure. A press gives far more consistent results.
Sources for this rosin making guide
Sources for this rosin making guide:
- How to press flower rosin: a starter guide, The Press Club
- What micron do I use?, The Press Club
- How to calculate platen psi, The Press Club
- Rosin press temperature guide, Low Temp Industries
- Rosin press pressure guide, Low Temp Industries
- Pure Pressure: half a pound of flower into 60 grams of rosin, Bubbleman’s World on YouTube
- Hash Church Season 12, Episode 22: Bubbleman on flower rosin and the cold chain, linked above