Dry Ice Hash Tutorial - A Complete Guide

I'm not sure what everyone's experience is with dry ice so far, but over the last 6 months I've been researching it extensively. Dry ice extraction has a few benefits over other methods;

1. It's Fast. Very little working time required
2. It's not complicated. No power tools needed.
3. Doesn't use toxic materials. Dry ice is CO2 gas solidified. We all exhale CO2 and it evaporates into the air.

And some cons;

1. Finding dry ice. It's now readily available in most areas in the USA. Here's a dry ice search engine
2. Doesn't produce oil or honey. It's definitely more of a keif like material.
3. When you use leafs the material you get is veggy and is really only suitable for edibles.

So hows it done?

First you need material. Anything will work essentially; this methods great for salvaging seedy bud, popcorn bud, and bud trim/shake. Leafs work as well but of course the quality won't be as good.

Second, you need a fabric filter bag. Bubble bags are good but many have a PVC coating that will flake off when exposed to the extreme cold of the dry ice. Look for a bag that doesn't have a coating on it. You can also make one out of pantyhose. However, you're better off paying for a bag with a defined screen size. A note about screen size: many people recommend running your material through a 90 micron screen, followed by a 120, 180, and finally a 220. If you don't want to buy all those bags - I.E. your on a budget - you can spring for one between 160-220 and use it in stages. More on that in a bit.

Third, Find some dry ice. Most grocery stores sell it. Check party stores and ice cream shops if your local wal-mart doesn't carry it. If they ask what its for tell them you're transporting ice cream for a picnic. Buy about 2-5 lbs. WARNING. Dry ice is super cold and some precautions are necessary. Refer to the warning instructions on the bag the dry ice comes in.

Now you've got all you need. Find a smooth surface and clean it off prior to use (as obvious as that sounds, it has happened and it does ruin good hash.) Smash up some of that dry ice. Here's a tip I found: you don't need THAT much. The overwhelming trend is people adding WAY TOO MUCH dry ice which just adds more weight to tire your arms. I good rule of thumb is for every oz of material use 1/2 lbs of dry ice. More maybe required if you're running dense wet buds - less if running dry leafs.

Put your material in the bag followed by the crushed dry ice. Layering the dry ice on top of the material helps it super-cool the crystals faster. Sealed up your bag nice and tight and shake it over your smooth surface. Shake it for about 45-90 seconds about 2 inchs above the surface. You will see your surface begin to get dusty looking.

Here's the trick to using only one screen size bag; Only shake for about 45 seconds for your first run. Scrape it and put it aside. You will find this to be the golden sticky icky. Proceed to shake the bag for another 45 seconds and scrape this pile aside. Repeat this process a third and fourth time and you will see the piles become greener and greener. When it gets dark green its time to stop.

You may also notice your material in the bag is ground up well and smells like hay (or that dirt weed hay smell.) This is a sign that the majority of the tasty bits has been separated and is sitting in those neat little piles on the table.

You can take the leftover dry ice and allow it to "evaporate" off near your plants (they like co2. Mind you this wont give them as much as a CO2 system... but its a good way to use up your extra dry ice and gives the plants a lill co2 boost.)

So the million dollar questions, how much do you get and hows the quality. To answer the second question first; the first 2 runs will usually be your best quality. The greener material is still very usable and after a little decarbing it's great for edibles. The golden powder can be pressed into lovely golden pucks or can be left as a powder. The really sticky icky golden will clump together since it's so sticky and icky.

As for quantity. This depends on what you use of course. Research shows that you can expect 20-30% of what you start with if using bud. Leafs are a whole different story and yields are of course lower. Sorry I don't have pics but I do have a nice video that shows what I've just explained.

Dry Ice Hash - YouTube

Any Questions? Anyone have any experience with this method yet?

Got a user review to show everyone:

Thanks for the submission Ninja!

At the request of some users we have made a 150 micron bag. Also wondering if anyone else has had any success freezing the material first and using the bag without dry ice? Have had reports of this working pretty well...

Could you please post a macro pic of your end product,the hash?
Id love to see how many trichs there actually are in there and how
much contaminante there is.
Thanks.