Some of the best rosin is made from dry sift and bubble hash, but if you’ve got a batch of quality dried cannabis flower that’s dripping with trichomes, you can make some pretty impressive flower rosin too.

As long as the cannabis is fresh (i.e. was dried and cured in the last 1-2 weeks), is of a high quality, and you’re working with a commercial-grade rosin press, working out how to make rosin from buds is mostly a matter of experimenting (within certain parameters) until you get the best result.

For commercial processors, the most lucrative rosin is generally made from dry sift or ice water hash because the starting material is purer and the resulting rosin is a lighter color. However, flower rosin can be a great extract for caregivers and home growers to experiment with thanks to its ease of creation.

How to Make Flower Rosin Step by Step

In the early days, people made their own rosin with a hair straightener and some parchment paper. Thanks to advances in solventless extraction, the process of creating rosin is now much more precise—leading to a higher quality and more consistent result.

1. Start with dry cannabis flower. You can press around 12 grams of flower per run using the Helix Pro 5-Ton Manual Rosin Press, 20 grams per run with the Pikes Peak V2 Press, 40 grams per run with the Longs Peak Rosin Press and the Lowtemp V2 All In One Rosin Press (3×5 size), and 60 grams per run with the Lowtemp V2 All In One (4×7 size).
2. Carefully break the buds up into similar-sized pieces for even pressing. It’s not necessary (in fact, it’s counterproductive) to grind them.
3. Measure the moisture content of the buds by placing a hygrometer with the buds in a sealed glass jar. For rosin, you’ll want buds with a relative humidity of 55-62%. If they’re too dry, you can rehydrate them until they reach the right humidity level.
4. Cover the plates with food-grade parchment paper (NOT wax paper). Some folks like to fold the edges of the paper to help the rosin flow more quickly out of the press.
5. Heat your rosin press to 190°F and increase the temperature by 10° for each subsequent batch until you find the temperature that produces the best yield (without sacrificing quality). We generally find that temperatures between 200°F and 220°F achieve the best balance between quality and yield.
6. Wearing gloves, place the buds carefully in a rosin bag, making sure to fill the corners of the bag (a poking implement can help with this) so that rosin doesn’t get stuck in the corners. 90μm bags are generally best for maximum quality when pressing rosin whereas 115μm bags are better for maximizing yield.
7. Press the heated plates together and maintain the pressure for a few minutes—until the rosin stops dripping out.
8. Using a scraping tool, scrape the rosin into airtight glass jars. If you plan to whip your rosin (this is a great way to create a more diverse range of textures), you can do that at this point.
9. Leave the rosin jars open until the rosin cools to room temperature. This allows any excess moisture to evaporate before you seal and store the jars.
10. Cap the jars and place them in a refrigerator or cool room for curing.

While you’re experimenting with your rosin press parameters, be sure to make a note of the temperature, pressing time, and pressure you used for each batch. On press models with a digital control panel (like the ones mentioned above), you can save your settings to replicate your best results more easily in the future.

Tips for Creating Top-Shelf Rosin

For homemade rosin, details like rosin color and yield might not necessarily matter all that much (although you’ll still want a robust flavor). However, if you’re pressing rosin commercially or for medical patients, perfecting your process can have far-reaching implications as far as pricing and even customer retention.

Begin with Premium Starting Material

If you want to make top-shelf cannabis concentrates, you have to start with top-shelf flower. Strain-wise, indicas and hybrids can tend to be better for pressing than sativas, which are structurally wispy, although the flower quality and resin volume ultimately matter more than the strain. If you want to experiment with a few popular flower-rosin strains, try varieties that are typically high in trichomes like “Sour” strains, “Chem” strains, and GG4.

Freeze Your Buds to Create Live Extracts

Cannabinoids and terpenes start to degrade as soon as the harvested plants are exposed to heat, light, oxygen, and bacteria. For the best cannabinoid and terpene profiles, remove the fan leaves and freeze your buds immediately after harvesting them.

You can then freeze dry them and make rosin with the dried buds (remembering our humidity guidelines), make live ice water hash, freeze dry the wet hash, and press the dried bubble hash to make live rosin, or keep the buds frozen until you’re ready to process them.

In one Italian study, the THC content in a batch of cannabis buds was almost exactly the same after four years when the buds were kept frozen, so freezing is highly recommended if you don’t plan to press right away.

Experiment with Rosin Bag Sizes, Temperatures, Pressure, and Pressing Times

If you begin with quality starting material and keep it cold (or freeze dry the buds immediately after harvest to minimize degradation), you have the potential to create rosin that really shines. Now, the remaining challenge is to find the precise temperature, pressing time, pressure, and rosin bag size that give you the best result when making rosin.

Rosin Bag Material and Micron Size

For pressing rosin, use bags made from nylon monofilament rather than polyester, as polyester bags tend to break more easily and don’t stretch or bend when they reach a failure point. Stainless steel mesh is often used for pressing hash or sift, but it’s too fine for flower.

As far as the bag size, anything finer than a 90μm width will reduce yield with very little gain in quality. Bags with a micron width above 150μm aren’t fine enough to filter the plant material out of the rosin.

Temperature

We’ve already provided what we consider to be an ideal temperature range for pressing flower. However, finding the temperature that gives you the best balance between quality and yield can take some trial and error.

The main thing when playing around with temps for the extraction process is not to exceed 220°F. While some people say they get great results pressing flower at temperatures as high as 250°F, we find that measurable terpene loss starts once you start to exceed 220°F.

Pressure

Finding the ideal pressure for flower rosin also takes some trial and error. Going by our own experience, we’ve found that the best PSI for pressing rosin from flower is in the 550-2,000 range, with the best quality rosin being produced at the lower end of the scale.

Pressing Time

It’s usually pretty clear when you’ve extracted all the rosin. As long as the rosin keeps flowing, keep pressing! As long as the temperature isn’t high, you won’t burn your buds.

If you’re using fresh, trichome-rich buds with the right moisture content and a 115μm bag, you can expect to press for a few minutes at 200 to 220°F. At lower temperatures, you can press a bit longer.

Experiment with Bubble Hash Rosin

If you’ve got wet or flash-frozen buds, you can’t put them directly into a rosin press because you’ll end up with a messy mixture of rosin and water. However, if you make live ice water hash, freeze dry the extract, and press the dried bubble hash into live rosin, the result can be something truly special.

While you can make bubble hash from buds by hand, The Original Resinator does the job beautifully and with far less mess than a bucket system. Simply:

1. Pre-freeze your buds and put them in the Resinator drum (using a micron-rated screen).
2. Fill the Resinator with ice-cold water and place a bubble hash collection bag under the drainage hole to collect the trichomes.
3. Rotate the horizontal cylinder to separate the trichome heads.
4. Dry the wet hash in a freeze dryer.
5. Press your bubble hash into rosin!

Please note: When pressing bubble hash—as when pressing kief rosin—you’ll use lower temperatures, less pressure, shorter pressing times, and finer rosin bags because the extract is already quite pure. Our guide on pressing bubble hash into rosin goes into more detail about the specific temperatures and pressing times to use.

Turn Your Flowers into Gold

Once you get the hang of it, learning how to make rosin from cannabis flower isn’t all that hard. The trick lies in finding the right starting material and the parameters that produce the best result.

While you’re experimenting with your process, you’ll need to be prepared to sacrifice some potential yield (which is why we don’t recommend such a detailed process for home extractors). However, once you strike that sweet spot, you can start turning your premium buds—both physically and economically—into gold.