Bubble hash is known for its connoisseur-grade quality, but live bubble hash takes that quality even higher. If you’re serious about producing pure cannabis extracts that blow the competition out of the water, live extraction must be on your radar—and live bubble hash is one of the most straightforward live extracts to produce.

What Is Live Bubble Hash?

Live bubble hash is ice water hash made from fresh frozen cannabis buds (or trim, or even shake). The cannabis buds aren’t dried or cured prior to extraction. They’re frozen immediately after harvest to preserve the live essence of the cannabis plant, and those frozen buds are later transferred into the ice water vessel when it’s time to extract the resin glands. So the process looks something like this:

• Fresh cannabis flower is harvested, bucked, and immediately frozen. Don’t place whole, untrimmed stalks and buds into the freezer.
• The frozen cannabis is submerged in an ice water extraction vessel lined with mesh filter bags. The product is generally left to soak for              about 20 minutes. This is the start of the hash washing process.
• The water in the vessel is agitated by hand or machine to separate the brittle, frozen trichomes from the buds.
• The loose trichomes float to the bottom of the vessel, where they’re filtered through the mesh-lined bags to eliminate the unwanted plant        material.
• The bubble bags are removed from the vessel one by one, and the hash is collected from them and placed onto trays.
• The trays are placed immediately into a freeze dryer to eliminate all residual moisture from the hash. Once the hash has dried, it can be consumed, sold as-is, or refined into more concentrated extracts.

If you’ve ever made bubble hash, this process should be pretty familiar. The only detail that distinguishes “live” bubble hash is the use of fresh frozen cannabis. Everything else is the same. But there is one critical component worth emphasizing…

You Have to Maintain the Cold Chain to Make Live Bubble Hash

Even if you achieve full-melt bubble hash, it won’t reach its full quality potential if you lose the live essence. To make a truly live cannabis product, you have to maintain the cold chain throughout the production process. In this case:

• The cannabis is frozen immediately after being cut.
• The frozen product is transferred into an ice bath, where the extraction is completed.
• The fresh extract is moved to a freeze dryer for drying.

After an 18-to-24-hour freeze drying process, the hash can be removed from the frozen environment and stored in a cool location. The reason why it’s so important to maintain the cold chain is because it’s the only way to prevent terpene loss. The live essence of the plant depends on a rich, uncompromised terpene profile. But any temperature above freezing will volatilize the terpenes and cause oxygenation and degradation. Some terpenes (specifically the lighter monoterpenes) evaporate faster than others, changing the entire flavor and aroma profile of the cannabis. Maintaining the cold chain allows you to prevent oxidation and degradation—and that means you get a much better-quality product. It also helps to prevent discoloration, which is critical to achieving the highest market price. After all, discerning customers want bag appeal!

Why Is Live Bubble Hash a Popular Cannabis Concentrate?

The production of live bubble hash enables you to get even more value out of an already premium product—and people are willing to pay the difference. Just as live resin has raised the bar for solvent-based extracts, live bubble hash enables you to attract the most discerning consumers of solventless concentrates. It can be marketed on its own or further refined into live rosin—the ultimate solventless extract. With live cannabis concentrates, you get a fuller and more complex flavor, a richer aroma, and an authentic consumption experience that better captures the essence of the original, unharvested plant. And the increased terpene profile may mean greater therapeutic benefits as well—as each terpene is regarded for its own range of physiological effects. All in all, the live essence just gives connoisseurs one more great reason to reach for their favorite dab rig or vaporizer.

How to Make Live Bubble Hash the Easy Way

As long as you start with fresh frozen cannabis and maintain the cold chain throughout the extraction process, you can make bubble hash using any conventional hash washing system and freeze dryer. If you already have the equipment, this shouldn’t be too difficult. However, if you’re looking to get started or upgrade your current setup, the easiest way to make live bubble hash is to use The Original Resinator. The Resinator is an all-in-one solventless extraction product with wet, dry, and flash-freeze separation capabilities. This revolutionary device supports bladeless trimming as well as extraction, and the patented horizontal rotary separation cylinder makes it easy to separate the unwanted plant matter and create premium live bubble hash. Just fill the drum with water, ice, and your fresh frozen biomass—and turn it on. A convenient drain plug routes your wash water into the appropriate micron-rated collection bags so you can filter your hash with ease and move it straight on to the freeze-drying process. This process is quick, it requires far less equipment than traditional hash washing, and it requires no manual agitation, as the rotary cylinder takes care of that for you. There really is no easier way to achieve consistently high-grade live bubble hash. Are you looking to add bubble hash, live rosin, solventless cartridges, or one of the many other solventless SKUs you can add to your product line with bubble hash? Talk to a bubble hash expert today so they can walk you through all the different equipment and processing options that we have available. If you’re looking for a new SKU that will take your product line to another level, live bubble hash will not disappoint. If you get it right, it just may become the hottest product in your inventory.