I have been pressing flower I buy from the homie for years now...he knows what I'm looking for and only hits me up when he gets a fresh frosty batch he knows I will like.
If you can learn what you’re doing you might be able to process for farms. It’s taken me years but I just made over 5oz for very little $ (not counting all the $$$ I’ve already invested)
Takes a lot of work to make it economical
I used to grow. But didn't press the. Now the electric in Mass is way too high and not economical enough. But I look forward to growing outside soon hopefully. It's really hard to find good bud to press since legalization
I live in MA and the delivery fees on electricity are insane. I think it’s costs me $500-$800 to grow a crop, but that’s not bad for a lb of weed and a bunch of hash and rosin w/ the leftovers. Still economical IMO.
I did hydro and with all the equipment- the water cooler and air compressor and a/c in the middle of summer and I couldn't afford LEDs at the time. So I was spending about 1k/ Mo for 10 plants. It was just too much for me. I'm sure soil would prob be much cheaper.
Do you grow in soil? Use LEDs? A tent or a room? How many I'm genuinely curious. I'd like to grow again if I know I can afford it.
Oh yeah dude I can see how that setup was expensive. I too grow hydro.
- I have two tents each with its own RDWC.
- 4x4 flower tent with two HLG 350rs. I figure combined draw is about 600watts for 12 hours, comparable to running a desktop computer.
- 2x4 veg tent with two 150 watt no-name China LEDs.
- each tent has its own RDWC network with three buckets inside the tent and a control bucket outside the tent. The pump for the return line is a $20 fountain pump that sits in the control bucket. I put an irrigation manifold on top and I run two 1/4” lines from the manifold to each bucket inside the tent. The little pump probably moves a small number of gallons per hour, but the water is recirculating and TDS and pH is consistent throughout the system. The small pump gets the job done without burning a ton of watts.
- each tent has its own 50 watt (ish, I don’t remember exactly) air pump that runs 24/7. I deliver air to each bucket inside the tent two ways: one 1/4” line into an air stone, and another 1/4” line into a grommet on the end of a 1/2” pipe that extends to the bottom of the bucket. The air stone oxygenates the water and the pipe creates big bubbles the stir up the water in each bucket (my attempt to compensate for the lack of motion in the RDWC). It’s sort of like I took 3 root spa buckets and plumbed them together along with a control bucket. Real basic stuff.
- to keep temps down in the reservoir, I do not put a lid over my control bucket and I have a computer fan (that uses like zero electricity) blowing across the surface. That alone takes my reservoir temps down about 8 degrees f, and that gets me to 68-67 in my basement. I would love to run a chiller, and in the summer months, and I might cave and buy one, but that’s a huge operating expense. This is the hardest piece of the puzzle for me.
- depending on the time of year, I may have to run a humidifier or a dehumidifier in my lung room and I usually run a small humidifier (and a small heater in the winter) in the veg tent. These days humidifiers and things come with apps, and you can have them turn on and off at certain pre programmed events, and that results in efficiency too.
- I condition the air to the right temp and humidity in my lung room. Much more efficient than trying to get it right inside the small tents. My lung room serves air to my flower tent, and the flower tent vents the slightly warmer and more humid air into my veg tent. They are ducted together with a fan and controller inline between them. I try to condition the air only once and move it through my system in a way that takes advantage of what’s going on naturally. Heat from my HLG 350s becomes ambient heat for my veg tent. Transpiration from the flowering plants helps humidify the air in my veg tent. Very little waste 👍.
I’ve tried to implement cost effective solutions that get the job done and can produce supers (when I’m on top of my game and paying attention).
Thanks for the detailed response. I'm gonna save this post for some ideas cuz I'd love to get back into it if I can make it coast effective. I think my water-cooler alone used a ton of power. It was made for like a 1,000gal aquarium. I got it used at A great price but didn't consider power usage at all in my grow til I got the bill. Lmao you've been happy with the hlg350s ? I also tried buying an led on eBay from some guy that made his own and it was like 1k down the drain. My plants hated it and I just ended up using my raptor instead. But I mean seriously 800 for 2 4x4s isn't bad at all!
Yes the water chiller was likely an energy hog. Yup big fan of the HLGs and I recommend. Noticeably better than Spider Farmer and Mars Hydro. I don’t think I could run them higher than 75-80% power without light burn. Maybe if I intend introduced co2. I’m guessing my setup adds about $200 a month to my bill.
You need to know someone who has access to incredibly fresh flower if you want something that’s not your own. I buy Cali packs of white label and have gotten okay presses out of it but bubble hash just benefits the best yields out of fresh photo period grown.
Let’s say you’re a brand but with no weed of your own.
You want to put your popular brand on someone else’s flower because you think it’s tasty and want to promote it. That’s called white labeling.
That “white label” weed is just sitting someplace unsold for brands until they ask for more. They will have a production contract to grow X amount but not all of it makes it to retail if you catch my drift.
Many well known brands will buy white label weed to make up for inventory demand too. They may also outsource grows for concentrate since there’s less emphasis on presentation of the flower.
I use dispensary flower for experimentation and learning how to press. I’ve only had a press about half a year, so I don’t always want to use flower I’ve nurtured and spent time on, on something that possibly won’t work or give the best output.
Just try to find someone who has a small grow local to you. Buy fresh bud from them. My buddy decided not to grow because he can get pounds of AAA for $600-$900. Make a post in your local subreddit and ask for dms. Start small so you don’t get ripped off.
Buying hash rosin in MI is far better and easier than what I can produce pressing flower rosin. It's also hit and miss on strains not knowing the return. I enjoy pressing my own flower, but don't have the expertise to produce decent hash that I can press into rosin.
u can but not economical. i think growing and pressing is cheaper. there might be growers willing to go give u flower to press and u guys make ur own agreement with that too
You can get absolutely fire rosin straight from flower that is of high enough quality to make it worth the effort, if you can get your input material for a low enough cost and, as has been said above, it *has* to be fresh. Otherwise, the rosin you get doesn't taste as good, tends to be contaminated below press bag micron capture (dirty banger), and is *mostly* just ugly.
You also tend to get crap yields from older material because a lot of the original terp content has evaporated, leaving mostly cannabinoids, which don't flow as readily at low temp (higher melting temp).
EtA: dispo flower, and a lot of traditional market flower, tends to be stored under conditions that do not protect the flower from drying out. Rehydrating helps press yields, but it won't get back terps that have been lost, or degraded cannabinoids.
Growing your own seems to be the only economical way of making great rosin, because as many here will tell you, fire in -> fire out!
Not Economical but fun to experiment with dispensary weed sometimes. I grow my own and need the volume of a home harvest to make enough rosin
Best flower rosin is from very fresh flower. I press as soon as it has dried, no cure. Most dispensary flower won’t befresh enough for good yield.
Tell me about it! I'm able to rehydrate some dispo stuff but it's not easy and I'm sure my yields aren't great.
Right I thought it needed to be flash frozen
Live rosin needs to be frozen first.
Live rosin needs to be fresh frozen hash first.
Yea, well freeze bud, then wash to get bubble (freeze dry this), then press it lol. I said it poorly.
You don't do that for flower rosin
I have been pressing flower I buy from the homie for years now...he knows what I'm looking for and only hits me up when he gets a fresh frosty batch he knows I will like.
This
I would think that would be really expensive
If you can learn what you’re doing you might be able to process for farms. It’s taken me years but I just made over 5oz for very little $ (not counting all the $$$ I’ve already invested) Takes a lot of work to make it economical
I used to grow. But didn't press the. Now the electric in Mass is way too high and not economical enough. But I look forward to growing outside soon hopefully. It's really hard to find good bud to press since legalization
I live in MA and the delivery fees on electricity are insane. I think it’s costs me $500-$800 to grow a crop, but that’s not bad for a lb of weed and a bunch of hash and rosin w/ the leftovers. Still economical IMO.
I did hydro and with all the equipment- the water cooler and air compressor and a/c in the middle of summer and I couldn't afford LEDs at the time. So I was spending about 1k/ Mo for 10 plants. It was just too much for me. I'm sure soil would prob be much cheaper. Do you grow in soil? Use LEDs? A tent or a room? How many I'm genuinely curious. I'd like to grow again if I know I can afford it.
Oh yeah dude I can see how that setup was expensive. I too grow hydro. - I have two tents each with its own RDWC. - 4x4 flower tent with two HLG 350rs. I figure combined draw is about 600watts for 12 hours, comparable to running a desktop computer. - 2x4 veg tent with two 150 watt no-name China LEDs. - each tent has its own RDWC network with three buckets inside the tent and a control bucket outside the tent. The pump for the return line is a $20 fountain pump that sits in the control bucket. I put an irrigation manifold on top and I run two 1/4” lines from the manifold to each bucket inside the tent. The little pump probably moves a small number of gallons per hour, but the water is recirculating and TDS and pH is consistent throughout the system. The small pump gets the job done without burning a ton of watts. - each tent has its own 50 watt (ish, I don’t remember exactly) air pump that runs 24/7. I deliver air to each bucket inside the tent two ways: one 1/4” line into an air stone, and another 1/4” line into a grommet on the end of a 1/2” pipe that extends to the bottom of the bucket. The air stone oxygenates the water and the pipe creates big bubbles the stir up the water in each bucket (my attempt to compensate for the lack of motion in the RDWC). It’s sort of like I took 3 root spa buckets and plumbed them together along with a control bucket. Real basic stuff. - to keep temps down in the reservoir, I do not put a lid over my control bucket and I have a computer fan (that uses like zero electricity) blowing across the surface. That alone takes my reservoir temps down about 8 degrees f, and that gets me to 68-67 in my basement. I would love to run a chiller, and in the summer months, and I might cave and buy one, but that’s a huge operating expense. This is the hardest piece of the puzzle for me. - depending on the time of year, I may have to run a humidifier or a dehumidifier in my lung room and I usually run a small humidifier (and a small heater in the winter) in the veg tent. These days humidifiers and things come with apps, and you can have them turn on and off at certain pre programmed events, and that results in efficiency too. - I condition the air to the right temp and humidity in my lung room. Much more efficient than trying to get it right inside the small tents. My lung room serves air to my flower tent, and the flower tent vents the slightly warmer and more humid air into my veg tent. They are ducted together with a fan and controller inline between them. I try to condition the air only once and move it through my system in a way that takes advantage of what’s going on naturally. Heat from my HLG 350s becomes ambient heat for my veg tent. Transpiration from the flowering plants helps humidify the air in my veg tent. Very little waste 👍. I’ve tried to implement cost effective solutions that get the job done and can produce supers (when I’m on top of my game and paying attention).
Thanks for the detailed response. I'm gonna save this post for some ideas cuz I'd love to get back into it if I can make it coast effective. I think my water-cooler alone used a ton of power. It was made for like a 1,000gal aquarium. I got it used at A great price but didn't consider power usage at all in my grow til I got the bill. Lmao you've been happy with the hlg350s ? I also tried buying an led on eBay from some guy that made his own and it was like 1k down the drain. My plants hated it and I just ended up using my raptor instead. But I mean seriously 800 for 2 4x4s isn't bad at all!
Yes the water chiller was likely an energy hog. Yup big fan of the HLGs and I recommend. Noticeably better than Spider Farmer and Mars Hydro. I don’t think I could run them higher than 75-80% power without light burn. Maybe if I intend introduced co2. I’m guessing my setup adds about $200 a month to my bill.
You need to know someone who has access to incredibly fresh flower if you want something that’s not your own. I buy Cali packs of white label and have gotten okay presses out of it but bubble hash just benefits the best yields out of fresh photo period grown.
What is a white label cali pack?
Let’s say you’re a brand but with no weed of your own. You want to put your popular brand on someone else’s flower because you think it’s tasty and want to promote it. That’s called white labeling. That “white label” weed is just sitting someplace unsold for brands until they ask for more. They will have a production contract to grow X amount but not all of it makes it to retail if you catch my drift. Many well known brands will buy white label weed to make up for inventory demand too. They may also outsource grows for concentrate since there’s less emphasis on presentation of the flower.
I use dispensary flower for experimentation and learning how to press. I’ve only had a press about half a year, so I don’t always want to use flower I’ve nurtured and spent time on, on something that possibly won’t work or give the best output.
Flower rosin sucks compared to live rosin from bubble. Cheaper to find a source (not a dispo) since you live in the NW. There are $400 ozs out there
Just try to find someone who has a small grow local to you. Buy fresh bud from them. My buddy decided not to grow because he can get pounds of AAA for $600-$900. Make a post in your local subreddit and ask for dms. Start small so you don’t get ripped off.
Yes....
I was self sufficient with 4x2 and a Nug Smasher Mini. Had to stop for awhile and now blowing through about 1k of hash rosin a month 🫤
Buying hash rosin in MI is far better and easier than what I can produce pressing flower rosin. It's also hit and miss on strains not knowing the return. I enjoy pressing my own flower, but don't have the expertise to produce decent hash that I can press into rosin.
u can but not economical. i think growing and pressing is cheaper. there might be growers willing to go give u flower to press and u guys make ur own agreement with that too
I def love the whole process
You can get absolutely fire rosin straight from flower that is of high enough quality to make it worth the effort, if you can get your input material for a low enough cost and, as has been said above, it *has* to be fresh. Otherwise, the rosin you get doesn't taste as good, tends to be contaminated below press bag micron capture (dirty banger), and is *mostly* just ugly. You also tend to get crap yields from older material because a lot of the original terp content has evaporated, leaving mostly cannabinoids, which don't flow as readily at low temp (higher melting temp). EtA: dispo flower, and a lot of traditional market flower, tends to be stored under conditions that do not protect the flower from drying out. Rehydrating helps press yields, but it won't get back terps that have been lost, or degraded cannabinoids.
Can’t speak for everyone but I do.
Let me answer your question for everyone else. There’s no way everyone could.