Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

very own piece of fragrant, dense hash.
    To hand press, collect one to four grams of resin powder in the palm of your hand and apply pressure to the powder, working it between the palms of your hands. Also push your thumb into your palm full of resin powder to work it into a piece of hash. Continue this process for 10-30 minutes until the piece of hash is completely pliable and whole. Heat will be generated and help rupture and meld the resin glands together. Relatively pure resin powder will congeal faster than less-potent powders that contain impurities. But a little vegetable matter and debris gives hash different flavors and more body.
    Potent resin powder is a creamy white to gold in color. Pressing the powder together and working it in your hands ruptures and oxidizes resin glands, which makes the mass turn ever darker.
Bottle Pressing
    Press small amounts of resin powder between cellophane to form a pancake. Fill a long cylindrical bottle with warm water and use it as a “rolling pin” to press the pancake of hash.
Shoe Hash
    Press small amounts of hash by putting resin powder in cellophane and putting it under your heel inside your shoe. Walk around for an hour or so, doing what you would normally. Take your shoe off and voilà, fresh hash!

Now pressed into a wafer, the piece of hash will be easy to smoke and will burn evenly.
    You can use a laminator-the kind that laminates photos and documents between two sheets of plastic-to press your hash! Simply sprinkle out the best resin powder you can make onto a piece of cellophane. Lay another piece of cellophane on top. Roll it with a bottle full of hot water to get it into preliminary shape and make it easy to work with. Remove the piece of hash from the cellophane; treat it like you would a document and laminate it. If your laminator can control the level of heat, wonderful! You are now ready to pack hash for a rainy day!
Mechanical Pressing
    Place resin powder in a plastic bag or cellophane wrapper to contain it while pressing. All the powder will be pressed within the wrapper into a brick or plaque of hash. Poke a few small holes in the bag before pressing to allow trapped air to escape. The bag is placed into a heavy-duty steel mold, and pressure is applied with a hydraulic jack. Hydraulic jacks have a capacity from 10-20 tons and are mounted to heavy-duty steel frames that normally contain a 100-gram mold.
    The pressure exerted to form a cohesive block is contingent upon the volume of contaminants in the powder. The more pure the resin powder, the less pressure it takes to form it into a block.
    If your hash was made with water, make sure it is totally dry before pressing to avoid mold.
    Water hash does not react like dry-sieved hash when pressed. Resin has been melded together in a different way than dry powder.
    Pressing the resin when it is wet will trap moisture inside the hash. The hash will not dry completely, and it will not properly gel together later. It will retain a powdery consistency.
    Dry-sieved resin powder will press easily and stay together under lower pressure when it is relatively pure. If it is adulterated with impurities, more pressure and heat will be necessary to press it into a block.

Three grams of dry-sieved resin powder that is ready to press.

Cover resin with cellophane and fill a wine bottle with hot water.

Roll the wine bottle over the dry resin powder that is wrapped in cellophane.

This small wafer of pressed “pollen” can be broken off and vaporized or smoked in a pipe.
    Add a little heat to hard-to-press hash that contains impurities. The heat will help the mass congeal so bricks do not need excessive pressure to stay together. But do not heat the resin too much or it will be damaged. Do not forget that pressing also increases heat.

Wrap a gram or two of resin in a bit of cellophane. Place it in the heel of your shoe to press into “shoe hash.”

This 100-gram brick of pressed hash shows oxidation on and near the surface.
    You can also add a drop of alcohol in the form of brandy, whisky, bourbon, rum, etc. Higher alcohol content spirits are favored. The alcohol melds the glands together. Add only a drop at a time; alcohol takes a few minutes to completely penetrate and act. Be careful, add only a little!
Hammering
    Hammering hash is a popular method of pressing in Morocco but uncommon in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Hammering bursts and blends resin glands together into a cohesive mass.