Nitrohash

This time, we explain how to produce nitrohash with better accessories.

Here we are again with another article on nitrohash, a method for making hashish with liquid nitrogen that allows the trichomes to maintain all their qualities. This time, we explain how to produce nitrohash with better accessories.

In our 2010 issue 6, Soft Secrets introduced the Nitrohash technique, discovered by the great "hashman" Juanito Manoverde, a genuine resin expert whose travels all over the world have enabled him to master all possible techniques, traditional or modern. At the time, the nitrohash technique was just beginning to be developed, but now we are able to present a much more advanced system, although the basic principles remain the same.

Juan Manoverde's inspiration for nitrohash began with liquid nitrogen in the kitchen. The main advantage of nitro-freezing is that foods maintain their properties - flavour, smell, vitamin contents - much better. You could say that, on a scale from worse to best, we have: traditional refrigerator freezing, professional ultra-freezing like the large fishing boats use and, finally, nitrofreezing, a system so rapid and effective that the specimens are barely affected. This is why nitro-freezing is often used in several sectors, from preserving egg cells or blood samples, to medicine or haute cuisine.

Acquiring and storing nitrogen

Before purchasing liquid nitrogen, make sure you have a type-approved container, because nitrogen freezes so rapidly that it can ruin non-specific materials, causing serious accidents. Finding the proper container is actually more difficult than buying and transporting nitrogen; the best option is to look for tanks on the second hand market. The ideal container for our purpose is a wide neck container, like those used to preserve livestock semen or laboratory samples. These containers have their own evaporation system, which is necessary to keep the tank stable, avoiding explosions. Once the tank is full, the nitrogen must be used as soon as possible, because it consumes itself progressively. Once you've obtained your container, all you have to do is have it filled at supply points you should find in any major city.

As you don't want to keep anything permanently, it's not necessary to keep filling your tank, as long as you have it ready the day you're planning to prepare your nitrohash. Of course, this is not the case for other aspects of cannabis culture; for example, refilling can be useful for seed banks, to preserve fertile and viable pollen for a long time. In this case, you need two tanks: one for the nitrofrozen pollen and an extra one in which to transport more nitrogen to refill the first tank. As the second tank is only needed in certain moments, you can also use it to make nitrohash from the plant remains left over after you've produced your seeds. A grow shop might also be interested in acquiring a nitrogen tank, and then renting it to customers who just need it for a limited period of time.

Handling and precautions

When handling liquid nitrogen, common sense is as necessary as on many other occasions in life. If handled with minimum precautions, liquid nitrogen is not dangerous at all, but you have to take it very seriously because, if handled irresponsibly, liquid nitrogen can cause burns and other serious accidents. You should never come into physical contact with liquid nitrogen, because of the danger of burns; always wear gloves when moving your container of vegetable material in and out of the nitrogen tank. You need good-quality gloves, because regular work gloves aren't enough protection against burns; use motorcycle gloves or another type of thick gloves. And, while it's dangerous to touch nitrogen with your hands, it's much more dangerous if a sensitive area like your eyes gets splashed.

Nitrogen tanks like the one used in this article have an inside basket in which the samples are placed, hanging over the nitrogen. Make sure your hands never pass the lines marked by the basket, to avoid coming into contact with liquid nitrogen. And don't even think about playing with it or tossing it to the ground, no matter how fun it is to see it give off smoke. There have been many cases of damage from inhalation when large quantities of liquid nitrogen have spilled. Also, bear in mind that evaporating nitrogen diminishes the concentration of breathable oxygen, so we advise against working with liquid nitrogen in small or poorly ventilated spaces.

If imprudence or bad luck should cause an accident with serious burns, you should rinse the affected area with water immediately and seek medical help. However, take care to avoid a similar situation.

Basic technique

In our previous article, we already spoke of the basic technique for obtaining nitrohash. Here is what you do: introduce a small drum like the Hashmaker in a nitrogen cylinder, wait two minutes for it to freeze, remove it, shake it and voilà! Prime quality nitrohash. The simplicity and effectiveness of this method are amazing; the trichomes isolate almost right away.

The problem with this method is that appliances such as the Hashmaker aren't designed to be used like this, so the plastic zippers end up breaking; also, you can only process a small amount of material each time.

Leftover materials

To overcome these drawbacks, Juan Manoverde experimented for a long time with several modern methods for obtaining resin, choosing the Work Table and the Super filter mesh methods because of their quality. He also had a custom receptacle for nitrofreezing vegetable material made for himself.

The 00 Work Table is a filter mesh drawn across a wooden frame, invented for activities such as limbing, fine manicuring or bud selection, because the mesh saves the trichomes that separate from the vegetable material from being lost; the trichomes are deposited on a lower tray and, when the job is done, you can collect a high-quality hash.
The 00 Work Table is already used by several Dutch coffee shops, who obtain some extra hash by pocketing some samples left on this work table. It can also be used in a basic way to obtain hashish with dry extraction; all you have to do is cover the Work Table and its plant remains in plastic and shake slightly to obtain some great hashish. If you have buds, there's no need to beat them, just move them delicately from one side of the mesh to the other, so the best trichomes are released without being damaged. Buds treated with this method usually seem thoroughly manicured rather than beaten. The nitrohash method is similar to dry extraction, with the peculiarity that the nitrofrozen plant remains deposit themselves along the mesh; later, you must proceed to move them or, better yet, to cover them with plastic and beat slightly.

The Super filter Mesh consists of a series of metallic meshes that can be used for any type of extraction: ice-water extraction, dry extraction or nitrofreezing - the quickest and most effective method of all. Using the Super filter mesh for ice-water extraction greatly simplifies the method, because these metallic meshes fit very easily over the ice cubes, with no need to tie them to your wrist like with other types of meshes. Dry extraction is also very easy: all you have to do is place the frozen vegetable material on top of the mesh you want to use, position the lower metallic zipper below it and then close the lid. When you shake the compound, the resin separates easily, leaving you with an excellent dry extraction. Nitrofreezing the vegetable material during the dry extraction method gives noticeably better results: better results, more quantity in less time.

The Super filter mesh is available in several different formats: from the three-mesh format to the superior format with three filter meshes and nine work meshes. In this case, the experiment was carried out using the upper part, which consists of 9 filter meshes; several tests were made with different sizes, and the conclusion was the best meshes for nitrohash are the size 75 and the size 120. The results obtained with these sizes are faster, better quality and more quantity and.

Assembly line

When several friends with plant remains get together, you can combine all the above-mentioned methods to work in a sort of assembly line. First of all, the plant mass needs to be prepared. Make sure it's completely dry before you start, and don't keep it in the freezer, to avoid unnecessary dampness. If the buds are swollen, limb them and chop them lightly; if, on the other hand, you have the remains of a manicure and small buds, you can process them directly. If you plan to work on different qualities, you need different containers in order to preserve them separately. As this method is still at the experimental stage, the best thing is to go from worst to best - that is, perform tests on manicure remains and then use the buds with the mesh or separation method that turns out to be the best considering your availability of conditions and materials.

Introduce the vegetable material in the cylinder-shaped metallic tube, leaving it for two minutes. The tube has to have a simple closing that doesn't interfere with opening it, and it should also have an upper handle , which makes it easier to insert into the nitrogen cylinder. It's very important that the tube be slightly smaller than the cylinder's interior space so you won't have a problem closing it; a good idea is to practice with a cardboard prototype before making the final model.

When you remove the tube, it's already frozen. Empty it over the 75 mesh, using a rod to remove the material. Cover the compound and shake it vigorously (you can even hit it against the floor several times) to obtain a high-quality result. The next step is to freeze it again and repeat the procedure with the 120 mesh. After, transfer the plant remains to the 00 Work Table, moving them from one side to the other with your hands. Once you've done all this, place them to the side, to use what's left with an ice-water extraction in the Super filter mesh. This way, you obtain three different qualities of nitrofrozen material, as well as what you obtain with the last ice-water extraction.

Although it's already been passed with the 75 Super filter mesh and then the 120 mesh, when the plant mass arrives at the 00 Work Table to be shaken, it still yields a lot of material, although its quality is halfway between nitrofreezing and dry extraction, because during the transfer from the 120 metallic mesh to the work table, its temperature decreases. You have to make sure to shake it well before it gets to room temperature.

When you've been using the metal container for a while, moving it in and out of the nitrogen freezer, the temperature keeps decreasing and a thick layer of frost forms around it. This is perfect, because it improves the result of the plant mass freezing.

Drying and preserving

With both nitrofreezing and unfreezing, the process is rapid and there is no humidity involved, so there is almost no need to dry your compound. However, drying allows it to expel any remaining humidity there might be.

Furthermore, the powder format is perfect for preservation. All you need to do to work a piece is homogeneously apply pressure and heat to your resin. Wrap your piece in several sheets of plastic and paper, then apply a moderate amount of pressure and heat, for example with a bottle of hot water or an iron at minimum temperature.

Advantages

Nitrohash presents an oily structure, it almost amalgamates on its own, the pull is quite clean and tasty, with an intense effect. Furthermore, nitrofreezing doesn't leave any type of toxic residue, so there's no chance of toxic traces or damage to its taste or aroma, which might happen when you produce oil with gas. Hashish obtained with dry extraction has nothing on hashish obtained with nitrofreezing, much "greasier" even at a glance.

Obtaining resins through nitro-freezing brings us to a much higher level of quality compared to the other methods used so far. There are fewer impurities compared to dry production, as the vegetable material is hardly beaten. The advantage compared to ice-water production is that the trichomes neither get wet nor remain damp, nor do they need drying - this means that the cannabinoids are preserved much better. Terpenes are also preserved much better - traditionally considered responsible for taste and aroma, nowadays experts are beginning to think they might also be connected to the effect.