{"id":49537,"date":"2020-01-17T18:45:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T18:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/how-to-identify-primo-hash-according-to-the-expert-dank-duchess\/"},"modified":"2020-01-17T18:45:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T18:45:08","slug":"how-to-identify-primo-hash-according-to-the-expert-dank-duchess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/how-to-identify-primo-hash-according-to-the-expert-dank-duchess\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Identify Primo Hash, According to the Expert, The Dank Duchess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lead image by<\/em> Inti Gajardo <\/em><\/p>\n

In the West, most folks prefer to smoke flower. But in the East, and across much of Europe, people there prefer to smoke hash<\/u><\/a>. In fact, in Central Asia, most tokers only smoke hash, as blazing flower there is seen as a crude, low-brow practice.<\/p>\n

However, the art of making high-quality hashish is alive and well<\/u><\/a> in the US. And while many of us can identify awesome flower just by looks and smell alone, most American cannabis consumers aren\u2019t as well versed in identifying great hash, simply because it\u2019s not as readily available, or popular, as bud.<\/p>\n

To find out how the average consumer can identify excellent hash, MERRY JANE spoke with The Dank Duchess<\/u><\/a> during a video call. The Dank Duchess, or just Duchess for short, is a student of the legendary Frenchy Cannoli<\/u><\/a>, one of the most influential and famous hash makers alive today.<\/p>\n

Duchess first met Frenchy in June 2014 during a cannabis competition. Since then, she\u2019s gone on to become a professional consultant for California\u2019s weed industry, though she\u2019s recently traveled to Mexico to teach residents there how to make their own hash, too.<\/p>\n

Duchess specializes in making pressed hashish, which is basically the heads of cannabis trichomes \u2014 also called \u201csugar,\u201d \u201ccrystals,\u201d or \u201ckief\u201d \u2014 pressed into condensed bricks or balls that resemble rich fudge. The process she describes here is known as \u201cbubble hash<\/u><\/a>,\u201d where plant material is mixed with ice and water to produce a clean, solventless concentrate.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Photo by Sam Hutchinson <\/em><\/p>\n

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Photo by Dank Duchess<\/em><\/p>\n

MERRY JANE: Can you briefly walk us through your hash-making process to start?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dank Duchess: <\/strong>You \u201cwash\u201d hash by first choosing the right plants. Then, ice and water to process it, which is fairly easy. It uses a standard washing machine. You can do it by hand, but I don\u2019t have good shoulders for doing it by hand. You just add ice, weed, and water, and agitate. What that does is it removes the heads off the trichomes. <\/p>\n

Trichomes look like a stalk with a head. You don\u2019t want the stalk; you just want the head. Agitation knocks the top part off. Then, you use a system of bags, to sieve, to collect, specific sizes of resin [through tiny holes in the bags]. Different sized trichome heads have different flavors. 73 microns [a micron is one-millionth of a meter] is the sweet spot, where you get all the \u201cmelt,\u201d but you can have a 73-micron hash that\u2019s actually pretty crappy and a 45-micron that\u2019s much better. They\u2019re just different sizes. However, the 73-micron and 90-micron sizes are generally where you get the best stuff.<\/p>\n

After you dry it, some people will dab it<\/u><\/a>. I press my hash instead, in the Frenchy style, which is pressing the hash with a hot water bottle to create a mash. There are a few reasons for using the hot water bottle, and one is that it partially decarbs the resin<\/u><\/a>. Most of what\u2019s in the plant is THCA. It\u2019s when heat is applied to THCA that it converts to THC, which is what gets you high. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best way to dry it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the best ways to dry hash is to use a freeze dryer<\/u><\/a>. I\u2019ve been using a freeze dryer since 2015, but sometimes you don\u2019t have access to a freeze dryer, so you have to air-dry it, making it appear darker. So, this heady idea that light hash makes for better hash isn\u2019t always true.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Chris Vee <\/em><\/p>\n