Dabpress Rosin Plates

[LesPlenty]

I thought of ISO wiping the plates at the very least to get rid of any machining oils.

That should be enough.

if I get the highest end stuff I can buy

Quality in...quality out. I get significantly less return from the lower part of plant popcorn buds compared to the top of plant colas.

I also only let the plates heat up for about 5-10 min

10 minutes should do it but a cheap IR thermometer is a handy device to own, not just for rosin use.
Under $10, shop around,

Infrared Thermometer LCD IR Laser Temperature Gun Non Contact Digital Temp Meter | eBay

Laser Target Pointer ON/OFF selection. - Point and shoot with clear LCD display. Red Laser Power: less than 0.5 MW. - Normal Mode: When the trigger is depressed, the device will provide continuous temperature readout.

www.ebay.com.au

 

[Chicken No Name]

Do you use a single piece of parchment or do you double up? Somewhere I watched a video and they were doubling up so there was no bleed through. I was not sure how common that is or if that's an unnecessary step.

Depends on the quality of the paper. Generally I do not double up but if lower quality I do. On good parchment I get zero bleed through to the plates.
I also re use my parchment where possible. Generally get at least another use if good stuff. Sometimes 3 uses but can get too wrinkled.

 

[LesPlenty]

I also re use my parchment

I thought I was tight!

 

[FlyingLow]

Hell, I don't even re-press my pucks!

I do double parchment though...

 

[Blargas541]

Some pics of tonight's experiment, for anyone who isn't sick of my beginner's quest:

https://imgur.com/a/ncdTEWB

(attachments are disabled here)

Appreciate any tips

 

[FlyingLow]

Wishing you better results!

 

[LesPlenty]

That seems like a huge puck @Blargas541, very wide diameter or very small scales?
I use a 40mm puck for my 10g loads, 30mm pucks need less pressure to reach the desired weight than a 40mm, what diameter puck do you have there? Because the larger the diameter the more pressure needed.

 

[SquirrelMaster]

My Dabpress showed up yesterday evening, so after some family time I cleaned it, set it up, and got to pressing! This is a really solid looking unit and I think my only complaint so far is the magnets (which I expected) and they'll work fine until I make something a little easier to grab.

I used some of my home grown gorilla glue (curing 8 months now) that I didn't think would yield the best because it was not very frosty. All my flower is kept with 62% Integra Boost or Bovida. I had a 13% return on my first press (bottle tech) and 16.5% on the second (chottle tech) with 4.24g of flower used for each. This was using a 90 micron bag with my plates set to 220°F top/212°F bottom with a good 10 minute warm up. The 2"x4" bag on end had a surface area of 1.77sq.in (π x r²) and I was aiming for 1500psi which worked out to 2655 (=1500psi x 1.77sq.in) so with the effective cylinder area (2.75) I should have been reading 965psi on the jack.

For the first press I compressed the puck halfway down (no reading on gauge), waited 30 seconds and then started increasing pressure until I hit over 1000psi (I was up to probably 1100-1200psi) and stayed there for 4 minutes.


On the second press I did the same process except, when I started increasing pressure I did it much more slowly, only pushing the pump as I could feel the resistance drop. I believe it was about 1.5min before I had reached max pressure and then I stayed there for another 2.5min.

The rosin came out darker which I was expecting using older flower and a higher temperature (that does effect Rosin color iirc?) on the plates, but it looks great to me. It's sure different than the live resin I'm use to; that stuff crumbles whereas this is like taffy and is sticky af. It makes a mess of my B-2 SiC dish much faster than the live resin so my wife is going to start wondering where all the q-tips are going . What impresses me so much is how much more I enjoy the rosin than I do the flower that it came from. This GG needed a long cure before I didn't mind it, but the rosin is really good.

By the end of it all I took a few more hits than I normally do and I was right fucked. I came inside the house and made a full breakfast because I was munching out so hard, followed by an amazing sleep.

 

[Ramahs]

Looks like quite a successful first attempt.
Congrats, @SquirrelMaster

 

[FlyingLow]

Nice! Now start experimenting. Increasing temps can improve yield (imo) at the expense of flavor. Lower temps will improve flavor, and often produce a different type of concentrate than high heat presses. I find lower temps butter up much faster, often on the plates. As you discovered, high temps are darker, lower and you will get a brighter product.

using bottle NOT chottle will reduce contaminates in your rosin an left on your nail, there are numerous reasons why chortle is not preferred. IMO it is a shortcut that does not improve quality, it only improves the speed in which one is able to press.

I also believe that filter count is less important when using chottle. Oil is going to choose the path of least resistance and it will be out the top and bottom.

 

[Lavendersage]

Another failed experiment tonight, unfortunately. I am starting to lose hope... used a different strain this time as well as different techniques and still the yield was less than 5%.

Anyone see anything obviously wrong in the pics attached? I tried chottle tek this time, to see if I was losing all my oil inside the bag, but it doesn't appear to be the case. I pressed 5g at 175F for about 5 minutes and when I checked the parchment there was almost nothing. Increased the temp to 205 and gave it 3 minutes and got a very small amount of low quality rosin. Overall yield 0.23 out of 5 grams.

View attachment 15888 View attachment 15886View attachment 15887View attachment 15884View attachment 15889

Ok my dude I’m no expert but do you have any higher bag sizes? I use like 120 or 160 for flower. Also are you using bud you bought? Unfortunately especially if not dispensary (and sometimes there too) they bounce the buds on a screen before sale taking a lot of trichs off the outside. This didn’t used to be so prevalent but the rise in concentrate demand and it being hard to detect/prove has made it common practice unfortunately. Are you breaking the bud up or grinding it and are you smashing it in the bag as tight as possible without a pollen press? I’m pretty new too just trying to help you brain storm!!

 

[FlyingLow]

I use 120 for most all flower.

are you smashing it in the bag as tight as possible without a pollen press?

I don't recommend this sort of technique, smash-stuffing the bag as you suggest is going to put a lot of strain on the seams of your filter bag and will make you much more likely to blow out at lower pressures. That is the BEAUTY and function of the pre-press. Pre-press your material, drop the formed puck into the filter bag and tuck the sides a la bottle- no stress on seams. The pre-press makes life easy, and easy to fit pucks between the plates.

 

[LesPlenty]

I use 120 for most all flower.

I swapped to 90 to keep the eNail a bit cleaner and as there is more material there is even less chance of a blow-out.

 

[Chicken No Name]

I much prefer 90 for flower. Going to play with lower.

Really don't get on with pre press and prefer to hand fit fairly tightly.

Rarely do I have a blow out and my yields are better.

Frustrating as I really want the pre press to work but I found lower yields.

Going to play some more but my point is there are many factors at play and one needs to find the ideal combo of bag size, pressure, temp, packing style for your herb.
For me that's bottle tech, no pre press, 90 c,
2 mins and 2.5 t.
As I built my own press I have no spacing issues for my puck. Could fit a foot long puck!

 

[invertedisdead]

Hash bags for everything.
Been saying since 2017 how flower has even more contaminant than hash, IMHO bigger porosity bags make no sense. 25u or 37u all the way.

 

[Chicken No Name]

Hash bags for everything.
Been saying since 2017 how flower has even more contaminant than hash, IMHO bigger porosity bags make no sense. 25u or 37u all the way.

I think you may be right.....
I've decided to go one further though and covert all to bubble and then press 25. But we will see how long this lasts..... And I have a load of 90 bags....

 

[SquirrelMaster]

Hash bags for everything.
Been saying since 2017 how flower has even more contaminant than hash, IMHO bigger porosity bags make no sense. 25u or 37u all the way.

I came across an article in the last week about a top commercial rosineer that only uses 37μ for flower. That seemed odd to me, only because I had not come across that opinion before but, if you're behind using 37μ I'll have to give it a try. Do you use various packing methods or just bottle tech? If you already answered I can dig.

My mixed packs (37μ, 90μ, 120μ and 160μ) arrived today so I'll have to do some comparisons.

 

[Blargas541]

Thanks again everybody for chiming in to diagnose my poor yields. I tried another press today, with the same strain but using a different bagging technique. This time I used a smaller 160u bag packed bottle tek style. The idea of lower micron makes sense to me per the discussion going on here, but I wanted to eliminate that as a cause for low yields before experimenting with greater filtration.

Still my results were really bad, less than 5%, even when I do subsequent presses for longer and at higher temp, I get almost nothing. I took some pics of the process here if anybody wants to have a look/comment on the results:

https://imgur.com/a/jVED2jD

Unfortunately especially if not dispensary (and sometimes there too) they bounce the buds on a screen before sale taking a lot of trichs off the outside. This didn’t used to be so prevalent but the rise in concentrate demand and it being hard to detect/prove has made it common practice unfortunately.

This is interesting, it could be the cause for sure, I've tried so many techniques with such bad results that maybe it is the product. I guess that would be the simplest explanation, no? I use the illegal market too, always heard the quality there was better than legal stuff. I ordered some of the highest end legal stuff here and will compare the yield using the same techniques, should be an interesting experiment. I'm more of a concentrate guy so I don't know how to judge bud really closely, the stuff looked nice to me but could still be bounced like you said!

My Dabpress showed up yesterday evening, so after some family time I cleaned it, set it up, and got to pressing! This is a really solid looking unit and I think my only complaint so far is the magnets (which I expected) and they'll work fine until I make something a little easier to grab.

Amazing first press, it's an inspiration to me. Given your results are so good without too much tweaking, I am really thinking I am either a total idiot or using some bad starting material.

 

[FlyingLow]

I know there are a TON of different variables at play here, but from 30,000 feet and through a computer, I am going to tell you to press way the fuck harder. I am assuming you have no gauge, but you really need to put some weight on those nugs- you have enough temp, they will juice.

Blowing out a bag is a sign you pressed too hard. You have not gotten anywhere near that.

 

[Blargas541]

Yeah I don't have a gauge. However I pressed hard enough to tear through the parchment paper you can see in this pic:

https://imgur.com/6KFgstc

LOL on other forums people are saying I go too hard and that's the problem. I am bonking my head trying to figure this out

here's a crappy video I took mid press if it helps explain anything

https://imgur.com/a/VYE7mTa

 

[Chicken No Name]

Yeah I don't have a gauge. However I pressed hard enough to tear through the parchment paper you can see in this pic:

https://imgur.com/6KFgstc

LOL on other forums people are saying I go too hard and that's the problem. I am bonking my head trying to figure this out

here's a crappy video I took mid press if it helps explain anything

https://imgur.com/a/VYE7mTa

I'm no expert but I agree with @FlyingLow . I reckon you need to crank it up. To not have blown a bag in your first presses is impressive (boom boom).
A blown bag is not a disaster with herb. Just a few imperfections. But it will give you an idea of how far is too far.
And I'm not convinced bud tenders bouncing buds would result in a drop of yield from the mid 20's (fairly average) to the 5% return you are getting.
On the crappiest trim buds I will get better than 5% so I'm still thinking user error here as opposed to quality of buds.
Very frustrating for you and fingers crossed you crack this nut soon...

 

[FlyingLow]

torn parchment could also have been a loading issue, it can happen if not loaded squarely.

you need more pressure and time. Press slow, keep adding pressure and don't be shy to give it some time.

 

[Blargas541]

Sounds like more experimenting will be required.. I will take a full vid of the process next time to get further `form critique`! Thanks all!

 

[shredder]

Are you sure about the temperature of the plates? My controller works only in centigrade and I keep a conversation chart taped to the press for F.

 

[LesPlenty]

Are you sure about the temperature of the plates?

The controller in the video above says 190 so safe to say it is set right but should be checked with a thermometer maybe... and looks like it needs a lot more pressure!