question about harvesting kief and the left over weed

[iamhemper]

Normally, I grind my herb and over time the kief section slowly builds up but it takes a long time. Then I read some posts where people freeze the bud and grind it and then shake it for a few minutes and they end up with way more kief than usual.

Okay, so here's my question. How much does it affect the potency of the remains? I'm torn because I do like kief but at the same time, I'm getting it from bud and not leaf. Does it affect the bud drastically? Is this practice pretty normal to shake the kief off and then vape the plant material like normal?

 

[max]

It's mostly personal choice whether to screen kief or not. It does give you more flexibility as far as making the same batch of herb stronger (with kief) or milder (screened). Kief is certainly the most potent part of the plant. One advantage to screening it is that you lose less. Using your fingers to break up your bud means losing some on your fingers. Using a two piece grinder means you have to reclaim it from the grinder. Then when storing the bud and using it, it's more likely that kief will adhere to the container and pretty much anything it contacts. If you screen it, store it (don't store it in the kief collector of the grinder-humidity will get to it), and then add it to a bowl, or vape it alone, I've found that it's a lot easier to avoid losing some here and there. I currently have a supply of some excellent bud that's just overflowing with kief. I've found that using a screen grinder gives me a ton of kief, and there's so much on the buds that NOT screening it is quite wasteful. I just have a real hard time keeping up with it when it's mixed with ground bud. It'll stick to the ground herb pretty well, but the more you have the more you'll lose. If your herb has been 'kiefed' (tumbled to remove a lot of the kief) before you buy it, it doesn't matter as much. I've got a different batch of herb as well-decent quality, but you can tell it's been processed to remove kief and I get so little when screening it that it's not even worth using a 4 pc. grinder. I just grind with a 2 pc.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

Kief is certainly the most potent part of the plant.

i will go so far as to say that Kief (the trichomes) is the ONLY potent part of the plant. That is, there is minimal THC inside the plant material itself -- only on the surface. Some trichomes do not have stalks, so they are much less likely to fall off the plant material.

i don't grind my bud, just tear off bits to stuff into my bud vial (borosilicate vial: 12mm diameter by 32 mm long). But even so, trichomes collect in the bottom of the Altoids can that holds the stash. i use a razor blade knife to collect the kief and drop it on top of material that is in the vial.

 

[iamhemper]

thanks for the responses. is there a special container you recommend to store kief in? I think I'll get one if its likely to get spoiled in the kief catcher.

 

[SmokingElectricity]

i love kief

you really shouldn't notice a huge difference when you reclaim kief. it's well worth the effort. a nice piece of pressed kief in your SSV will last along time too.

 

[iamhemper]

i love kief

you really shouldn't notice a huge difference when you reclaim kief. it's well worth the effort. a nice piece of pressed kief in your SSV will last along time too.

I bought a nice mendo press so I'm looking forward to it.

 

[tdavie]

Normally, I grind my herb and over time the kief section slowly builds up but it takes a long time. Then I read some posts where people freeze the bud and grind it and then shake it for a few minutes and they end up with way more kief than usual.

Okay, so here's my question. How much does it affect the potency of the remains? I'm torn because I do like kief but at the same time, I'm getting it from bud and not leaf. Does it affect the bud drastically? Is this practice pretty normal to shake the kief off and then vape the plant material like normal?

Very simple; the more kief you remove the less left in the bud. I've taken mids and freezer kiefed 1/2 oz. The weed was pretty close to empty by this point, but fiancee took it for rolling joints instead of tobacco. Between us, we've got 3 grinders; one for each person. and one to make kief with.

It's a trade off and only you can decide if it is worth the degradation of your weed.

Tom

 

[Stu]

thanks for the responses. is there a special container you recommend to store kief in? I think I'll get one if its likely to get spoiled in the kief catcher.

I use a mini altoids tin. It's just like the regular altoids tin, but about 1/3 the size - perfect for stashing kief.

 

[iamhemper]

Very simple; the more kief you remove the less left in the bud. I've taken mids and freezer kiefed 1/2 oz. The weed was pretty close to empty by this point, but fiancee took it for rolling joints instead of tobacco. Between us, we've got 3 grinders; one for each person. and one to make kief with.

It's a trade off and only you can decide if it is worth the degradation of your weed.

Tom

ahh..okay..so you can over "kief" the bud until it's pretty low in thc assuming i went nuts on shaking it up. I did grind about 2g of gdp, froze and shook it for about 1 minute and did get way more than if I would have just did the normal grind thing. The herb still seemed okay with the 1 minute kiefing.

 

[Snafu]

my main concern is when you are crunching up your greens and using the coin and shake method you arent just getting trichomes you are also now getting finely ground up plant material that falls through the screen & in your kief.

So why go through effort if you arent really separating the plant from the trichomes?

 

[Beezleb]

The more processing you do the higher the likelihood of having contaminated or lower quality hash.

I recommend using a 4 piece grinder if you want various stages of kief rather than adding a coin and/or freezing the material to a 3 piece in which typically you end up lowering the quality of your kief in the name of bigger yield. All depends what makes one happy at the end of the day.

 

[Snafu]

i am having a hard time sourcing a nice 5 piece (with different sized screens) all i have found are either just 2 screens with the same micron or a 5 piece that is unknown quality ...

i had one of the original 5 piece Chromium crushers and liked it but the company used the same micro screen on both screen levels and space case doesnt seem to have a 5 piece and the shit kannistor has screens you could freaking drop beans through , so i guess where are the quality 2.5" - 3" 5 piece grinders?

 

[SmokingElectricity]

i am having a hard time sourcing a nice 5 piece (with different sized screens) all i have found are either just 2 screens with the same micron or a 5 piece that is unknown quality ...

i had one of the original 5 piece Chromium crushers and liked it but the company used the same micro screen on both screen levels and space case doesnt seem to have a 5 piece and the shit kannistor has screens you could freaking drop beans through , so i guess where are the quality 2.5" - 3" 5 piece grinders?

http://www.mixnball.com/shop/herb-grinders/metal-pollen-herb-grinders/double-screen-grinder.html

 

[Snafu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WaNFHukm8M i am still not sure about it but i will consider it and they have a wild 7 piece but for 120 that is a little steep, but thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

 

[iamhemper]

my main concern is when you are crunching up your greens and using the coin and shake method you arent just getting trichomes you are also now getting finely ground up plant material that falls through the screen & in your kief.

So why go through effort if you arent really separating the plant from the trichomes?

Luckily my screen must be a good size because I get almost all kief in my catch. It's all blond and the granularity and consistentcy appears to be keif. I'm trying to decide if having the kief separated is better. I don't think so if I'm vaping A grade bud. But the novelty of pressing kief into a nice hard puck is intriging enough where I purchased a press but it probably won't be getting a lot of time because i just don't get that much keif unless I am trying to kiefing my stuff actively.

I don't use a coin. My grinder came with a plastic triangle that I just use. It's very light and I'm not even sure how much it contributes to knocking off the kief. I just don't really like the idea of having metal on metal bouncing around in my grinder.

 

[iamhemper]

i am having a hard time sourcing a nice 5 piece (with different sized screens) all i have found are either just 2 screens with the same micron or a 5 piece that is unknown quality ...

i had one of the original 5 piece Chromium crushers and liked it but the company used the same micro screen on both screen levels and space case doesnt seem to have a 5 piece and the shit kannistor has screens you could freaking drop beans through , so i guess where are the quality 2.5" - 3" 5 piece grinders?

http://www.mixnball.com/shop/herb-grinders/metal-pollen-herb-grinders/double-screen-grinder.html

Those mix n balls look nice and I would have ordered one but their standard size has been out for a while.