How to acquire your plant matter for blasting your concentrate

     This is what I have always done, and this cycle has allowed me to have my "medicine" consistently year-around. If I smoke a reasonable amount and don't way overdo it (way overdoing it is what I'm the best at) I don't have to buy anything THC products: dabs, flower, vape cartridges, extract or edibles at all. The only things I have to buy are butane, sometimes a new globe and nail or new banger, soil, nutrients, sometimes new pieces, just to simplify it I only have to ever buy equipment but never the product. This is by far WAY cheaper than making trips to the dispensary or to a local plug. It's the difference between spending about $200 in a whole year or $200 a month (maybe even a week).

     Alright so my year cycling begins in March because that's when I start ordering my seeds and decide what I'm going to grow that year. I'll use 2020 as my example: I was living at that time in Massachusetts, Cape Cod to be precise. It's a small town called Chatham and my ex-girlfriend, and I were in a winter rental. That year I ordered in September but only high yielding auto flowers. That year was the exception to the March start because it's freezing there and autos indoor is your only option until June when your plants can survive a night. I bought coco medium (3cu yds for about $40), and I bought 3 high efficiency, full spectrum, LED grow lights (they were approx. $25 each)(from Amazon), I did non-organic that time but even so I was running Fox Farm nutrients which I bought on Ebay (was a 3 bottle system veg, to flower, to ripen and cost under $33), I also bought colloidal silver, Super Thrive (under $12), sea kelp additive (about $14) , 1 digital PH tester ($11), a TDS tester($6), a digital scale($7), smart pots(five 10 gal bags for $30), and small desk fans (garage sale $2). (All of that up to the end ran me about $220, but much of that was either one time purchase or lasts a long time). Then the seeds I bought from 420 Fast Buds. I bought high yield, fast finish autoflowers. I would grow my plants, harvest, do a rough trim of fan leaves (while still wet) and discard those, trim the bigger sugar leaves and save them, dry out the herb and the trim in separately, do the more manicured trim (this is called a hybrid trim.), cure both my flower and my trim in separate containers, and then after a minimum cure of 2 weeks I would smoke the bud for the next 2 months or so. When that was almost gone, I would blast the trim. People think you need to use your buds for blasting your dabs but the trim works great. It also turns something that you have little use for into something incredible! You can also use it to make edibles, but I vote dabs are way better! I would blast 35g of trim and get back 5-7g of dabs. Then you just start the whole process again.    

     I'm not saying blasting trim is the only way to fill your extractor. You can also put big, beautiful totally smokable buds in there. It's just that I feel like that is a total waste. Because if you have great buds then you can have great rosin! I'll blog about that soon. 

    Those are your options for DIY BHO: trim or buds. If you're a mega baller, then just go to the dispensary and spend $3,000+ on tons of top shelf buds to put in there and your product will be fire af! But for the rest of us who arent pro athletes trim makes bomb budder or crumble. You can present your dabs that you made with trim to any serious stoner and he(she) will be blown away by how great it is especially after you tell them you used trim. 

Safety Precautions

 These safety precautions are to insure that you can enjoy a fun, scientific hobby that yields you high quality rewards for minimal effort and cost but you get to live to do it again. If this is not done with the utmost safety you could be injured with 3rd degree burns, your house could burn down, you and perhaps multiple people could be killed. Always check local laws regarding this and only do it in areas that it is legal. 

1. You want to find somewhere OUTSIDE where you are hidden from the view of your neighbors but is well ventilated. Like inside a storage shed is a terrible place. A mildly windy day is best. If can put your back to a fence away from your house that's perfect if you aren't confined in any way. If you're near a sensor light make sure you don't do it at a time in the day where it could turn on because it could cause an explosion.  

2. The most dangerous parts of this are when you are filling your extractor with butane and when its evaporating out of your Pyrex dish. So before you do anything retrieve a small desk fan, an extension cord, and duct tape. You want to plus the extension cord in somewhere inside your house, have a closed door separating you from where you plugged in, and run it outside to where you will be. If that's not an option find an outside outlet that is at least 50 feet away to plug into and run your cord to your blasting station.

3. Plug your fan into the cord and wrap the connection of the two cords in duct tape so that its sealed from any possible chance of butane getting inside. If there are any exterior outlets that are live and exposed cover them with duct tape.

4. Position your fan so that it is just to the left or right of you and facing up and away from you on full blast directly over the Pyrex dish. Two fans is way better but you can manage with one. 

5. Use way overly cautious common sense. (I've blasted over 20 times and nothing has ever happened and that's because I'm extremely anal about safety).

6. Make sure everyone around you who could possibly ruin it knows what you're doing and read this to them so that they fully understand that this is no joke and could be life threatening if these precautions aren't followed exactly. Ways that other people could "f@@k" you over include: coming out and lighting a cigarette, turn an exterior light on, open the door leading into the house.

7. If you have dogs or toddlers definitely don't let them be able to be around you at all because they could step in it, distract you, or just cause unnecessary mayhem.

8. This maybe is over the top but your body carries static electricity and it potentially could cause a tiny arc that could ignite the butane gas. So its super easy to discharge yourself. You just touch something that is grounded out. Like before you begin hold a coin and touch it to a metal bucket or whatever metal object is near you. Also don't wear rubber soled shoes and wear cotton clothes. It definitely is something that could happen. At some gas stations there is a warning that says to discharge first if you have to grab the pump handle before it shuts itself off.

If you go over safety two or three times and you are thorough about it you will have nothing to worry about. I want people to enjoy this awesome hobby as I have and not get hurt in the process.  

 

Introduction checklist

I've made BHO dabs on different budgets and had great success no matter what as long as I followed a few basic rules.  

1. Safety first because if you aren't careful this can result in serious injury, massive damage to your residence, or even death. So before you start always make sure you have double checked everything. And most importantly make sure everyone in your direct vicinity knows what you are doing (unless they are unsupportive narcs) and you tell them not to come near you, not to light a flame, or spark of any kind. Including turning on a light near you. 

2. Having the "must have" equipment: extractor, butane, at least one fan, duct tape, double boiler pan, Pyrex baking dish, a metal scaping rod, a razor blade, parchment paper, and flower or trim. 

3. Having the "not as critical" equipment: vacuum purge, heat pad, temperature gauge, heat gun, and silicone pad.

4. Always try to learn as much as you can so you can improve your quality/yield. For example lets say you decide that you are going to chop your plant material super fine because you think the butane is going to be more equally distributed while you're blasting (I thought that and tried it once). Yes, that is true but too much chlorophyll gets extracted as well and it comes out super green colored and tastes terrible.