What to Do With Those Pressed Pucks After the Rosin Extraction?
Every time you press rosin, you are left with a puck or squished filter that still has some uses. You may notice there is some residual rosin left on the filter, and sometimes on the puck of buds. That means there is still some oil left to extract.
Sometimes you want to further extract more vapable rosin, other times you want to make cannabutter for edibles. We will discuss both!
For vapable rosin, the pucks can be re-pressed. Re-pressing your pucks can yield some worthwhile rosin, especially if you press at lower temperatures on your first squish. This is a common practice for many rosineers as they want the best product on the first run, allowing a second squish of that puck for a second grade of rosin. You can repress the puck on a second run at 220F, which is the maximum we suggest if you are wanting vapable rosin. You can also repress at 250F to maximize yields, forgoing terpene preservation. To repress your rosin pucks, simply fold them in half over themself and squish the folded puck as you normally would except this time using higher temperatures and pressure compared to the initial press. Repressing pucks does have a risk of getting more contaminant into the rosin, so please keep this in mind if you are looking for dabable rosin.
For edibles, there are a couple of methods. One uses your rosin and the other uses your pressed pucks.
If you want to make quick edibles with your rosin, You can simply place the rosin into a oven safe dish such as a pyrex baking pan (tip: you can line the pan with parchment paper for easier collection). Then insert the pan into a 275F preheated oven and set the timer for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes in the oven, visually inspect the melted rosin for bubbling activity. If it is still bubbling, allow some more time for decarboxylation to complete. Once the bubbling has stopped the rosin is now active and ready to infuse into your edible recipes. We suggest to simply add 1 gram of decarboxylated rosin to 1 or 1-1/2 sticks of melted butter (potency depending) and 1 tsp of sunflower lecithin and wisk together to incorporate completely. We suggest adding your melted butter or oil to the decarboxylated rosin in the pyrex dish to infuse easily. Now you have quick rosin infused cannabutter ready for storage in the fridge or added direct to your recipe as butter is called for.
You can also extract any remaining rosin in the pucks or filters for edibles by boiling the pucks in water with butter. During this process the remaining rosin in the pucks will be heated by the boiling water to release the rosin into the butter. The extraction method is fairly straight forward. We recommend that you weigh your rosin pucks first, and use about 1 ounce of rosin pucks per stick of butter. You will want to take a pot of boiling water (190F), add 1 stick of butter and allow it to melt. You should see that all of the melted butter is now floating on top of the boiling water. Place your rosin pucks (preferably inside of a tied shut filter) and allow the rosin pucks to boil in 190F water for at least 1 hour but up to 2 or longer depending on desired effects. Keep in mind the longer you are decarboxylating and boiling the rosin pucks while infusing into butter, the more sedative the cannabutter will be.
After the extraction is complete, simply allow the butter/water mixture to cool then place in the fridge until the cannabutter layer is solidified completely. Once the cooling is complete, you can take the cannabutter from the water, and move it into it’s own container. Discard water. Your cannabutter is complete! To help increase bioavailability of the extracted cannabinoids it is recommended to melt your cannabuter gently on a stove over low heat (microwave is not recommended), then add in 1 tsp of sunflower lecithin and wisk to incorporate completely. You can now store the cannabutter in the refrigerator or freezer, or add it direct to your recipe as butter is called for.
*Advisory - It is recommended to test the potency of your cannabutter with a small sample such as on a piece of bread. If the cannabutter is too strong for your liking, you can always use only a portion of butter required in the recipe, as cannabutter and then use regular butter for the remainder.
There are other methods of extraction for rosin however they would require the use of solvents such as Ethanol. These solvents should be fine to use for edibles, as they will evaporate and purge during decarboxylation. For dabable rosin we prefer that it come straight off the plates!
Enjoy a variety of methods to reduce waste and maximize yields!
