List of contents
What is hashish?
Hashish is one of the most consumed cannabis concentrates in the world. The easiness of the method to produce it and the quality of the final product make it a true favourite among cannabis users, especially for those who don’t want to use chemical solvents or complicated extraction and purging systems. Hashish is a substance composed of trichomes from the cannabis plant. During the manufacturing process, some other substances can contaminate the resin (plant debris, insects, dust, etc.) which highly determines the quality of the final product. The more contaminants we find in our hash, the darker and less malleable it will be. Logically, the quality of the concentrate is determined by both the quality of the resin and the presence of contaminants. 
There are several techniques for manufacturing hashish: with water and ice (water hash, bubble hash, ice water extraction...), with CO2 or dry ice, dry sieving, etc. In this post we’ll focus on sieving the dried plant material, for which we only need some quality buds, a set of sieves of different microns and a little bit of patience. For this post we used stainless steel sieves, although we can find different options on the market: one of the most practical options are sieving machines like Pollinator or Top Zeef, composed of a rotating sieving drum that automatically moves the plant material and sieves the resin glands.These machines are ideal to perform a first “raw” sieving that we’ll clean - re-sieve - later on. The plant used for this post was Fruity Jack / Jack el Frutero.
How to make dry sieved hashish or dry sift
Cannabis plants produce several types of glands (trichomes), being the capitate stalked trichomes those preferred by connoisseurs. Normally, the size of this type of trichomes ranges from 50 to 150 microns, depending on strains, growing systems, environmental conditions, etc. That gives an idea of the micron size of the sieves that we should use. Also, environmental conditions can greatly facilitate the separation process; the best conditions are cold temperatures and low humidity level. Finally, and as we already mentioned, the quality of the plant material is crucial for getting top grade concentrates. A nice cannabis crop will produce nice concentrates. 
Re-sieving cannabis resin glands, top grade hashish
As we know, glandular trichomes measure approximately 50-160 microns. With our first sieving, we have collected all particles between 0 and 160 microns. If our goal is getting the best possible concentrate, we should use a 50 micron mesh to remove all particles smaller than this size (around 70 microns for the best quality). In this way, we are isolating all glands from 50 to 150/160 microns. Once we have performed this second sieving and have our 50-160 hash, we can repeat the process with the same mesh we used to clean the resin. Simply put the resin on the 50 micron mesh and gently card it using a plastic card. The more you card the resin the cleaner it will be, since you are detaching trichome heads from their stalks, This technique, called carding, works great to get almost only heads and get rid of plant debris, pistils, stalks, etc. If performed properly, the resulting product will be top grade, full melt dry sift, and will leave no residues when dabbed on a nail due to its high purity. 
Hashish terpenes
We have seen how to isolate the highest possible number of glandular trichome heads from the rest of trichomes and contaminants. Still, it must be noted that cannabis contains over 100 mono and sesquiterpenes, so the more we sieve and re-sieve, the more we restrict the terpene profile of the hash. In this way, it may happen that we find a first run (0-160) with better taste than a re-sieved resin. While a re-sieved resin will always be more psychoactive, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will also be more flavourful. As happens many times, it’s all a matter of personal taste. We should then try different drying states, strains, extraction systems, etc. to find out which is our favourite combination of factors. We recommend you to read our post on cannabis and terpenes.
Curing and storing hashish
As happens with cannabis buds, resin also evolves throughout the drying and curing process. If we used cured buds, then curing the resin is not necessary, while if we used buds with few weeks of drying then curing the resin can greatly improve its organoleptic features. Dry sieved resin is normally cured at around 37ºC, putting it in sealed glass jars that will be opened every 2-3 days to renew the air inside the jars. This process, especially if a heat source is used, normally lasts for a few weeks. 
