11-10-2019 09:00:10 - Updated: 11 October, 2019
You’ve probably heard of people smoking a joint or a Kief blunt, and you probably said, What is Kief? Don’t worry, in this post we decode all the secrets of this mysterious product.
โญ What’s the Kief?
Kief is the product resulting from the mechanical extraction of cannabis trichomes. It is a concentrate that is obtained accumulating the dry resin of cannabis. Kief comes from the Arabic word “Kaif”, which translated means “taste” or “pleasure”, therefore the definition of Kief is something like “cannabis pollen that gives pleasure“.
Kief, when freshly taken out, is usually light in colour, and is called Kief blond or green, produced in the Reef region in northern Morocco. This area is the main producer of Hashish of the world, and although they did not invent the method, the Kief of the Reef is considered like the best hash of the planet, especially when they make several filtrates.
Where does the Kief come from?
The technique of dry extraction of marijuana powder comes from Asia, specifically from the northern part of India, where its people separated the resin from the dried cannabis plants with the help of a cloth sieve. This sieve contains very small holes, large enough for trichomes to pass through, but the biggest pieces of plant material are trapped in the sieve.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were many Hippy travellers who went to India among many other smoker destinations. In these trips they collected seeds from the producing countries they passed through, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India or Nepal among others. In addition to seeds, in some of the trips they discovered the method of extraction of the Kief that was used in Asia, and they soon exported it to the north of Morocco.
๐ How to make Kief from marijuana?
Nowadays there are different ways to produce pure Kief in a simple way. The most comfortable is the Kief extractor, or dry cleaner, which is a container that inside has a drum covered by a mesh that rotates on its axis. The dry marijuana is placed inside the drum, which when it begins to spin removes the plant material, which releases the resin and filters through the sieve, remaining the Kief in the container. The more time spinning more Kief is obtained, but with less quality.
A similar technique is used with the Kief box, or box to make dry hashish. This box is separated by several chambers, the upper screen contains holes that filter the trichomes, which are trapped in the lower chamber. And you might ask yourself, What size or micron on the screen do I need to make Kief? Well, that depends on the quality and quantity you want to get, the smaller the holes the less quantity but the more quality. You also have to take into account the time and intensity of the rounds.
Another simple method is with the Kief bags, which are actually extraction meshes for making hash with ice or Ice-o-lator, specifically the bag of 120, 150 or 160 microns. In this case we put a smooth tray to collect the resin, put the dried cannabis in the mesh and shake carefully so that the trichomes that filter fall into the tray.
You also have the possibility of producing Kief with a Shaker, which is a container similar to a conservation jar, but inside contains a small screen with holes. It works similar to the box extractor, but in this case we put the plant material and beat by hand. If you’re making Kief and you prefer quantity to quality, you have the option of introducing a small coin, which will help grind the marijuana and make the resin easier to release.
How to pick up Kief?
Both with the extractor and with the box or the meshes, Kief will be accumulated on a tray. Ideally, the entire tray should be cleaned with the help of a credit card or scraper, collecting all the dust in the middle. Once we have everything together, with the help of the card we take it out little by little and carefully put it in a silicone container or similar. With the Shaker it is even simpler, the lower chamber is unscrewed to facilitate the process of collecting the kief.
โ What to do with Kief?
The uses of Kief are quite varied, you can press it to make hash from Kief, smoke it or vaporize it directly or prepare it for cooking. If you choose the first option you should know that in the market there are presses for kief at a spectacular price, the resin is introduced and with the help of pressure is compacted until it becomes like a coin.
This concentrate is very versatile, unlike other extractions such as BHO or Ice-o-lator, Kief can be smoked or vaporized instantly. This is one of the many advantages it has over other extractions, although it also has its drawbacks, as if you want to get a high purity product you have to rescreen or re-filter several times.
Rosin tech Kief
Lately it is the most common use for this form of extraction, making rosin with Kief is in vogue and it is not casual, as it is one of the most fast, comfortable and safe ways to get a high quality cannabis concentrate. It can be considered as a form of Kief refining, as if it were dry refiltered with the extractor method.
Pressing Kief to get Rosin
For this method it is necessary to have filters where the Kief is placed, otherwise it can contaminate the rosin. We put the Kief in the mesh or filter, cover everything with baking paper and prepare the press at 90ยบ C.
When it reaches the temperature we introduce everything and give pressure for 1 minute and a half to about 10 tons. Return with this method is very high, depends on the purity of the raw material, but usually exceeds 50% of the initial weight.
๐ฏ How do I smoke Kief? Ways to consume your extract
The best way to smoke Kief, or more accurately, the most widespread way, is to mix it with tobacco, as if you made a joint of hashish, but in this case you would be smoking Kief. It is also possible to be mixed with cannabis, but normally it is smoked mixed. If you are wondering if you can smoke Kief without weed or tobacco the answer is yes, but if it is not very pure will leave a lot of residue in the saucepan.
Vaping Kief
Another way of consuming this cannabic extraction is vaporized. In the market you have available several vaporizers that have a coupler specially designed to work with concentrates, one of the best ones is Pax 3 in our humble opinion.
More information here
Vaporizer Pax 3
Cooking with Kief
If you’re already seeing yourself gorging on kief with your favorite candies, first of all you must decarbox the kief. If you are not sure how to do it, I recommend you to read this article that talks about the decarboxylation of cannabis.
Once the Kief is activated, our favorite way of eating it is with Kief butter, that is, making butter with our decarboxylated concentrate, and then adding it to other recipes or eating it directly, for example with a toast. Be careful when you eat foods that contain marijuana, remember that it takes quite some time to work, wait at least an hour before re-dosing.
๐ฅ Power and effect of Kief
In the category of cannabis extractions, the normal homemade Kief in terms of power would be at the lower end of the classification, only ahead of Charas in my opinion, but below BHO, Ice-o-lator or Rosin among others. It is quite different if we talk about refined Kief, which after several screen sessions, when we look at it with a microscope we only see glandular buds.
The kind of effect depends on the variety that comes from, the classic producing countries work with Indicas and hybrids with Indica dominance.
๐ง Best varieties to make Kief
The genetics that have the largest trichomes are the Indicas, some of them are cultivars selected generation by generation for their quality and quantity of Kief. Many of the successful commercial varieties today come from some of these pure strains.
- Afghanistan
- Pakistan
- India
- Lebanon
๐พ Main Kief producing countries
- The Mazar i Shariff area in Afghanistan produces one of the best in the world with this method, and the final product after pressing is black and very powerful.
- In the Bekaa valley (Lebanon) they work with a less potent genetics, but they get a tasty concentrate with a special effect, the Lebanese Red.
- In the north of India make Charas and also Kief, the most famous are the Parvatti Valley and Manali, but there are many of high quality.
- In Pakistan they also produce a good and great deal, and on the border between India and Pakistan another of the best in the world is made, the Kashmir.
Although there are other producing countries we are going to finish this review with Morocco, the main one, which a few years ago was already one of the best although its genetics was not very good, but for some years now feminized seeds of all kinds of commercial and bulk varieties have been arriving in the Reef valley, and currently Kief is being made from many well-known strains.
– Extraction and filtration of marijuana resin
– Ketama, the cradle of the best hash in the world
– Weed decarboxylation, all you need to know
– Charas: a psychoactive delicatessen
๐ฌ Tips for getting the best Kief
From our point of view it is best to go through a 150 micron screen, and then do 2 re-sieves with a 90 micron screen. With the help of a card or similar extends the Kief throughout the screen, without squeezing, little by little, the smaller dust falling down than the holes but the trichomes get trapped.
This way the return is obviously lower, but the quality has nothing to envy to other extractions. The Kief that is dismissed can be put together and go through the rosin press, will come out little but at least it is used. It can also be used for cooking.
If you know other methods or tricks to make Kief tell us, and if you liked the post share it so other people know about it too.