As a hash maker, you likely already understand the importance of paying attention to detail and making precise measurements. After all, your goal is to create a high-quality product that consistently meets the expectations of your customers. One way to help ensure that you are consistently creating top-notch rosin is by tracking key data points throughout the process.

But why is data tracking so important when it comes to making rosin? Here are a few reasons:

Why data tracking is essential in hash and rosin production

1. Identifying Trends and Patterns: Tracking data over time lets you see how variables such as temperature and pressure influence your rosin yield. You can spot trends and patterns that might not be immediately obvious, enabling you to adjust your process and refine your technique.

2. Making Informed Decisions: Data tracking equips you with the knowledge needed to optimize your process. For instance, you might discover that a higher pressure results in a better yield, or that a specific strain consistently wants a lower temperature when pressing.

3. Troubleshooting Problems: When you get a bag blowout or your rosin doesn't come out as you were hoping, historical data can guide you to the root cause. It allows you to pinpoint where things went off track and prevent similar mishaps in the future.

What Data Points to Track for Better Rosin Yield

Here's a starting point for variables you should be looking at. Each one gets covered in detail below.

• Cultivar info, material type, and cultivation details

• Starting amount and output amount

• Temperature, pressure, and time

• Bag loading technique and parchment flow

• Rosin yield to specific SKUs (comparing input and output)

• Cannabinoid content and terpene analysis

• The color, consistency, smell, flavor, and dabbing experience

Cultivar info, material type, and cultivation detail

Different starting material can produce drastically different results when it comes to making hash and rosin. Factors such as the strain's genetics, growing conditions, and harvest time can all have a massive impact on resin production, head size, and what your rosin looks like. For instance, some strains may yield higher better while others might produce rosin with a more exotic terpene profile.

By tracking this information, you can identify which cultivars and cultivation techniques result in the highest-quality rosin, and also which genetics you can rely on to create unique products that stand out from the crowd.

Starting amount and output amount

Keeping track of the weight of the cannabis material you start with and the weight of the rosin you end up with allows you to calculate your yield. This is the foundation of most data because it lets you determine winning genetics and processing techniques that are feasible to produce again in the future.

This data can help you identify which variables are impacting your yield the most, enabling you to make the necessary adjustments to your process.

Yields are important but they aren't everything -- interesting flavors aren't always the highest yielders or the easiest to grow. But keeping track of your yields allows you to create a feedback loop with your farmer (or yourself) and determine winning cultivars, phenos, and handling.

Temperature, pressure, and time

Plate temperature, pressure, and how you apply that pressure all have an impact on your rosin's consistency and characteristics.

• High temperatures can increase yields and decrease press times, but could be degrading terpenes and cannabinoids that boil off at lower temperatures

• Lower temperatures may introduce less overall heat, but typically results in slower press times and more time that your rosin spends traveling through your bag during extraction

• Hard to say what's better, which is why it's important to track your own data and figure out which variables create the final product you're going for

Grape Cream Cake pressed a little too hot, resulting in a slight buttering right on the plates/parchment, could have been ~10 degrees cooler

By tracking temperature, pressure, and how you're applying that pressure over time, you can tie that in with bag size and qualitative analysis of your final product to dial in your settings for each cultivar.

Directional flow while experimenting with different parchment folding techniques

Your plate size and pump setup will also have an impact on how pressure is applied and in turn, how your rosin comes out. Increasing pressure to quickly can cause a blowout, which has the potential to contaminate your rosin with plant material and slow down your production. Different cultivars and bag setups will call for different pressures.

There's a lot to keep track of. But tracking anything is a starting point and will help you make more informed decisions about your pressing, which will lead to better yields, less time cleaning up, and more accurate expressions of your starting material.

Rosin yield to specific SKUs

This is a nuanced topic that we'll cover in more detail during a future blog post. But here's a quick overview.

Yield calculations are a bit more complicated that simple ins and outs when you're trying to create multiple types of rosin products (cold cure, fresh press, different quality tiers, vapes, etc.)

It's more important to compare specific yields across SKUs. This can be difficult to manage if you're running a lot of different genetics and creating many product types, but it helps you gain critical insight into how your starting material is performing and what products it can be turned into.

Ex. a low yielder isn't valuable at surface level, but if it's all tier 1 rosin then it could be more profitable and efficient to run than a high yielder that only creates tier 3 rosin

By comparing the amount of cannabis input to the amount of rosin output, you can calculate your yield percentage. This metric can help you gauge the efficiency of your process and identify areas where you might be able to improve.

By tracking this information and analyzing it over time, you can gain valuable insights that can help you improve the quality and consistency of your rosin. With the right data tracking tools, you can easily keep track of all of this information and use it to make more informed decisions about your rosin-making process.

In conclusion, data tracking is an essential part of the rosin-making process. By tracking key data points, you can identify trends and patterns, make more informed decisions, and troubleshoot problems. With the right tools and a commitment to tracking data, you can optimize your rosin-making process and create consistently high-quality products.