Hash (also known as hashish) is a little different from other concentrates and can be a little confusing for the newcomer or those already accustomed to other types of marijuana extracts. We talk a lot about the makeup and properties of hashish in our “
” article, but here we want to move toward practical application over conception – By this, we mean how to actually smoke the hash you’ve procured.Thankfully, hash is a very forgiving concentrate and can often be used in various methods applied to both vaporizing cannabis extracts and smoking pure marijuana bud (and yes, you can dab hash too!).
If you’re looking for a low-hassle cannabis concentrate to add into your smoking routine, then hash might just be what you’re looking for – We’ll tell you all the ways to smoke it below.
What Is Hash?
As mentioned above, we give hashish a more in-depth look in our “How to Make Hash” article, but it’s still worth going over some of the basics here just to give some familiarity to what we’ll be talking about.
Hash is a concentrated marijuana product,
; the trichomes of the cannabis plant (the glands with all the cannabinoids and terpenes in them) that have been rubbed off or otherwise stripped away from the marijuana plant. In a way, hash is the most basic and simple of extracts and one that has been around for nearly as long as marijuana has been cultivated by humankind.As a result of the definition of hash being any concentrated trichome product, hash can be found in many forms, including rub – the trichomes that build up on gloves during trimming, or bubble hash – the type of hash produced with ice water.
This simplicity can sometimes bring along a lack of purity – There is often plant matter left behind in hash, meaning that, unlike other concentrates, hashish will not completely “vaporize” when exposed to heat.
Though this plant matter is part of the overall hashish experience, higher-quality hash products will seek to reduce this excess material as much as possible – The more THC and the less plant material a hash has, the softer it will be to the touch, sometimes even malleable between the fingers like a putty.
If your hash is hard and brittle, that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t have a high percentage of THC. Still, generally, the softer the hash, the higher the THC content, and this malleability can be important depending on which of our smoking methods below you choose.
How To Smoke Hash From a Pipe or Bong
One of the benefits of containing so much plant material is that hash is less likely to burn away into nothing when confronted by high temperatures – This makes it the perfect addition to your usual smoking devices such as your favorite pipe or bong.
To smoke hash in a bowl, you’ll likely want to mix it in with some more plant matter; though tobacco is somewhat traditional (more on this below), stirring a bit of hash into a pipe load of cannabis is our recommended way to go.
If your hash is on the drier side, just crumble it up and mix it into the ground-up bud before you load the pipe; the same method works if your hash is sticky, but you’ll want to avoid it making contact with your skin, as the hash will stick and ultimately be wasted. If possible, try to use a pair of tweezers to pinch out small balls or strands of the hash to mix in with your weed – This will help reduce contact/potency loss.
Once you have your device loaded, it’s business as usual – Just grab the lighter and take a puff. You’ll likely notice a difference in taste (and effect) fairly quickly after you inhale the hash smoke.
How to Smoke Hash in a Joint
Hash can also
, though you’ll need to be careful depending on how sticky your hash is. Drier hash for a joint can be mixed into the dried bud just like when using hash in a pipe – Hash that’s more sticky and damp, though, can cause the rolling paper to stick to itself or tear more easily when rolling.To avoid ruining your paper, try to make sure that your balls or strands of hash are completely coated by the marijuana, with no bits left exposed; rolling your bits of hash around inside your grinder can help with this, but take care not to get the inside of your grinder all gunked up.
How to Smoke Hash in a Spliff
We’re listing the spliff separate from the joint because, while similar on the surface, the two options are vastly different in practice, and someone who’s been asked if they want a hit off of a spliff might not be prepared for what’s coming otherwise.
Earlier, we mentioned tobacco being more traditional as a medium for smoking hash; while a “joint” is almost always filled with marijuana as its primary ingredient, a “spliff” is primarily tobacco with some hashish or marijuana bud mixed in.
Tobacco is a cheap, low-cost way of helping to spread out concentrates (and it is often claimed that the inclusion of the tobacco alters the high achieved), but this isn’t a practice that ever caught on much in North America – Expect to see these tobacco-filled spliffs more when traveling through Europe, India, Asia or Australia.
How to Smoke Hash Using a Dab Rig
Moving back toward the modern world, you can dab hash just as well as any other concentrate. If you’re a newcomer to dabbing, we recommend checking out our “
” article for the overview; if you’re an old hand, though, the method is pretty much exactly what you’re used to.
To smoke hash in a dab rig, just follow your usual procedure, heating up your banger/nail to the desired temperature, and then using your dab tool (for solids like this, we recommend tweezers), apply hash to the heated area.
The only difference to note is that since hashish has so much plant material included within, you’ll want to clean your nail or banger after you’re done with the inhale – Residue left behind from the cannabis will eventually burn, giving an unpleasant charred flavor to concentrates smoked down the line. Hash “oil” shouldn’t have these issues with residue.
How to Smoke Hash with a Vaporizer
Like many marijuana concentrates,
is one of the most efficient, effective ways to consume your cannabis product, leading to very little waste and a clean, smokeless high.As
, we recommend checking your unit’s instruction manual to see how (or even if) it recommends using concentrates within. For example, if using a drier hash, then you’re likely good to go even if your vaporizer is primarily intended for use with cannabis flower; if using a wetter, stickier hash, or hash oil, be aware that some units might have screens and filters that will get gunked up when used with oily concentrates.[elementor-template id=”10027348″]
How to Smoke Hash Using Hot Knives
We talk about the “hot knives” trick in
, but it’s such a classic method for smoking hash that we’d be remiss not to go over it here as well.The setup is fairly simple: Take two uncoated metal knives and place a small amount of hash between them. Then take a heat source, such as your lighter, and apply it to the area where the hash is trapped between the metal. You should start seeing smoke appear fairly quickly – That’s what you want to try to inhale.
We use the word “try” because the heated knives technique often ends up with the performer trying to vacuum up the nearby air, looking very silly while most of their hash just escapes out toward the empty sky. Literally, any other method on this list is better than this, so… please try one of those instead.
How to Smoke Hash with a Glass & Pinhead
This method relies on your hash being somewhat softer and malleable, but if you have a particularly dry batch of hash, you can still make it work with a gentle touch.
For this, you’ll need six items: Your hash, a lighter, a straight pin, a piece of cardboard or heavy paper, a glass, and a straw. The methodology is as follows:
- Stick your straight pin through the cardboard and set it upright, with the cardboard serving as a base and the pin’s point facing upward.
- Take a small bit of your hash and mold it around the head of the pin; again, softer hash works better here but dry hash can be used if you take your time sticking it to the pin’s tip.
- Grab your glass and lighter. Using the lighter apply flame to the hash until it begins to smoke, then quickly place the glass over it, the pin, and the piece of cardboard – Take care here the pin doesn’t fall over when the glass is placed over the top.
- Once a large amount of smoke has built up ether tilt the glass back slightly or drag it to the edge of your work surface; insert the straw into the bottom of the glass and begin inhaling the smoke from within.
Much like the hot knives method, this leaves a bit to be desired in terms of not losing smoke to the outside air but can work in a pinch. We still think there are better methods for smoking hash on this list, though, and recommend trying other ways of consuming your hash if available.
Eating Hash as an Edible
Though maybe not entirely true to the article’s title, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention
, as hash is one of the easiest ways to add cannabis goodness to whatever treat you happen to be making.In many articles on our site, such as our piece on “
“, we talk about the importance of decarboxylation and making an extract from your marijuana before using it in any kind of cooking application. Well, if you have hash, congrats – Odds are you have a ready-to-use extract, perfect for adding into any type of edible you prefer.Most hash (though not all) is made after going through a decarbing process before extraction – This means that, unlike raw marijuana, most hash does not need to be further activated to be usable and can be added straight to any recipe you may have (or even eaten out-right).
Getting precise doses of THC this way may prove to be a bit tricky, but you can likely rest assured the end result will fall on the “strong” end of the scale. Just make sure your hash is of the decarbed sort – Hash made with pure kief in
is not likely to be decarbed, for example, so know what you’re cooking with first.There are many different ways to smoke hash, and this article is really just covering the basics/most popular methods available. We definitely recommend staying away from ways to smoke hash that doesn’t involve some fashion of closed system (pipe, joint, vaporizer, etc.), lest you see all your precious hash disappearing into thin air.
Just remember: Hash is potent, powerful stuff, so approach it with the same caution you would a dab or any other concentrates – A little bit can go a very long way. Happy smoking!