How to Store Bubble Hash to Preserve Product Quality

Storing bubble hash correctly is essential to preserving the clarity, terpenes, and flavor of your extract until you're ready to press it or sell it to dispensaries. An inadequate storage environment will quickly lead to oxidation, terpene loss, and a darkening of your extract—ruining the results of your hard work and undermining your reputation with customers.

Naturally, the drying process you use before storing your bubble hash (AKA ice water hash) will make a huge difference to its shelf-life and the storage conditions required to keep its cannabinoid and terpene profiles intact. Optimizing each step in the production process will ensure that your ice water hash is still as aromatic and potent when it's sold (or pressed) as it was when it was extracted.

Tips for Storing Bubble Hash

These recommendations will help you keep your bubble hash fresh until it's pressed, sold, or dabbed.

1. Make Sure It's Completely Dry 

After making bubble hash, always dry it before storing it. Storing wet hash is a recipe for mold and bacterial growth, as the moisture content will cause condensation to form inside the container.

If you're making this extract commercially, we always recommend drying bubble hash with a freeze dryer rather than air drying it in a cold room. Not only is it much quicker, but you can dry the hash to the precise humidity level you want—usually less than 8% or 9% total moisture.

2. Keep the Extract Cold

Once it's properly dried, it's best to keep your bubble hash in the freezer or fridge. This will prevent it from greasing up before it's pressed, sold, or dabbed. Cold temperatures will also help to preserve the terpenes and prevent them from degrading over time.

3. Use an Airtight Container

It's essential to keep ice water hash in an airtight container like a mason jar or vacuum-sealed glass jar to prevent air exchange and oxidation. Use a jar that's only slightly bigger than the extract so that there's not too much air in the jar.

4. Protect the Container from Light

Cannabis concentrates like bubble hash degrade faster than cannabis flower when exposed to light. To prevent this from happening, keep your bubble hash in a dark place. Again, a freezer is ideal. You can also protect your extract from light by using a dark-colored container or by placing the first container inside a second dark-colored container.

5. Allow the Container to Come to Room Temperature Before Opening It

Once you're ready to press your (dried) bubble hash into hash rosin or dab it directly, take the containers out of the freezer and wait for them to come to room temperature—this takes around 15 minutes—before opening the lid. If you open the containers immediately after removing them from the freezer, condensation can form and potentially ruin your hash.

How Long Can You Store Bubble Hash?

When it's stored properly, ice water hash can retain its original terpene profile for several months with negligible (if any) degradation. If you leave it out at room temperature, however, you can expect it to last for around a week.

As a cannabis concentrate manufacturer, it’s important to keep in mind that several weeks could pass from the time that you start making bubble hash to the time that a customer will purchase it and dab it. Many customers won't dab the entire amount right away, either, so it's important to make sure it's still as fresh and potent at the moment of sale as it was when it was originally made.

Packaging Considerations for Ice Water Hash

Packaging and storing hash correctly for a retail setting is just as important as it is to store it correctly before it hits the shelves. If you're selling your five- or six-star bubble hash as-is (without pressing it), you'll need to protect the product from light, air, heat, and contamination in the dispensary, while meeting all of the labeling requirements that apply in your state.

• In-store freezers. If you're serious about quality, consider providing dispensaries with small branded freezers that they can use to store and display your bubble hash. Making these with a glass door—similar to the ice cream freezers in a supermarket—ensures that customers can see the products clearly and might be motivated to make a purchase. Keeping your hash frozen until purchase also helps to ensure that your customers will enjoy high-quality dabs when they get home—even if they don't store the hash properly after taking a few initial hits.

• Double containment. To protect your solventless extracts from light, consider designing packaging that features an inert material like glass on the inside, with a dark-colored container made from food-grade metal or recyclable plastic on the outside. You can add all of the relevant labels and branding to the outer container while keeping the ice water hash safe from contamination and light.

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  Cold transport. Cold transportation between your facility and dispensaries is the final link in the cold chain. Prevent your bubble hash from melting or "greasing up" before it reaches dispensaries by transporting it in a well-insulated freezer truck.

If you’re pressing your bubble hash into rosin before sale, please refer to our article on the topic of how to store rosin. The process will be similar except that refrigeration (rather than freezing) is usually enough. 

Correct Storage Ensures the Most Potent and Aromatic Result

Bubble hash is considered the crème de la crème in the world of solventless extracts, because—if you've used high-quality starting material and the right hash washing equipment—you should have almost 100% pure trichome heads and little to no plant material at all.

Moreover, if you start with fresh-frozen cannabis flowers, you can make live bubble hash and press it into live rosin for an extremely flavorful dabbing experience. And as long as it's stored correctly from beginning to end, you should be able to sell your extracts for a premium price.