What is Kief?
Kief, also known as dry sift or pollen, comes from the part of the plant known as trichomes. Trichomes are like little hairs that can be found on most species of plants. Some plants use trichomes to attract pollinators, while others rely on them to deter herbivores and other threats.
On the cannabis plant, these trichomes are full of the terpenes and cannabinoids that are believed to contribute to the plant’s therapeutic qualities. Kief is produced by sifting flower through layers of fine mesh screens, without using any solvents for extraction.
The resulting material is highly potent and rich in terpenes with a consistency that is almost like sifted flour or finely ground sand. If you’re familiar with cannabis accessories, you’ve probably come across personal grinders or kief boxes for collecting at home. But why bother when we can do it for you?
How Do I Use It?
Kief is typically meant to be inhaled. It can be used on its own, or along with other dry flower products or concentrates.
Just like dry flower, kief works its magic and gives you its desired effect when it is heated (this is why you should never try to eat pure kief). Most people prefer to consume kief by using a dry flower vaporizer. Kief is also commonly used to make canna-butter at home, or combined with concentrates like distillate or wax and dry flower to create a more potent product.
If you don’t want to go full mad scientist in your kitchen, simply sprinkle some kief on top of ground flower in a joint or bowl.
Collecting Kief’s Compounds: Trichomes
Trichomes are small glands on cannabis flowers that hold most of the plant’s cannabinoids and terpenes. Collecting these trichomes is crucial in producing hash or concentrates. There are a few ways to effectively collect trichomes, like dry sifting, ice water extraction, or a pollen press. When trichomes are separated from the plant and dry, they become kief.
Dry sifting is the process of shaking or rubbing cannabis flowers over a screen. This separates the tiny trichomes from the larger plant material, as they fall through the screen to be collected and pressed into hash.
Ice water extraction uses ice-cold water to freeze the trichomes on the plant material. Agitating this mixture breaks the trichomes off and they sink to the bottom of the container. They can then easily be filtered out and dried to make hash.
Using a pollen press creates high quality hash by collecting trichomes and pressing them into a solid block using a specialized tool. This hash is easily stored and transported.
Catching Crystals with a Grinder
There’s one other method for collecting kief is through a standard flower grinder, the tool that breaks cannabis buds down into a finer consistency.
Many grinders have a screen with a second chamber below the main grinding chamber. As you twist the tool back and forth to grind up your dried flower, the trichomes will fall off and collect in the lower chamber.
Grinders without a “kief catcher” like this will leave a kief dust behind in between the grinding spokes, but for maximizing your kief collection, it’s best to have a grinder with a screen.
Once you’ve collected your own kief, you can sprinkle it on cannabis, mix it into edibles, or press it into hash. Kief can provide a stronger high compared to regular cannabis buds. It is a potent substance made up of the cannabis plant’s most powerful compounds.
The Key to Concentrates
No matter how you use it, kief is a great way to get started in the world of cannabis concentrates. People who are accustomed to smokable flower may find kief to be a more familiar product than shatter, wax or distillate.
Kief is made from the most terpene and cannabinoid-rich part of the plant, so it's generally more powerful than using just flower alone. If you have a preferred strain of flower, it’s likely that you’ll experience similar effects when consuming the kief produced by that strain.
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