If you love weed and haven't had your head in the sand for the last few years, surely you've heard of shatter. Maybe you've even toked the stuff. If you have, you know it's awesome.

But how do you make shatter? There are a number of different methods for extracting the resinous trichomes from cannabis plant matter, but for simplicity's sake, we'll stick to the popular "BHO" (butane hash oil) method.

Concentrate extraction methods

Cannabis extraction techniques vary by manufacturers, but they generally fall into two camps: Solvent-based and solventless extraction methods for concentrates. Solvent-based methods utilize solvents such as butane, propane, carbon dioxide (CO2) and ethanol to dissolve the cannabinoids and terpenes from the plant matter.

Solventless extraction methods bypass the need for harsh solvents. Instead, solventless extraction uses sifting techniques with fine mesh screens or heat and pressure from a pressing machine to extract the plant's trichome resin. Solventless extraction methods can produce flavorful extracts such as rosin, bubble hash, kief and hash.

Each extraction method offers its own pros and cons, but butane and propane are the most common solvent types used to make high-quality shatter due to their ability to strip the plant's psychoactive compounds in a fast and effective manner. Butane and propane also are able to produce a wide range of concentrate consistencies.

how to make shatter

We are going to walk you through everything you need to know about how to make BHO using butane solvent extraction. To start, keep in mind that the BHO method tends to be a hazardous process. Making shatter indoors is a terrible idea and stands a decent chance of blowing your house off its foundation. But BHO can be done in relative safety if thorough caution is used.

What you will need

The first step to making shatter is to gather your supplies. You'll need:

  1. an ounce of uncut marijuana
  2. an "extraction tube"
  3. at least one butane canister
  4. a coffee filter
  5. an electric range and double boiler
  6. a Pyrex dish to collect the shatter
  7. strips of parchment paper
  8. single-edged razor blades

How to make shatter


With all your required supplies to hand, grind your weed and let it sit for a while. You want it to be dry, not too fresh. If you pack an ounce into the extractor and spray it with a full 12-ounce canister of butane, you should get roughly 3.5 grams of shatter. This amount of concentrate you produce will depend on how laden with crystals the buds are; some BHO extractors get up to 20% yield.

Step 1.  Fill the extractor with ground marijuana

To continue making shatter, fill the extractor with pot. These "honey oil" extractors can be purchased at most head shops, but you can also make one yourself. Be sure the weed is packed tight, but not too tight. You don't want air pockets, but you want the butane to saturate all the marijuana.

Step 2.  Saturate marijuana with butane

One end of the extractor should have a small hole, the other a cap with several holes and an internal filter. Store-bought extractors come with a filter, but coffee filters also work for DIY. To make your concentrated marijuana, carefully and slowly spray the butane through the top hole until the canister is empty. A thick green-gray-brown oil should drip from the bottom holes into your Pyrex container.

If you want to know how to make marijuana wax without destroying your home at the same time, listen up. This part is absolutely essential: Spray the butane outdoors, with ample ventilation, as far as possible from any buildings, vehicles, or other potential sources of ignition. Even a hidden pilot light could spark an explosion, and you definitely don't want that.

Step 3.  Evaporate off the butane

The next step in making shatter can also be rather dangerous. Fill your double boiler and put it on a hot electric range. Make sure it's electric: Use a gas stove and you're liable to start a fire. Now place the Pyrex container in the top portion of the boiler and let the liquid evaporate. This gradually removes the butane, leaving you with true shatter.

making bho

It's important to make sure you boil all the solvent away when you make shatter – otherwise you could end up smoking a product still tainted by butane, and that's bad for your lungs, not to mention potentially explosive. You'll know the process is finished when the shatter stops bubbling.

Step 4.  Purge remaining butane

At this point, you're left with a thick, amber shatter with trace amounts of butane, and many feel that the solvent must be further purged before consumption. This can be done using a pressurized vac pump, and our grower's process goes like this.

"We vacuum purge all concentrates to remove the remaining traces of liquid butane.  We do this using a 3 cfm one-stage vac pump (don't waste your time with two-stage units). The BHO is placed in a thin layer on a glass dish inside the chamber, and the air and butane are sucked out through the pump. It is important to have a gauge that shows you the temperature inside the chamber to avoid burning off the oil."

After the vacuum purge operation, you will have removed almost all traces of butane from your cannabis oil, leaving you with a pure, flavorsome product.

Step 5.  Scrape and store

Finally, use a razor blade to scrape the potent concentrates off the bottom of the container and place it on parchment paper to cool. You may need more than one razor to scrape up your full-extract cannabis oil, as they can become hopelessly sticky.

And that, in a word, is how to make THC wax. The only thing left to do now is smoke it!

How to consume shatter

Shatter can be consumed in a variety of ways. One of the most common ways to consume shatter is though dabbing with a dab rig. When dabbing, you add a small amount of concentrate to a hot nail and inhale the vapor through a dab rig's mouthpiece.

You can get started by purchasing a dab rig, a quartz nail, a dabber to break apart the shatter, and a carb cap to get those flavorful low-temp dabs. You'll also need either a torch or an eNail for heating the nail. Why not add some terp pearls and quartz inserts into the mix for good measure?

There are also ways that dabs can be consumed without a rig. Shatter can be consumed using a portable vape pen, one that's been specifically designed for dabs.

Shatter can also be infused into any edible or meal if you first infuse it into butter or oil. Cooking shatter, however, can expose your concentrate to high temperatures that can make you lose out on some of the terpenes.

Finally, you can add bits of shatter on top of your bowl packed with flower or inside of a joint. Keep in mind, these methods can degrade the taste and flavor of your shatter. On the plus side, you get an extra kick of potency to your flower strain.

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