Best Rosin Press Plates for DIY Pressing Rosin

Building a do-it-yourself rosin press is easier than it sounds.

That's why many choose to make their own press at home rather than buy a dedicated model.

You can save a good amount of money, even if you buy a set of pre-fabricated heated plates and don't make that component yourself.

You can save more if you also build your own plates, but we don't feel doing so is worth the effort for most people.

If you have the tools needed to cut and drill metal, then it might make sense for you.

For the rest of us, it's much easier to simply buy a set of DIY plates that come pre-fabricated and include the heating elements and controller needed to heat the plates to the correct temperature. By the way, choosing a best rosin press machine can help you more!

Rosin is just plain great! It’s impressive, fun to make, and even more fun to use. However, before you start on your rosin making journey, there are a few important pieces of information you should know:

1. Rosin is weed intensive. It takes a bunch of weed to do, and if you’re lucky with a high-quality hydraulic press and a cooperative strain, you’ll get 25% of your weed-weight back as rosin. In my experience, a hair straightener should return between 5%-10% while a non-hydraulic press (like the one I use in this tutorial) will get you 8%-17% That number can get a little higher or a lot lower and that largely depends on your rosin press, your technique, and the weed you start with. Some strains will make lots of rosin, and some will make very little. Seriously, your weed will make a huge difference in determining how much rosin you can press out of it.
   
   
   
   1. If you harvest lots of weed at a time like with this method, you can make rosin without much worry.
   
   
   
   


2. Making rosin involves high levels of heat. Be careful not to burn yourself during the process of pressing, no matter which method you use.


3. You will have to experiment a bit. Although you can use the default settings provided below, you’ll do even better if you test out different strains, temperatures and length of pressing time.

• Trim: 3% - 8%


• Shake: 8% - 15%


• Flower: 15% - 30%


• Kief / Dry Sift: 30% - 60%+


• Bubble Hash / Hash: 30% - 70%+

*Figures are rough estimates

Pressing flowers will give you the best quality rosin but not necessarily the best yields. Generally, strains that are frostier on the inside when you break the bud in the middle are the best ones for making rosin.

When pressing flowers, try to go with the smaller nugs since they have more surface area, the more surface area means more travel for the rosin as it is being pressed.  

Pressing kief or hash, on the other hand, will give you great quality and decent yields.

Temperature is key to making good rosin! A good rule of thumb to remember is:

• Lower temperatures (190°F- 220°F) = more flavor/terpenes, less yield, end material is more stable (butter-like/honey consistency


• Higher temperatures (220°F- 250°F) = less flavor/terpenes, more yield, end material is less stable (sap-like consistency)

Bearing these in mind, if your press is more than capable of delivering the right pressure, we don't recommend you going higher than 250°F.

While it's tempting to go out to build or buy a rosin press with the highest capacity, science has shown that higher pressure does not necessarily equate to higher yields.

Sometimes the higher pressure can, in fact, produce less desirable results because the increase in pressure actually forces less desirable materials such as lipids and other fine particles into your rosin.

Our friends at Pure Pressure broke the science down to a tee on this on their blog if you want to read more about it.

The time it takes to produce rosin varies depending on the material, a strain that you’re using and if there’s enough pressure

Use the timetable below as a starting point to determine how long you should be pressing based on your starting material. 

If you’re unfamiliar with rosin extraction, it’s the process of squeezing resinous sap from a natural flower such as cannabis or hemp. There are many benefits to this, such as creating a product that has a higher potency, better value, and more versatility – a broad range of consumable products can be developed from this rosin. 

The quality of your rosin will depend very much on the quality of your starting product. Most people take great care over developing an excellent starting material through sophisticated growing and harvesting methods. For best results, flowers need to be grown in the right conditions and cultivated at their peak – frozen if possible to maintain potency . The same process you might use for harvesting a fruit or vegetable.

When you have your initial product you need to follow the process of pressing it to create the rosin. First weigh the flower on a set of scales. When you press, roughly speaking, you get around 20% yield by weight ratio. So if you press one gram of flower you can expect to get 0.2 grams of rosin.

Remove the stems of the flower and pack the buds. It’s best to use a compressor tube. Compress the flower so you have a tightly packed tablet-shaped material. Compressed flower is then wrapped in parchment material and placed in Dab Press. The heat plates apply heat and pressure to the compressed flower squeezing the potent oil onto the parchment.

The process takes less than a minute. You will end up with a squashed flower with the sticky yellow rosin all around it. This can then be scraped up and molded.

ECO Farm 4"x7" Rosin Extractor Rosin Press Plate Kit

Features & Details

• 【PRODUCT PARAMETER】- 4" x 7" Plate Size, Power: 1200W, Piston Ram of Hydraulic Press You Prepare: < 2.16" (55 mm) diameter, Plate Material: 6061 aluminum.


• 【PREMIUM QUALITY】- The rosin press plates kit adopts the 6061 aluminum heat plate, light, strong, and own excellent heat transfer to achieve a better working result.


• 【EASY TO OPERATE】- This rosin press plates 4 x 7 is set up already, move on to the hydraulic press, then plug and play. More than 6,000 times the service of heating rods. 


• 【COMPLETE ACCESSORIES】- Rosin press plates kit (top & bottom) with dual temp sensors and four heating rods, one piece of double PID controller, manual included.


• 【MULTIPLE APPLICATION】-The rosin press is applicable with any hydraulic machine up to 20 tons with 2.16" diameter ram or less. Able to pair with A/H frame presses.

Dabpress 3x5 DIY Caged Rosin Press Kit

Features:

• 10mm-thickness Insulatior - SGS certified food grade Insulation, heats up to 200F about 4-5 minutes and protects the hydraulics from overheating.


• M8 Size Threads In Bottom Platen - The cage can be secured on the hydraulic press for safety; No bottom plate holder included.


• 3x5" Heated Platens - 3x5" size platen suited to squeeze 3.5-28g materials at a time.


• Food-grade Working Surface - Dual heated platens made of anodized 6061 aluminum guaranteed to clean up easily.


• Accurate Temp Detected - Separated thermocouples and heating rods detect and deliver an accurate temperature.


• Long Working Life Guaranteed - The heating rods have a service life of more than 6,000 times.

Final thoughts

Pressing your own rosin and getting to grips with the entire process is both fun and massively rewarding. Choosing the right plates and press for you is incredibly important, so be sure to read guides like this one so that you can make the best choice for getting an increased yield from your rosin pressing activities!