Kief is a byproduct of cannabis that sits under the category of concentrate or hash products. And if you got weed, you’ve got kief. But instead of smoking the entire flower, the idea is to remove the tiny trichomes from the flower and make a concentrate.

Trichomes are small, crystal-like balls that form on the plant’s surface, and contain the highest concentration of cannabinoids.

By removing trichomes from the plant, you’re left with a lovely beige powdery substance, known as kief. But kief only looks like a powder; it’s actually tiny pieces of crystallized resin that collects on the bottom of jars and weed grinders. And in terms of potency – it’s much more potent than your standard bud.

Unlike your standard flower that sits somewhere between 12% – 25% THC, kief can go up to 70% THC, depending on purity. This high concentration of THC means that you get much stronger effects while consuming less material.

In simple terms, kief is the supreme form of concentrated cannabis, since it can be naturally obtained, without any expensive equipment, or use of chemicals. It’s a 100% natural super-strong and more refined product than your average joint.

Where Do You Find It?

Like we said, if you got weed, you’ve got kief. Separating trichomes is quite straightforward; all you need is a weed grinder with a filtration screen built-in. The filtration screen allows you to collect kief in the bottom chamber of the grinder, and use it as you wish.

These at-home methods of extraction usually produce kief, which contains a lot of plant matter along with the trichomes. On the other side, these concentrates tend to be quite flavorful, especially if you used your grinder on different strains over time.

However, there are more professional and effective ways of refining kief. This includes the several refining screens that are built into wooden boxes. These boxes, often referred to as “kief boxes,” enable you to filter out different grades of kief, until you achieve a pure product.

Pure kief contains nothing else but tiny trichome heads, instead of the original mixture of plant matter and trichome stalks that the lower-grade product contains.

The super-refined kief is commonly referred to as “99% sift”. Meaning that the product contains 99% pure trichome heads, and a negligible amount of particulate matter.

How to Consume Kief

Most people smoke kief by mixing it with their buds, keeping it snuggly inside the joint. You can also smoke it in a pipe, though we advise caution when doing so. It’s much more potent than your everyday bud, so it’s easy to get carried away.

In case you have a big bowl, it’s better to use smaller quantities multiple times than overdoing it once, especially if your employer requires you to pass a drug test once in a while.

You can sprinkle kief on your morning tea or coffee, by adding 4 grains (250mg; ¼ of a gram) to a cup of coffee or tea. The high temperatures will activate the cannabinoids, producing a strong and long-lasting effect.

Also, you can add kief to you all your favorite dishes, or instead of buds in your favorite edibles.

But when it comes to smoking and inhalation, you can use press kief to create hash or use it to make a vaping oil. Yes – you can vape kief.

How to Vape Kief

Most weed enthusiasts firmly believe that you can’t vape kief, and we can’t blame them. People tried vaping the beige powdery substance and ended up with a bad aftertaste and clogged vaporizers. However, you can
vaporize kief a couple of different ways.

#1 – You can vaporize kief the exact same way as you would vape hashish. Sandwich your kief in-between ground cannabis flowers as you pack your vaporizer chamber. Use 210 celsius or higer temperature and you are good to go.

#2 – Turn kief into an infused liquid, and use it with your vaporizer.

You’ll need two additional ingredients for turning kief into vaping fluid, which is the vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. Both of these ingredients can be obtained online at pretty affordable prices.

You’ll also need a coffee filter, some syringes, a saucepan and a pot for a double-boiler, and of course, the desired amount of kief.

Place a saucepan over a pot filled with water, to create a double-boiler, and add a 1:1 ratio of vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol. Add you kief to the mixture, and let it sit over the heat until its melted. We advise you to mix the ingredients gently until the consistency of the mixture smooths out.

You can add your favorite e-cigarette flavor to the mix, to better suit your taste. After adding the flavor, let the mixture sit over the heat for a few seconds longer. Once the mixture smooths out, pour it into the coffee filter over a cup, to filter out the remaining particulate matter.

Allow the filtered mixture to cool a little, then use a syringe to fill up the cartridge of your vaporizer. Don’t allow the mixture to cool down too much as it will thicken and make it more challenging to fill the cartridge of your vaporizer.

We recommend using only the 99% sift for making e-cigarette fluid since it’s the purest form of kief. Using a lower-grade product that contains a higher amount of plant and particulate matter, may adversely affect the flavor or clog your vaporizer.

A Word of Warning

Unfortunately, the weed industry is still highly unregulated, especially when it comes to THC edibles, oils, and concentrates. As a result of an unregulated market, some manufacturers of THC vaping liquids added Vitamin E Acetate to their THC.

The Vitamin E Acetate thickens the THC vaping liquids, making them seem like they’re more high-quality than they actually are. As such, Vitamin E Acetate, which is a synthetic form of Vitamin E, acts as a contaminant that ends up in your lungs, causing severe damage.

Vaping concentrates that contain this harmful chemical caused an outbreak of EVALI, a lung injury associated with vaping and e-cigarette use. The EVALI is unique to the US, and it caused 60 deaths and over 2,500 hospital cases since April 2019.

We highly advise that you stay away from products that contain Vitamin E Tocopheryl Acetate, as their use might cause severe lung damage or even death.

Fortunately for all the THC vape enthusiasts, the vaping fluid recipe described in this article doesn’t contain this harmful chemical, and it’s perfectly safe for use.

Conclusion

Kief can be used in a variety of ways, including smoking, eating, and drinking. When prepared correctly, kief can also be used to create a high-concentrate vape fluid, allowing you to inhale it through your favorite vaporizer.

We explained how to collect kief and refine it into a vaping liquid. Now it’s your turn to try the recipe out, and with minimal cooking skill, enter the world of kief vaping.