How to Make Shatter

There are many different kinds of cannabis extracts, and many different methods to make them. Shatter, is one of those. This is a step by step guide to making your own shatter at home.

We must warn you before hand, you will be working with highly flammable solvents here. You should work in a well ventilated area, and there should be no sparks, or naked flame used anywhere near your work space.

If you have any questions about making shatter, then feel free to ask for help in our cannabis growers forum

What You Need to Make Shatter

First off, you need to make sure you have all of the ingredients you need. The whole process will be done quickly, and once started, you shouldn’t stop. So make sure you have everything, there will be no time to collect it once you have begun.

  • Butane (Ultra Refined)
  • Isopropyl Alcohol.
  • A BHO Extractor
  • Coffee Filters
  • Pyrex Measuring Jug
  • Flat Bottomed Pyrex Dish
  • Cable Ties
  • Trim and Popcorn Buds
  • Sieve

Of course, you can use trim, popcorn buds, or good flowers to make shatter. The higher quality plant matter you use, the better the yield and overall quality of the shatter will be. You will need enough, to pack your BHO extractor full of plant material.

Tube for making shatter, how to make shatter,

You can purchase a BHO extractor tube online. This is the easiest method. Alternatively, you can make your own tube. All you need is a 200mm x 30mm Test tube. You will need to drill a small hole in the bottom, but it will do the job.

It is recommended that you do use a tube that is built for the task though. The glass is stronger, and will have less chance of breaking in your hand. They can also be reused. So if you like shatter, and think you may make more of it in the future but a proper tube, you won’t regret it.

Making Shatter

Now you have everything, it is time to start the process. The idea is, to use the BHO to dissolve the cannabinoids from the plant material in the tube. The BHO will pass through a coffee filter, leaving the plant material behind, ad only taking resions, terpenes and cannabinoids from the plants.

Step 1: Pack the Tube Full of Cannabis

The tube specified above, will hold around 28 grams of plant material. Buds, tip leaves, popcorns buds. Fill it to the top, and pack it tightly.

It is a good idea to grind all of the plant material up into finer pieces, so the Butane can get to more Cannabinoids to dissolve them. This will increase your final yield of shatter.

When the tube is fully packed, you will need to take a coffee filter, and place it around the top of the tube.

Take the filter, and wrap it around the BHO extractor tube, then use a cable tie, to secure the filter to the tube. Apply the cable tie tightly, to ensure the filter doesn’t fall off during extraction. Once in place, trim off any excess around the edge of the filter.

After this is all done, you are set to go. Now you have to push the butane through the cannabis. This will obviously let a lot of butane into the air. Butane is highly flammable, and should not be inhaled. Do the next few steps in a well ventilated area, and away from flames and sparks! Take no risks, be very careful during this part of the process.

Step 2: Use Butane to Extract Oils

The process now is to spray a whole can of butane through the hole in the bottom of the tube. The butane will then run through the plant material until it runs out of the filter at the bottom. It will bring with it, all of the dissolve cannabinoids.

Make sure this step is done whilst holding the coffee filter end of the tube, over your pyrex jug. This will catch the BHO as it exits the tube.

You can repeat this process, filling up the tube again and using more butane to extract more BHO. When you have run out of cannabis, you should have a jug with a golden butane mix. You can pour this golden liquid through two coffee filters placed one inside the other to filter out any bits that got through. Just to ensure it is high quality and free from contaminants.

Step 3: Evaporating the Butane

Take the jug of filtered butane and place it in a shallow bath of warm water. This will increase the temperature of the solution a little and help the butane evaporate. Again, be sure to do this in a well ventilated area, with no flames or sparks nearby.

how to make shatter

You will see the mix bubbling for a while. When the bubbles slow down, and become bigger, it means most of the butane has evaporated. At this point, you should add half a jug of the Isopropyl alcohol and stir well, until all your oil has dissolved.

Once mixed well, you will need to let the mix settle for a few hours. Place the jug, into the freezer. A few hours will be fine, some some growers like to leave their mix over night.

Step 4: Evaporating the ISO

When you remove the mix from the freezer, you should notice it is a lot more cloudy then when you put it in there. This is fats, waxes, and other contaminants you will want to remove from your shatter.

To do this, place 2 coffee filters over a glass, and pour the solution into it slowly. This may take a while, so whilst you’re waiting for the mix to filter, prepare a pot of water on an electric stove. Set the temperature to around 70c, and place a your flat pyrex dish on top of the pot. The water evaporating underneath will provide a safe level of heat to the pyrex bowl. This will help the ISO evaporate faster.

Once your solution is filtered, pour around 50ml onto the pyrex dish and leave for about half an hour to evaporate. Remember you need the area to be well ventilated. This will get smelly, open windows and doors, or use and extractor to vent the air outside. And of course, no sparks or naked flames.

how to make shatter

After half an hour, the ISO should have evaporated. You will be able to tell again by the bubbles. If there is many small bubbles, it needs more time to evaporate. If the bubbles are bigger, and don’t come often, then you’re good to move on to the next step.

Step 5: Collecting the BHO from the Dish

Spread the oil evenly around the dish. Keep the heat on whilst doing this, as it will keep the oil viscous. Keeping mixing and a spreading the oil out thin. After a while, it will start to become hard to work with. Keep lifting what your stirring with, out of the mix. You will see the oil stretch as it becomes more sticky. When the strands left behind after stretching, are snapping after being cooled for a few seconds, you are done.

This is what you will be left with, a very sticky substance around the base of the tray. All you have to do now is collect it from the bottom. The easiest way to do this, is by scraping it up with a razor blade.

Let the mix sit for half an hour at room temperature and you will have your very own, home made shatter! You can melt all of it into one big piece of glass. Hold it up to the light and you can all see properly how amber it is.

how to make shatter, how to make BHO, what is shater, home to make shatter at home, How to grow cannabis, how to grow weed, a step by step guide to growing weed, cannabis growers forum, need help with sick plant, what's wrong with my cannabis plant, percys Grow Room, the Grow Room, percys Grow Guides, we'd growing forum, weed growers community, how to grow weed in coco, when is my cannabis plant ready for harvest, how to feed my cannabis plant, beginners guide to growing weed, how to grow weed for personal use, cannabis plant deficiency, how to germinate cannabis seeds, where to buy cannabis seeds, best weed growers website, Cannabis Growers forum, weed growers forum, How to grow legal cannabis, a step by step guide to growing weed, cannabis growing guide, tips for marijuana growers, growing cannabis plants for the first time, marijuana growers forum, marijuana growing tips, cannabis plant problems, cannabis plant help, marijuana growing expert advice

Final Thoughts on Shatter

As a percy gorewer, you will be able to experiment and dabble in making extracts. It is a great way to make use of sugar leaf and popcorn buds after your harvest. You can also use your trim to make other extracts like dry ice hash, or RSO.

Reduce wastage, and keep trim in a freezer until you have enough to make some extracts. Alternatively, you can use buds for a better quality, higher yielding Shatter.

I hope this guide is helpful to you. Please comment Below and let us know what you think, are you going to try making some of your own shatter? Take some pics of your final product and show it off in the forum.

Sign up to our Cannabis Growers Forum

Thanks for reading! You can find more information on anything related to growing in our cannabis grow guides. All of our guides are written by experienced growers, and members of our cannabis growers forum. If you have any questions, sign up. It is free, and we are always happy to help!

21 thoughts on “How to Make Shatter”

  1. I followed this guide with what i thought was a waste of time growing, my staring material was all the trim from 2 grows, and a whole plant that didn’t do very well bud wise, but had plenty of resin.
    I smoked and vaped some of the BHO from the first stage, and it had more flavour, but really made me and my mate cough. After mixing with ISO freezing and filtering, a lot of wax came out of it, it was to colour and consistency of bees wax. The resulting shatter had amazing effects for the amount you needed to dose. It was probably as close as I’ll ever see to 100% thc, a beautiful product to vape, with no cough at all.

  2. Ok, this is my take on homemade shatter.  Basically follows the same principles as above but with a few tweaks from personal experience. This is “The Bomb” Rule #1 Do this in a well ventilated area like outside. One spark from your static shirt or some dumbass lighting a smoke will go boom. I mean even your coffee pot turning on will light butane up.

    image
    image

    One end is pvc glued on with a 3/32” hole drilled through, this is the end to wrap your filter around the out side and secure on with rubber band,the other end has a hole just big enough to fit your butane, about an 1/8”.I use two Pyrex dishes. One big enough to fit the other in. The big one is filled with hot water but not boiling and the other is placed on top of the water to float  One can of butane is enough for one ounce of product. You can try and get more outta two cans but one is enough. Grind up your product and place into bomb. Firmly place the top on. Put gloves on as butane gets frosty cold. Hold on extremely tight to the top lid and bomb as the pressure is gonna get big, just hold on tight u don’t want it blowing back. Push your butane can into the hole and release into the bomb while holding over top of the floating Pyrex dish. It will take a few seconds for product to start coming out the other end but when it does, start evenly distributing the product over the dish.After your done disgard the crap in the bomb and move your dish to a hot plate to warm up so you can scoop onto some parchment paper. Use the time on the warming plate to pop any gas bubbles but do not over heat, just warm it up so u can spatula around.Now it’s time for the vacuum purge  

    BB0E90A5 7EF1 4CB1 8D53 7BD3D16D9CBF

    dont cheap out on these,  I did and mine didn’t last. This handy machine will suck out all the leftover butane and make your product do some funny shapes too.The longer you purge the different end product you get. Shatter-pull n snap- wax-crumble. I’ve only made the shatter and taffy shatter.  Once this is done your good to smoke and heal your pains. End note…… don’t use nothing but decent product. “You can’t make chicken salad outta chicken shit.”  Sure you can make something alright and smokable using sugar leaves and bad tasting bud, but concentrates is all about bringing out the terpenes for taste and isolating the thc off of the plant for the perfect high. The vacuum purge is essential, yes you can do with iso but there is still much leftover residue, so imo the purge is a must have for shatter. Just stick to iso extracted oil till you buy a vacuum.  If you need me to post a easy oil extraction post I can do that too.This is just a version I have used, of many ways to skin a cat. Be extremely careful, this shit can flash fire boom faster than you think. As soon as I can find a cheap press, that does at least an ounce and doesn’t cost $2k, I will be switching to live rosin as it is solventless and so delightful!

  3. No pressure mate, give it a shot, you might enjoy the writing 🙂 Ill make edits if need be, but you seem to be literate enough to handle it 😉 

    Done about 12 hours of writing today man, im fucked!!! lol

  4. BHO Uses butane. (At home)CO2 oil is your triple grade oil. (Need special equipment)And than us poor men do cold quick rinses with 99% iso. (At home)“Honey” basically states it’s quality, the clearer the better. RSO- is Cherry oil, as in its made from crap. Like guerrillagrower says too, there are many at home ways to make oil, rosin, shatter etc just do the research first.  I made rosin with my wife’s hair straightener once lol

  5. BHO is pretty good and I have done it several times, however you should try other methods and see which is best for you…….Aluminium blockseBay hydraulic pressDrill hole in blocksGet Chinese heat things( they exist and make aluminium blocks very hot) and you just need to put them inside drill holeProduct (for dabbing)Inside Vg/pg mix (for vaping)

  6. I’ve made it hundreds of times. Just so you know, before it was known as shatter, we called this the BOMB! Mmmmmk so well ventilation is required and no sparks. ie; static, smokes etc.I only smoke oil and terp sauce cause weed just don’t do it for me anymore. I make quick rinse honey oil on a daily basis and IMO honey oil is the way to go. No stink, 10x the high no left over roaches. 

  7. Lots of people have 😉 Its a great way to make use of trim after you’ve harvested mate. You will see, after harvest, you can be left with a lot of “sugar leaf" Thats the small leaves that will have crystals on them. Save them up, and after a few crops, you can use them to make all sorts of extracts. Just keep them in the freezer.

Leave a comment