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#199 Kief: The Fine Art of Cannabis Trichomes

Written by

Chester Sam

#199 Kief: The Fine Art of Cannabis Trichomes

#199 Kief: The Fine Art of Cannabis Trichomes

If you have ever opened the bottom chamber of a three-piece grinder, you have seen kief. It collects as a fine, sandy powder, and many people let it pile up for months without knowing what to do with it. It is one of the most useful forms of cannabis there is, and one of the simplest.

 

Meet the trichome

Look closely at a cannabis flower, and you will see it is covered in tiny, glittering stalks with round heads. These are resin glands, called trichomes, and are where the plant makes nearly all of its THC, CBD and aroma compounds. When dried flower is handled, broken up or sifted, the heads of those glands snap off and fall away as a pale green to golden dust. That dust is kief.

A 2020 study in The Plant Journal found that the larger glands on a mature flower carry most of the plant's cannabinoids and aroma chemistry, and that they change as the flower ripens. In practical terms, kief is a concentrate of the part of the plant that matters most, separated from the leaf and stem that do not.

Commercial kief is made the same way your grinder makes it, just at scale. Dried flower is tumbled or rubbed over a series of fine screens, and the gland heads fall through while the plant material stays behind.

 

How strong is kief?

Usually, but not by default. A clean, sifted kief commonly tests well above the flower it came from, because most of the leafy material has been removed. The kief in the bottom of a home grinder is a different story. It often carries a good amount of fine leaf dust, and its strength depends entirely on the flower you have been grinding.

Colour is a reasonable guide. Pale gold or light tan kief is mostly gland heads. Bright green kief contains more plant matter. Both work, but the green kind will taste harsher and deliver less per pinch.

 

Ways to use kief

Add it to a bowl or joint Sprinkle a small amount into the middle of a bowl or rolled joint rather than on top. Kief burns faster and hotter than flower, so a top layer tends to flare up and vanish on the first draw.

Coat a pre-roll: Lightly dampen the outside of a rolled joint and roll it through a small dish of kief. The coating adds strength and slows the burn, the same approach used by several of the pre-rolls below.

Press it into hash: Hash is simply pressed kief, and you can make it at home by folding kief into parchment, warming it with a hair dryer and pressing it firmly for a minute or two. The result stores and handles far more easily than loose powder.

Cook with it: Bake it on parchment at about 110°C to 120°C for 30 to 40 minutes, stir it into warm butter or oil, and start with a small dose, since homemade edibles are easy to overdo.

Stir it into a warm drink: Cannabinoids do not dissolve in water, so kief sprinkled into plain tea mostly floats on top and goes to waste. Stir heated kief into milk, cream or a spoonful of butter first, then add it to the drink.

Vaporize it: Many dry-herb vaporizers handle kief well, especially with a small mesh pad to keep the powder off the heating element.

Light, heat and air all break down THC and aroma compounds over time. Keep kief in a small, airtight glass jar in a cool, dark cupboard. Avoid plastic bags, which build static and hold on to the powder. If you collect from a grinder, empty the chamber every few weeks so older kief does not sit exposed while fresh kief lands on top of it.

 

Kief-forward products to try

If you would rather skip the sifting, these products put kief to work for you.

Day Dreamin' Infused CBD Flower: This BC craft Umpqua flower is infused with Grown Here Farms' own in-house CBD kief to raise its CBD content while keeping THC below 1%.

Max 50's Kiefers Quad Infused Pre-Rolls: Each pre-roll layers hybrid flower, crushed diamonds and Pura Vida honey oil, then finishes with a thick outer coat of kief for 50 to 55% THC.

Dab Bods Outsiders Grape Animal Infused Pre-Rolls: These five half-gram pre-rolls are infused with distillate and botanical terpenes, then generously coated in kief.

Glenn's No. 4 True Hybrid Kief, Classic Flavours: Glenn's makes its gummies with full-spectrum trichomes, which are kief by another name, sourced from top producers.

 Glenn's No. 8 True Hybrid Kief XL, Blue Freeze: This single blue watermelon soft chew carries a full 10 mg of THC made from full-spectrum trichomes.

 

Beyond the grinder

Kief is the most concentrated part of the cannabis plant, and getting the most from it comes down to where you put it and whether you heat it. Tuck it into the middle of a bowl, press it into hash, or bake it before it goes into butter. What it should not do is sit in the bottom of your grinder for another year.

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