Kief: the cheapest concentrate in the shop
Kief, often spelled keef on Florida menus, is the pale dust that collects when cannabis is handled. It is the cheapest concentrate in the shop and it is hiding in plain sight.
What it is
The flower is covered in tiny resin glands called trichomes, which hold most of the plant’s active compounds and aroma. They are fragile. Move the flower around and they break off as a fine, sandy powder, somewhere between pale gold and light brown.
So kief is not a manufactured product. It is the most potent part of the plant, collected mechanically, with nothing added and nothing extracted with solvents.
Why it is worth knowing about
- It is considerably stronger than the flower it came from.
- It is usually priced as a budget item rather than as a concentrate.
- It needs no special equipment. Sprinkle it on flower and you are done.
- If you own a three-chamber grinder, you are already collecting it for free.
The free version
A grinder with a screen and a bottom chamber separates kief as you go. Most people never open that chamber. After a few weeks of regular use there is usually a meaningful amount sitting in there, which is the cheapest cannabis you will ever acquire.
Colour tells you something
Pale, almost blonde kief is mostly trichome heads and is the good stuff. The greener and darker it gets, the more plant matter has come along with it, which means harsher and weaker. Shops selling kief by weight vary a lot here, so look at it before you buy if you can.
What to do with it
- Sprinkle a small amount on top of ground flower. The simplest use and the easiest to control.
- Press it. Heat and pressure turn loose kief into hash, which keeps far longer.
- Stir it into something fatty for cooking, though it needs heating first to activate.
The catch
It is dust, so it goes everywhere, it is easy to lose, and it dries out. Keep it in something small and airtight rather than in the grinder for months.