For those unfamiliar, shatter is a form of cannabis concentrate that looks like amber-colored glass. It’s stiff, somewhat translucent, and looks like if you dropped it on the floor, it would shatter into a million pieces (hence the name).

You may know shatter by any number of other names like wax or hash oil. It’s virtually all the same stuff, save for the way it looks. 

How do you make shatter, you ask? Well, making shatter at home can be a dangerous process, depending on what recipe you’re using. Some make shatter using butane, which is highly flammable and explosive (we won’t be covering this one).

However, there are various methods of how to make shatter, some safer than others. Making shatter from kief–the powdery substance that collects on the bottom floor of your grinder—is our favorite method. 

To make shatter from kief, you only need three ingredients (and one of them is kief). So read this quick guide and make some shatter already. 

• Kief—we recommend using at least enough to fill a quarter-size piece of parchment paper
• Parchment paper or wax paper
• A hair straightener
• Oven gloves

1. Pour your kief onto the parchment paper. Keep it in a fairly neat square shape if possible.
2. Fold your parchment paper tightly around the hash in squares. If necessary, use tape to keep the parchment paper folded around the kief. If you have scissors, cut off any excess parchment paper hanging off of the square of kief. The goal is to have parchment paper covering every inch of your kief, but no more than that. Then, wrap that square of kief in another sheet of parchment paper (you only need to fold this second sheet over the square once.)
3. Turn your hair straightener on the lowest setting, and let it heat up for 1 – 2 minutes.
4. Clamp your hair straightener over the rectangular shape of your kief, and press down hard. Use one hand to clamp the iron shut, and press down on top with your other hand so that the iron is being squeezed between your hand and the table beneath the hair straightener. Push down hard, and hold for about 10 seconds. Be careful not to burn yourself: you may need oven mitts depending on how hot the outside of the straightener gets.
5. Remove the parchment paper containing the kief from the hair straightener, and unfold it. You’ll notice that a honey-colored substance has been squeezed out of the edges of the inside square of kief-filled parchment paper. That’s shatter, and it’s ready to smoke! But you probably have more kief in your square of kief-filled parchment paper, so fold a new sheet of parchment paper around it once more, and repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the kief has been used. 
6. It’s recommended that you enjoy your fresh shatter out of a dab rig.