Welcome back to the latest installment of our Hash Maker Q&A Series! This time, team Hashtek sat down to sesh with the founder of Lost Boys Rosin — a Canadian-based brand that’s rooted in nostalgia and now focused on putting out the most magical rosin products.
From the story behind the name to how the Hashtek Legendary Bundle is set up in the lab, to pheno hunting for keepers and elevating solventless extraction quality, we chatted about it all. Ready to return to Neverland? Let’s get into it.
I love the nostalgia behind your brand and the Neverland theme that you’ve run with — what was the inspiration there?
Kind of a cool story. Growing up, my favorite movie was Hook. Fast forward to 11 years ago when I got my first dog…I’d had him for about two weeks but he didn’t have a name yet. I was playing with his hair and gave him like a three-wing Mohawk, and my mom goes, “He looks just like Rufio!” So his name is Rufio after the character from the movie.
Fast forward even more to a little over two years ago and we got a second puppy. We also named it after one of the Lost Boys from the movie. So when I went to start the brand, I had a bunch of names on the docket, but Lost Boys came up kind of as homage to my pups. The Lost Boys and Peter Pan story was always one of my favorites growing up and then from there, the rest of the nostalgia fell into place.
Single source KNF Tropicana Punch 73-159u, photographed by @legrowcreativestudios with designs by @hashmilkco.
Moving from the past to the future, you’ve said 2024 will be all about “consistency, genetics, and quality” for the brand. What comes to mind for you when you hear those words?
The first two years of Lost Boys, for lack of a better term, I’ve been a collab artist. I started the brand and I was doing a small grow tent myself, and then I was working with any growers that I could find. My mission statement was to, “Wash the world around me through pursuit of passion.”
The brand has grown and gained recognition over time, and obviously, from there my infrastructure has grown. This lab that I’m now in is the first lab that I’ve ever been in that wasn’t a shared space. With that, I have nobody else making decisions in and around what I’m doing. And so I get to be the master of every extraction. Although I’ve been the only one doing all of the extractions for Lost Boys since day one, I’ve worked with growers and hash makers who wanted to do things differently than me. For example, in like 2022 and 2023 all of my jars were a mix of first, second, and third wash. Now being the master myself, I can release first wash only and and put the other agitation cycles into different SKUs. And so just focusing on everything with the Lost Boys name on it being as top quality as possible.
As far as genetics is concerned, being a collab artist, I didn’t have the consistency allowing me to say, “Hey, I know what’s coming.” Working with new farms that had never done solventless, we were doing a lot of hunting and a lot of it didn’t turn out as fruitful as we anticipated. It’s only now that I truly have “keepers” that are exclusive to Lost Boys, that aren’t just elite cuts that we brought up from the States. I really do believe that the genetics our team has at our disposal are really show-stopping and that 2024 is a really different trajectory and goal for me. Without losing sight of it all, the quality versus the quantity is something that is definitely what 2024 is all about.
That leads into to my next question – how are you putting together your menu and choosing those keepers?
I used to do a lot of collaborations and now the focus has been to dial it into a few select growers as well as the grow that I have with my partner.
At one of the spots I’m working with, we have two cuts that we’re running that we’re very happy with. We’re in our fourth or fifth round of flower and every time we seem to be doing better and better with them. Those are Cap Junkie and Platinum Gorilla. We knew that Cap Junkie did well, and as we came together, the Platinum Gorilla was actually something he had hunted for himself out of 58 seeds for flower. We were like well, we’re gonna wash every cut we have and see what we’ve got going. That one ended up being extremely fast to finish with big biomass and heavy, heavy, heavy rosin. So not necessarily something that we did together or looking for hash, but was just a happy accident that it does well for hash.
Platinum Gorilla 1st wash 73-159u, photographed by @thirteenshots with designs by @hashmilkco.
Otherwise, him and I have really leaned into the hunt. As it was a new space, we got a couple of crops down and then we were like “Okay, let’s start popping seeds here.” And so we brought all our vault collection of seeds together, just to pop a few packs and make sure that the space we had built was conducive to popping seeds.
Doing our own market research, we became really confident in Little Lake Valley and his genetics. So we leaned into two of his strains very, very hard where we bought 100 seeds of the Longan which is his Expiration Date crossed to Strawberry Guava, making the Feijoa, crossed to Cranberry Zkittlez. That one I am really hunting based on my own personal flavor preferences. We also got a ton of Hawaiian Punch from him and those are the two that we’re really hunting in mass numbers right now. We’re going through them about 20 seeds at a time, seeing what they do, getting rid of the males obviously, and then seeing what the female presents. Then we’ll go into the next round of 20 after that.
Why do you think it’s so important to spend time on pheno hunting and really selecting those keepers?
Essentially, I do believe that you need to find those unicorns to be able to separate yourself from the pack. I don’t think that either one of us, whether it’s me or my partner, has an end all to be all terp that we’re hunting for. We both know when a special one comes across. So really, the focus is to sift for those to be able to remain relevant.
At another cultivation space I work closely with, one thing that we’ve found that I am really excited about is called The Hive #2, which is Honey Banana crossed to Papaya from Bloom Seed Co. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the first exceptional keeper that I have found with that grower and it took us a lot of time to get there. Pheno hunts are tough…most phenos are pretty okay versus pretty great, but The Hive is definitely one that I’m extremely excited about and we are leaning into majorly.
The Hive #2 1st wash 73-159u, photographed by @thirteenshots with designs by @hashmilkco.
How do you think we can keep pushing the bounds and improving quality when it comes to solventless extraction?
I really believe that solventless extractions might be the pinnacle of what we can do with the resin and with the plant. And so furthermore, I believe that where we’re going to find growth and find progression within that is the technology or the equipment being made and provided for us.
That’s why when I built this lab, I looked towards Hashtek. It’s also why I purchased the Holland Green Science Xiros Mikro, which is a freeze-dryer that’s specifically made for hash. I’m given a lot more control with that. I’m of the opinion that solventless extraction is the top of what we’re able to do with the plants. So to elevate myself I looked towards the equipment.
Speaking of, tell me a little bit about how your Hashtek unit is set up in your lab.
Starting from the very beginning of the process, there’s no point in buying the machine unless you’re gonna make sure that everything ahead of it is copacetic. Right? So I’m either on well water or we collect rainwater, just depending on the levels of the rainwater. Then I run that through RO. In the room, I make my own RO ice. I have a pre-chill, food-grade 50-gallon vessel. And so how I have the Hashtek setup is that I pre-chill the water in that 50-gallon, but I also pre-chill water in the catch vessel itself so I have 100 gallons pre-chilled.
I like to put the water in to a certain level in the agitation vessel and then I get my biomass going, and I kind of fill and put the biomass in at the same time. I’ve just been forewarned that if you put it all in there, and then you add the water, it might freeze and so I’ve just always been cognizant of that. And then I do the pre-soak screen, I like that thing, it’s sick. Before having a Hashtek, I never really pre-soaked, but that gave me the option to do so more efficiently. And then I’ve got it set up to do the recirculation which I really like.
There is a lot that one could say about what it’s done for my back you know, not having to paddle and so forth. I’m very happy with the purchase and as one man in there, I’m getting a lot more done with that machine than I would if I was paddling even 50 gallons. Simply because it paddles while I’m collecting is a major time saver. I’m trying to do everything as cleanly and as efficiently as possible and not waste time either.
And the reason why I chose the Hashtek is because of the top-down agitation. It’s Canadian-made. Aleks is a G. It made sense to me.
I got the Legendary Bundle so I got everything kind of all in one and I’m very happy with it. It’s moving parts and moving pieces, so if you aren’t responsible with it, you’re gonna find problems. If you don’t clean it well, if you leave it sitting there. The Hashtek was kind of a no-brainer, especially for the price point compared to other things and it being Canadian was huge.
Is there a certain setting you prefer to wash on?
I start a wash on lower settings than the “gentle” that’s been provided and recirculate the water until the bags clog or a certain amount of time has passed, depending on batch size. After that, I go from gentle to medium to hard over the process. Pulling for melt and cold cure, then cart grade and by the end of it I do a full spec run. I run the Hashtek above the aggressive setting and I get a bunch of 73 that otherwise would have been composted and that rounds out the budget full spec rosin I make.
The thing about live rosin is that it’s an expensive product, especially at retail. It sucks for the people who like to smoke solventless more times than not or even all the time, but it just is out of their price range. I’m able to do this full spec at a very approachable price point for the consumer and I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of people who are grateful for that.
Favorite thing in your head stash right now?
Oh, definitely The Hive #2 I was talking about before…if I had more of it. I’m all out of it right now with more in the freezer, so I’m very much running to get into the lab.
One that I do have currently that I’m really happy with that is kind of like the second one on the docket for a keeper is Rainbow Belts 3.0 by Archive. I go through spurts where I smoke the bong more than anything and this Rainbow Belts kind of pulled me back onto the dabs, which is nice. Those are definitely the two top ones at the moment to really look out for from Lost Boys and that are getting demolished around here.
What is your preferred form of solventless to smoke? Cold cure, full melt, fresh press, dry sift…
Back to the name of the brand…Lost Boys Rosin. I chose that name purposefully. It’s not Lost Boys Melt. Cause I just really love me some cold cure.
