How to Roll the Perfect Joint

Mastery of hand rolling a joint is a coveted skill in the weed world, but it’s hardly a requirement for entry. The best thing about the growth of cannabis retail is that it’s making it easier for beginners to get started, er, rolling, as pre-rolled shoals are commonly sold alongside edibles, vapes and flowers. But twisting your own is a ritual in itself, and you can even earn your first taste during a smoking session—sometimes referred to as curling rights—so you can learn.

Rolling is a skill that can also provide employment: some people actually work as professional collaborators for celebrities and companies, or freelance like any other creative skill.

Joint paper can be made from rice, hemp, or other fibers, and people also use hemp “blunt” wrappers, tobacco cigars (also known as joints), or tobacco sheets (also known as frontos) to roll. Still others sprinkle frontos on the joints (a classic New York trick) or add tobacco from a cigarette or pouch to make an old-school joint. You can choose pre-made cones, crystal clear paper to curl, gold paper, or in a pinch, pages from a good old hotel bible (it’s rough, but it works).

Doing this for yourself is not only pleasant, but also allows you to control the process. You’ll select content, volume, and other custom elements that a pre-rolled joint might not always provide. Also, some less scrupulous sellers put their worst product on pre-rolls and you need to be very selective if you can’t see what’s inside. With all that said, let’s talk about how to start developing your riding skills. You can’t be good at something if you’ve never tried it, so give it a try.

How many weeds go into a joint?

For the first time, try using what’s called a crutch, a rolled-up tube of thin cardboard that keeps the weed away from the smoker’s lips, sort of like a cigarette filter some people also use when consuming combustible weed. Filters and crutches are not needed to roll a good joint, but may be useful for beginners. Pre-fabricated cones come with built-in cones.

After the selection of the paper comes what is inside: the weed itself. While shoals can hold gram for gram of weed, 0.3 grams is a good starting point for a skating newbie as well as a smoking newbie. Crushing your flower is a personal preference; some people like it coarse, and some people like it very finely ground. As long as it curls into paper when you roll it, it will probably work. A medium grind is the most reliable, as a finer one can burn too quickly or go into the mouth when inhaled, and a coarse grind can fizzle out or start to “canoe” when a joint burns too quickly on one side.

How to actually roll a joint

• With one hand, hold the roll paper in your fingertips, palms up. The adhesive strip should be facing you at the top, and the paper should be slightly folded so that two-thirds of the bottom side is also facing you, like a wave crest.
• Sprinkle the weed with your other hand, and then carefully pinch the edge of the paper over the weed with your thumbs to form a kind of canoe or snorkel.
• Now, securing the tube with your thumbs, roll it up and twist it up to roll it up towards the top of the paper.
• Continue rolling up, twisting the tube towards the adhesive.
• Moisten the adhesive quickly and lightly before rolling all the way through to seal.

(Confused? Here’s a video that might help illustrate the process .)

We asked Don Doane, CEO of Luxe Rolls and professional creative reel, what it takes to make a reel better. Her joints are real art, and she creates sculptures containing more weed than some people can smoke in a lifetime. (One of them looks like a life-sized Wall-E .)

Everything starts with good papers, she says; the ones made by Raw are among the most used and Doane’s first recommendation. They come in sheets, rolls and cones in all sizes, from tiny to giant. She also loves Elements paper, which is an extra-thin rice paper that lets the ouid flavor shine through.

Doan’s best advice for beginners: take a stack of well-sanded material and a stack of paper and just practice. “Enjoy your ride and give it time,” she says. “It takes time to learn something new.”

The right way to fill a cone

Filling a cone is usually easier than rolling; as long as the weed is well chopped and you have a tool to gently press down on the flower, you can make a great cone.

Doane’s Tips: “Stuff semi-tight at the base and most importantly rotate the cone as you fill and stuff so one side doesn’t get all the tension. Check the hood in the middle of the fill to make sure it’s pulling well.”

The cones can hold a ton of weed and are great for sharing, while the hand twist is good for small, independent joints. Coarse grinding is not suitable for cones, as they can burn unevenly. And how you light the joint, no matter how it’s rolled, is an important step in the process.

“Be sure to light the joint evenly from the start,” she says. “The crown should have an even burn line from the start.”

Extra Credit: Adding Concentrates

If one joint isn’t enough, you can try adding concentrates to your roll. This means that hash, wax, bud, butter, sugar, kief, or any of your favorite forms of concentrate can be sprinkled, spatulated, or poked into (or on) your joint for a super-powerful hit.

Hoppa gave this advice: “Paper will work best inside. Try not to put concentrates too far down towards the crutch/smoking end as the oils can clog the tight cone.”

Start very small unless you’re a power hitter, concentrates are very strong and beginners probably won’t want to mess with them too much until they get their weed.

High Tech / Low Skill

Easiest way to roll your own? Let the robot do it. The soon-to-be-launched bean curler is the Nespresso of the weed, delivering packaged nitro, single capsules of exquisite flavored product. It works reliably (you can see it in action on my Instagram here ), the pods are recyclable, and growers plan to partner with flower brands to deliver super-fresh, machine-filled horns for delivery across California.

The sealed pods are designed to keep weeds fresh for three times longer than the average pre-roll, and the price is not bad (about $4.10 for a 0.5g pod, which is much cheaper than the average store-bought weed of this weight). Beed is expensive – $299 to pre-order – but if you can afford it, love weed, hate rolling it, and want to impress people online, it could be a winner.

But even if you do it with a robotic robot, you should definitely learn how to do it manually, and not just for your own edification as a consumer and connoisseur of weed.