Panning a bag, at the kitchen sink, in twenty minutes.
Every Grubstake bag is sized for a first-time buyer, not a seasoned prospector with a recirculating sluice. The walkthrough below assumes a single 1-lb bag, a tub, and a snuffer bottle — the same rig most of our buyers run on a Saturday morning.
Step by step
Three steps, in order, without rushing.
The trick to a clean pan is patience, not force. Heavier fractions need the water to do the work; if you shake the pan, the gold goes out with the sand.
01 · Setup
A tub, a classifier, a pan, a snuffer bottle.
Pick a flat-bottomed tub or a wide baking dish — wide enough that the pan sits flat with an inch of water around the rim. Pre-fill with a few inches of tap water.
Stack the classifier over the tub so the bads fall through and the fines stay on top. Keep the snuffer bottle within reach — that is what picks the colors out of the black sand at the end.
02 · Pan
Four motions, then a tilt.
Pre-soak the bag for ten minutes so the clay loosens and the heavies separate from the host rock. Pour the slurry into the classifier and let the tub catch the runoff.
Shovel a half-cup of classified concentrates into the pan with a thin layer of water. Break up any clumps with a finger — gold likes the cracks. Submerge and tilt, gently, in a flat figure-eight for thirty seconds; let the water wash the lightest material out the lip.
Repeat the flat figure-eight until you see the black-sand line. Tip the pan forward — a shallow tilt — and let the sand spread. The gold wants the deepest groove of the riffles; do not shake it out.
03 · Recover
Sniffer, weigh, log.
Squeeze the snuffer bottle, lower the tip into the groove where the colors are sitting, and release. The gold climbs into the bottle. Repeat until the riffles are empty.
Pour the snuffer contents onto a paper towel, fan-dry, and weigh. Move the recovered gold into a labeled vial — write down the lot ID from the bag's seal so it traces back to the certificate.
After the first bag
Per-state lanes
This generic walkthrough also applies to the Alaska bag — same rig, same panning motion.
This generic walkthrough also applies to the Colorado bag — same rig, same panning motion.
This generic walkthrough also applies to the Georgia bag — same rig, same panning motion.
This generic walkthrough also applies to the North Carolina bag — same rig, same panning motion.
This generic walkthrough also applies to the Idaho bag — same rig, same panning motion.