Bud Washing

[Nordic Stoner]

How many of you guys wash your buds at harvest? It removes a lot of dirt and unsmokeable crap but it also can take away some of the terpenes i believe, can you achieve the same goal of cleaner buds by simply spraying them down with h202 and water a couple days before harvest and then letting the buds sit in the sun and recover the trichs and terpenes lost from spraying/cleaning?

 

[Growenhaft]

i tried watercuring once, and the taste was terrible.
but that's not what is meant here. so shortly before the harvest when the buds are really thick,
the air has a hard time reaching everything, that would be too risky for me because of mold.
but with strong, healthy plants and a lot of circulating air, that should work, because I'm just a cowardly pants-shit.

the temperature between day and night should then remain as constant as possible. that would repel the mold well.

try makes you smart, good luck

 

[Organilush]

I grow outdoors in a rather dusty environment (central valley of Cali, tons of agriculture activity & dust in the air).

After looking at and smoking my herb after harvest, I have never once thought "these buds are dirty, I need to wash them" .

When smoking my herb after harvest, I have never once thought "This bud taste dirty, I need to wash it in water and peroxide"



I feel washing buds is pointless unless your buds are visually caked with a layer of dirt & bugs/insects.

I find a tiny dead bug or two occasionally in my herb (usually a baby lacewing or a single ant stuck in the trichomes/resin), which is to be expected if one is growing outdoors. Maybe one lil bug every 1/4lb to 1/2lb of herb. Not enough that it makes me want to dunk the flowers I just spent all summer growing into water/peroxide.

It also seems like it would be a lot of time & tedious work....Even if one only has a small harvest with just a few pounds of herb, dipping and washing a few pounds of buds in water/peroxide and taking the time to hang them up to dry seems so tedious and time consuming (especially when one still needs to trim, and do other things like making hash)

And I would never want to do anything that's going to take away even the slightest bit of the aroma/essence/flavor.


Through out flowering I'll occasionally give my plants a gentle spray/rinse down with water from the hose. During the last 2 weeks or so, tho, I try not to let anything touch the plants/buds.

.

 

[tobedetermined]

I tried it last fall after a bad grow season. Leaf-eaters at the start and lots of PM for the last month. I used baking soda as a PM retardant with mixed success. In the end, I washed the buds outside immediately after cutting and hung it all to dry. Some Ayahuasca and it turned out to be a nice smoke.

 

[TdotGonG]

I wash my buds, doesn't effect smell or taste at all from my trials. You would be suprised at what you find.

 

[star crash]

I’ve quick dunked buds , especially if they were grown outdoors (yes you would be surprised @ what debris can be rinsed off )

 

[Radicle Rye]

I spend all fall keeping rain off my plants and then to turn around and dunk it in water seems odd to me. I thought the idea was to preserve the flowers in their state of peak ripeness through drying and curing. With this logic you might as well wait until it rains and then harvest during the storm...lol. All joking aside, if stuff has some PM I could understand doing a dunk with some peroxide....maybe.

 

[star crash]

I can see how It does seem odd , kind of like giving hyper active children amphetamines to calm them down...

 

[Brother Nature]

Interesting topic, I'd heard a few outdoor growers say they do this and it always seemed weird to me. I had a plant grown indoors and outdoors this year and the outdoor bud was significantly more harsh to smoke than the indoor. Makes me wonder if giving them a quick wash would help with that.

 

[Nordic Stoner]

seems like the community on ic isnt as up on budwashing as i initially expected. yes i have some experience lightly dunking buds in water and h202 and it takes a lot of dirt and crap off everytime, however you do lose a little bit of terpenes, my idea is that a plant can recover from taking a beating in the rain and regenerate the terpenes and trichs lost as long as it is still alive, then an ideal scenario would be to completely wash buds a few days to a week before harvest, let them recover and make themselves pretty again and then chop them, obviously you cant dunk colas in a bucket if they're still attached to the plant so im hoping that u can get them just as clean from spraying them down with water and h202