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Increasing Terpenes Production and/or Reducing Terpenes Loss During Cure

TB Gardens

Active member
Veteran
Use some horticultural molasses (has some sulphur in it) early-mid flower. Switch to unsulphured molasses at mid flower.

Should help the flavor a lot.

But you still need the genetics!!


Umm I thought molasses had no direct effect on terpenes .. It's food for the herd, no? I also thought sulphered molasses was a big no no
 
E

elmanito

The flavor would be more influenced by the minerals in the molasses than the sugar.The sugar has more influence on the soil organisms imo.

Namaste :plant grow: :canabis:
 

catman

half cat half man half baked
Veteran
Lots of great posts here fellas :tiphat:

I once got a good simple tip regarding burping jars from some one here on IC. Place a straw into the jar so you can blow into it and mix the air around all around the container. This way you don't have leave the buds exposed to air for very long or have too move them around.
 

Slimm

Member
Maybe a bellows or small hand pump would be better. If you are growing for others you really should not breath into the jar. The human mouth contains millions of germs. This opens up the possibility of lots of bacteria introduced.

Interestingly, using breath also increases CO2 levels in the jar - it's unclear to me what effect adding CO2 to the curing buds will do. Anyone know anything about the relationship between O2, CO2 and curing?
 
go to the harvest forum,
check out simon's sticky, "perfect cure every time"
a little off topic but still helps with the flavor

:wave:
 

rrog

Active member
Veteran
I have started the 6 day countdown icing at night on a SSH female. I have no AC hooked up to get night temps into the 40s, but will try the ice at night for 6 days. 5 more to go.
 

d4nk

Member
perfect cure everytime...
in a normal room with normal rh and room temperature add air circulation, just circulation, dont want any leaf movement.

defoliate in late flower.

cut and hang the whole plant as one. cut at stalk and just hang it!

wait....

trim when 95% of the buds are dry enough to smoke. i dont mean barely dry enough to smoke, i mean the dryness you like to smoke your weed at.

jar them. be careful, more moisture comes out in different buds but now just burp and rearange buds each day for about 15 minutes for a week or 2. then you are done. if you jar the buds at the correct time you will never never never encounter a green flavor or smell.
 
P

putoneout

1. Plants release terpenes.
2. What causes plants to release terpens?
3. How do you minimize terpene loss?

If you figure out the answer to all those questions you will soon know how to get more flavor from your nugs and how to minimize the terpen loss.

Cure doesn't increase flavor. All the terpens and flavors are their at the time of chop however water, chlorphyl and other chemicals which don't burn smoothly and taste like crap are released during the dry which allows the true terpenes and flavor to shine thru. So the cure prevents nasty chems from overpowering the terpenes and leaving you some harsh tasting nugs.

It's sorta like this if I took a glass of Orange juice and pissed in it. All the orange juice flavor is still there just clouded by the piss. So even though the good ole tasting oj is in there the urine ruined the flavor and rendered it horrible.

1.Plants do indeed release terpenes.
2.Heat increases terpene loss or release.
3.Heat is not your friend when it comes to flavor.

That's why a hot dry room will cause your nugs to smell like hay and grass. Because your temps are so high its releasing most of your terpenes into the air and therefore leaving you some pretty flavorless/oderless nugs. Even with a good cure once you've lost most of the terpenes they are gone and nothing you do will bring them or the flavor that left with them back.

Point being heat is your enemy when it comes to terpenes. The higher the temp the more terpenes will be released. Keep those temps inline and keep as much of those terpens around as you can.

So rather then worry about how you can increase the amount of terpenes you should focus more on keeping the terpenes around that are produced.

Fingering the nugs and cola's is all cool and everything but every time you touch those nugs and your fingers get sticky you have removed some essential oils and also terpenes. Keep your fingers and hands to your self minimize the amount of fondling you do. Keep your temps in 75f or below for the last 2-3 weeks minimal. Dry with temps of 65f with 40% humidity probably take longer to dry then usual but I bet your nugs will be loaded with flavor.

So I guess I fall in the or Reducing Terpenes Loss During Cure but I would add during grow and dry/cure because terpenes are released through-out the whole process of flower from the time resin glands develope terpenes start developing. They can be lost during the grow and dry/cure process.

Minimize the terpene loss throughout the whole process and you will find those flavor packed nugs you've been trying to all along.
 

rrog

Active member
Veteran
I completed three nights of icing, now three days of no light and icing. The smell of the plant jumped a lot when this started. May be coincidental. Leaves also yellowed up.
 

rrog

Active member
Veteran
Harvested the SSH today, 11 weeks of flower. 6 days of night-time ice, and the last 3 of those days was in 100% dark.

Buds fattened up and while fan leaves were still green, all of the leaves sticking out from the colas were yellow and crispy.

The normal process for this is to also drop room temps at nite into the 40s for two weeks. I was unable to do that, however my night temps are generally mid 60s and day temps in the 70s.

Hard to say if this treatment affected anything. Seems like it did, but I don't have extensive experience with this strain and didn't have a control sample for a comparison. It's hard to imagine that my limited treatment didn't do some good.
 

rrog

Active member
Veteran
I have some Plush Berry three weeks into jar cure. A strain known for the aromatics. I have 1/2 gallon mason jars, each less than 1/2 full, laying on their side for max surface area of bud exposed. I do not rotate, turn or otherwise risk bursting open trichs and spilling their oil. Each jar has a Caliber III to measure humidity. Jars range from 69% to 63% Rh. Only a slight variation in smell amongst them, despite the variation in how dry they are. They are the same age, and flavor / smell has improved over the three weeks.

So this would seem to confirm that aging rather than dryness is the bigger factor to getting the smell and flavor development. It does not tell me anything with respect to if they should be at 69% or 63% at this point, however I have always erred on the side of higher humidity / longer cure time.

I have a few jars of over two year old weed and it's all over 60% Rh. All good, though some not optimally cured initially.
 
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