preparing cannabis for storage without curing

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has tips to always attain the same quality when only drying and not curing.

I am a vaper and for vaping I just don't like cured cannabis. Cured cannabis has deep smells and they translate well to the taste when smoking. Cured cannabis makes my smoke smooth and potent.

But exactly the same herb from the same jar will taste bland and the effect will be much weaker when I vape it. If I would take a bud from the same harvest that had just been dried to a certain point and then frozen. The one stored in the freezer is always more potent and tasty than the cured ones in the vape. ANd I always get that live plant smell mmmm. For smoking, this same bud will be inferior and a bit more harsh for smoking.




That is why I mostly freeze my cannabis once it has attainted a certain point during the drying process. Because I am a vaper now and taste and effect is important to me. I am not saying the cured ones are not tasty or good to vape, they are, but they are inferior to the frozen ones without a cure.


And to be honest multiple times during the drying process of any strain, the herb reaches a point where it is super tasty and strong, no harshness, better than cured weed IMO, but they are often a lil bit too wet for storage at this point. I would like to reach that point of quality and then freeze it.

I have done it many times, the problem is consistency of results due to changing conditions. For freezing it really needs to be at a certain point or else the herb will be mediocre afterwards.

People always say that after drying their buds don't smell strong and they use the cure to bring out the smells. But for me, when I dry, the cannabis is always reeking and very pungent and sticky. I don't want the smells or the intensity of the smells to change, I want it to stay like that, the strong fresh smell (like the buds were still on the plants when alive). Herb that is in this state gives me the thickest vaper, the most bags (for the volcano), the best taste and the best effect. I don't really get louder smells when curing, smells are always loud, even when just dried. Curing for me just changes the smells, brings out smells that werent there before.

The problem is that I don't have a climate controlled room and I can only get herb in this state if I dry at 18 degrees celsius at 55-60% RH. Sadly the conditions often change, making it difficult to acchieve the same result over and over again. If the RH is lower I lose a lot of flavour and texture; If it is much higher, the herb just doesn't dry.

Using humidifiers and dehumidifiers is not an option as they are too agressive and the air is not mixed well , not homogenous.

I was thinking of maybe using glass jars to slightly dry the herb a little more to get it from bending to snapping stems in the bigger buds. But then never closing the jars, just leaving them slightly open.

Could that help in maintaining the original flavors? If I close the jars, after a few days (with burping) the smell goes away and then after a few weeks new deeper smells start to develop. But I just lose the initial fresh intense smells. That is why I want to avoid closing the jar. I don't want it to cure, I just want it to get slightly drier to all buds are uniformely dry.

The goal is to get them to the point where they are almost done drying and then to get all the stems to snap (also the bigger ones) but without keeping the jar closed and allowing them to cure.

For freezing the buds for vaping they need to be sticky, smelly, spongy, and the stem needs to make a snapping sound ithout breaking in
.

SO could this be a solution? Or does anyone else have a solution? I just hate to vape cured buds.

Maybe put the buds in an open mason jar after clipping buds from branches. Letting it sit like that for a few hours and then keeping the jar almost closed while still allowing air to escape, slowing down the drying process without letting them sweat too much? And then letting them air out a bit for a few days?

They just need to get to the point where they are uniformly dry, still sticky tasty and strong with the original smell with (barely) snapping stems.

Once they are taken out of the freezer they will sweat and then stems will snap more clean.

This is not a debate about freezing or not freezing, I do it, it works for me. Rather this about getting herb to the ideal point to be suitable for freezing WITHOUT a classic cure to avoid smells changing and keeping the original loud aroma of the buds.

For example jar curing amnesia or sweet pink grapefruit will just rape the aroma. You get smelly dank bud, but you just lose the initial magic smell the bud had.

I hope I was clear enough in desrcibing the problem I am having cuz it is difficult in another language.

To store buds for months or years without any worries about mold, I took inspiration from the thread started by Tangwena, which describes the method of curing weed that originated in Malawi.

I get the weed as dry as I can, until the stems snap, and then I compress it into a puck, using a modified car jack. That puck is then sealed using Food Saver vacuum machine, before placing that sealed puck into an air tight and water tight container that I generally hide down in the swamp, to keep my house "clean" in the climate of prohibition still prevailing here.

From my experience, weed stored this way gets tastier and more potent with time. With the tonnage I apply to compact the bud, along with the complete extraction of air by the vacuum machine, I have ZERO mold issues with this method of storage that requires no refrigeration.

you want more mono terps in your smoke, you have to construct a controlled space to dry, small grow tent is easiest.

most of the time if your ambient humidity is below 60% you dont need a dehumidifier, just a fan will do.
if you are in the tropics look into peltier dehumidifiers and coolers for conditioning a small drying box.

in the first part of the drying process a fan will turn on to exhaust the tent and bring down the humidity but when you get to a certain stage you will have to have a humidifeir to add moisture as soon as you drop below 60%.

the $39 two stage controller I use for humidity control in my dry space is this.
Inkbird Digital Pre-Wired Outlet Dual Stage Humidity Controller IHC-200

this is the humidifier I use, it's big enough for a bed room but will work in a tent too, it takes a bit of rewiring to bypass the built in humidistat so you can run it from the inkbird controller.

AIRCARE 831000 Space-Saver, White Whole House Evaporative Humidifier 2700 sq. ft

if you have a small tent or closet you could use a much smaller Evaporative Humidifier or even a small mist unit.

if you don't have the humidifier you can't slow the process down enough to keep the goodies in your buds, you want it to take 12-20 days or so before they are ready to jar or tote depending on how dense the buds are.

you only need air conditioning if you are in a really hot place with no access to a basement or air conditioned room in a house.

60-65 degrees is ideal but low seventies won't be a deal breaker.

this controller works well if you are cooling with a fan and it's dual stage if you need to add some heat at night.
Inkbird ITC-308 Digital Temperature Controller Outlet Thermostat, 2-stage, 1100W, with Sensor


my Outs are almost all dry now, cool and slow with crazy loud terps this year!!!

Sour Dubble


Forum Cookies


Wedding Cake

@chunkypigThank you that is exactly the info I needed!! A good drying proces to me is much more important than a cure!! Looks like you got it all down and I can already smell them from here!!

Why do I need the Inkbird controller if the unit already has a built in humidistat? I saw the product page on amazon.

-One more question, do you keep the exhaust fans on for consistent airflow or do you turn it off after 7-10 days to further slow the process down? Or do you gradually turn down the settign on the exhaust fan?

Thanks in advance

@swamp thang: thnks for your input, but like Chunkypigs said, I want more monoterpens in my bud, I want the original fresh smell and taste the plant had when still alive. I only get that with a good drying process. Curing will change mono to sesquiterpenes. And I just don't like cured buds. I like em fresh. They can be real smooth and tasty when fresh if dried well.

I gave up on curing from so many losses due to my inability to control temperature and humidity in unheated sheds and garages. This year I dried it to 55%, then into the freezer. I was surprised to find that I'm still getting a fair amount of flavor from the uncured weed.

THC123 said:

Hi

I was wondering if anyone has tips to always attain the same quality when only drying and not curing.

I am a vaper and for vaping I just don't like cured cannabis. Cured cannabis has deep smells and they translate well to the taste when smoking. Cured cannabis makes my smoke smooth and potent.

But exactly the same herb from the same jar will taste bland and the effect will be much weaker when I vape it.

Click to expand...

You can use a jar to store the buds without air (well technically there's a tiny amount of air).

Anyway, that pretty much stops most biological processes, like curing.

Vacuum seal them in a jar, and put them in a freezer, and when you take them out they will be VERY similar to how they went in.

https://www.amazon.com/FoodSaver-FS...1572205693&sprefix=food+saver,aps,347&sr=8-25

https://www.amazon.com/FoodSaver-FC...=1572205867&sprefix=food+saver,aps,347&sr=8-1

THC123 said:

.....

Why do I need the Inkbird controller if the unit already has a built in humidistat? I saw the product page on amazon.

-One more question, do you keep the exhaust fans on for consistent airflow or do you turn it off after 7-10 days to further slow the process down? Or do you gradually turn down the settign on the exhaust fan?

Click to expand...

you need the controller so your dehumidifier or exhaust fan used for dehumidification doesn't run at the same time as the humidifier runs.

the controller has setting your can modify to control how close they come to overlapping. if you rely on 2 different controllers, one on humidifier and one on dehumidifier they will probably end up both on at the same time.

exhuast fan is used to de humidify in a small tent or space with small amounts of bud when the ambient humidity is less than what you want, in this case less than 60%.

once you hang more than a few pounds you probably will want to use a dehumidifier but you don't have to if your ambient air is really dry.

when I'm drying in my sealed grow room the exhaust fan is not used at all, just the AC, dehumidifier, humidifier and circulation fans.

when I dry in a small tent the exhaust fan only runs to lower the humidity and no circulation fan in that small space. the controller and humidifier are key to have hooked up because the fresh weed will dry out enough to drop the tent below 60% and then if you don't have the humidifier ready your shit will overdry and finish too fast.

as long as the humidifier is running you can leave buds hanging for over a month. some of my dense cookies need weeks at 60% before they are ready for totes.

leave the buds on 12-18" or more of stem, the moisture in the stems helps slow the drying process and slower equals better flavor and more terpenes left in the herb.

wait to buck and dry trim until they will be smoked or vended.

Great better weed quit blaming everything else.

If your bud does not get absolutely undeniably better with time, especially in w vape "grow better weed " is the only thing you need to do.. You do not have a grasp on flavor if you St any point think a vape tastes bland. Could be you, but it's your weed, I already know. The herb most people are growing today has zero flavor metabolites.

My weed is very flavorful, it is about preferences, I just enjoy fresh herb, I don't like aged herb because it changes and converts monoterpenes into sesquiterpenes. Some like cured weed, some like it fresh....And I am just looking to capture that fresh dankness. Plus curing is just pain in the ass for me. I only cure very small batches in case I want to smoke a special joint on special occasions.
For me the first 6-8 weeks of curing I really like the weed for vaping because then the original smell intensifies. But between 8-12 weeks when the smells really start to change, I just don't like it in the vape. It is smooth, tasty and strong, but compared to the fresh frozen herb it is bland in the vape.

And even though you might not believe it, fresh frozen weed (just drying no cure) also gets better and tastier in the freezer.

So yes, it gets better with curing (as opposed to not storing it in a jar) but it is not better (for me peronally) than frozen herb at a specific point. Do you get what I am saying? It is all about taste and preferences......

I don't want my amnesia to lose that sweet lemony smell, with curing the sandalwood undertones start to emerge, but I just really like the fresh smell. Same with Swee Pink grapefruit, after 4 months curing it smells super strong and dank but the rotten complex undertones make way for a more generic sweet white strain kind of smell. It is these changes in smell that I just don't want for certain strains. With curing you will always change the aroma, especially with long cures. Other strains like many purples or haze strains really conserve their original smell well with curing. I think it depends on the terpenes which processing method you should choose. Jars aren't always best, even though everyone uses them.

This year I divided the harvest of each of the 17 plants into 3 or 4 batches. All at different points of dryness to see what works best for smoking and what works best for vaping. (and to see how they come out of the freezer as opposed to how they were frozen).

Sometimes when I take weed out of the freezer (depends on what point they were frozen) they are just perfect and sometimes they are still a lil bit too wet or a bit too dry.

So I tried to fix the ones that were not optimal and I just put em in a closed jar for 2 days and then after that they are just perfect and I put em back in mylar so they don't change too much. Not too wet, not too dry, nothing but loud smells and the taste which is just as the smell.

It is a mini cure(or quick sweat), this way the herb always gets to the same point, every time.

This is really working well now. nothing but smoothness and taste and STRONG effects. And the herb is nice and fresh. They smell like on the plant.

Slowly but surely I am getting where I want. I should have taken notes of each batch but 17 times 3 or 4 was way too much paperwork. I will note everything down when I will be processing a single strain harvest. I still know most of it.

The only thing left to really perfect it is to control the RH and Temp in my room like chunkypigs showed me. I think after that I will be 100% satisfied and really be able to take it to another (consistent) level.

I just woke up from a involuntary weednap. My weed also cockblocked me yesteday evening as I let my FWB smoke some of the new weed and she fell into some sort of wintersleep at 21 o clock in the evening.

It is funny how this simple outdoor guerilla shit is way better than the cookies or gorillaa Glue or amnesia that is sold on the streets. It's just that those folks that sell really don't know how to dry.

Have you seen this thread about finishing drying/curing your buds in the freezer?

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=186222

It’s a pretty interesting concept. You dry the buds for 3-5 days to reduce a lot of the moisture. Then you place them in a frost free freezer in an open container for a month or more. A frost free freezer works by gently heating the walls of the freezer to melt any frost, then it evacuates the moist air from the freezer; thus preventing frost buildup. This process is basically a very slow version of freeze drying, where the water actually sublimates (changes from a solid to a gas, without a liquid phase) from the surface.

I have done this once when I was going out of town a few days after harvest, and will be doing it again soon. For me it really did work, the buds dried and were mold free. You can move them to sealed jars and continue to store in the freezer or a cool dark place. I didn’t have anything to actually compare, but I felt the buds had a much “fresher” taste upon combustion. The buds were brighter green and more spongy than my normal process produces. I haven’t done it since then, but that’s just being stupid and in the habit of doing it other ways.

I would highly recommend you process even a small portion of your next harvest in this manner and see if it’s something you’re looking for.

I did see it and I think it is a good idea. But I cannot try it this year as my freezer is full of weed and food that I grew myself. But next harvest I'll try a few buds. Seems like a good way to preserve all terps. I am a bit worried about texture as the buds go in fresh but you never know if you never try so yeah soon I'll try it and post the results.

With freshr taste you mean like smooth and tastefull or you mean a more green cholorophyl taste? How was the texture of the buds?

The buds were more spongy or springy, but in a nice way. It made nice material for joints. The fresher taste is harder to describe... the taste was more vibrant... tasted more like what I imagine vaping a fresh bud off the plant SHOULD taste like. It definitely wasn’t a greener/chlorophyll taste, the bud was very smooth. It could have been placebo but it was kind of like a altoids mint... cool and fresh, and a little stronger than you expected. Now, I really wish I had some to compare in my current stash.

Glad to hear you had a bountiful harvest and have a freezer full of buds and food!

I am experimenting a lot and bought a bunch of mini jars (for like 2 grams of bud). This way I can experiment more with many methods without the risk of losing too much weed when it goes wrong.

So I just wanna equalize the moisture of the bud without a real cure, I want to retain the smells I have when they are done drying and intensify those without developping new or deeper smells. (fresh weed at its best).

I talked to a few grower buddies and of all my grow buddies there is only ONE who has the same quality as me. But he doesn't freeze his weed, rather he does jar cure them. But his weed always smells just as loud as my frozen weed, but it has the perfect texture and moisture content for smoking. I won't explain his whole method, but he does ONE THING, that I never dared to try but something that makes a lot of sense. He just dries it to a specific point and then the jar stays closed, no burping.......

His weed is just perfect, not too wet (nowwhere near as wet as simon's method) and not too dry. It is just how I like my weed for smoking and it also vapes pretty well.

I am going to experiment with finding the sweet spot to jar them without burping(talking bout full jar here).

I don't have newly harvested weed, but I do have a lot of frozen, uncured (even untrimmed) weed. So I am going to experiment with that.


I already noticed a few things:

1)If I want to make my freezer stored weed optimal for smoking and even better for vaping, I just throw a few untrimmed nugs inside a jar for a few hours so it can breathe inside of the jar, equalize moisture and lost a little bit of moisture without really drying out. The rest of the nugs stay in mylar where they remain in stasis. It is important that there is very little vegetative matter compared to the amount of free space in the jar. Remember, this is not curing, this is drying out the bud in a closed environment. For example if I were to put the same quantity of bud in a small jar, the bud would sweat instead of dry.

This is a really great method for me as it takes out a lot of stress factors. No preparation, just dry and store and just before use let it breathe a little bit. The taste was like perfectly cured cannabis and so quick, without burping and waiting so long. It vaped and smoked well!!!

My stash however is not dry enough to keep them closed in full jar like my buddy does, I will experiment with drying my weed a bit more before sealing them in a jar but the real experiment will have to wait untill next harvest.

2) I also noticed something I noticed years ago: If I follow all the instructions that I ready everywhere (and there are a lot of different ones) I notice that when I burp jars, somehow the quality and smells just change too much for me.

Or one time they smell dank, the other time less and in extreme cases the quality just got worse burp after burp. I have had some great jar cured cannabis, also following simon's method. But it was just not the kind of quality I am looking for.

What I also noticed is sometimes I cured weed for 4 months. I popped the jar after all that time, I open it and smell it. The weed is just stellar and then, every time I open it quality gets to shit. It still smells good but it tastes like it is too dry even when it is spongy.

I don't get how people can burp their jars every day, some for even 30 minutes, and not end up with shit quality. It seems like many of these instructions (not simons) are made so you get weed that is just too dry.

Another reason could be that many of these guides were written by usa people. They smoke without tobacco. Maybe to smoke without tobacco (and also the vape) the weed needs to be a lot more moist than for smoking weed pure.

I am rambling but with all these new mini jars I bought I am gonna do some serious side by side experiment.

Main point of the whole ramble was, I noticed that if I cure cannabis without ever opening the jar, I get what I am looking for: the original fresh smell intensified. The smell will stay like that for 6-8 weeks and then the typical "cure smell" comes (which I just don't like).

Difficulty is finding the exact same point over and over again for evry batch. Too dry and it will be no good, too wet = same.

Does anyone have experience here with just drying till a specific point and then jarring them without any burp or opening them for checkup.

Can anyone who has done this describe how the buds feel moisture wise before sealing them?

My buddies buds (after coming out of jar after a month) were sticky, outside was dry but not crunchy, stem snapped after bending a lil bit, smells were loud. So how would this weed have been before jarring, I guess almost bone dry.

Did a side by side.

I cured some guerilla gold 3 nugs for 4 weeks in small jars.

1 jar was opened once per week

1 jar was opened every day

1 jar was never opened

and 1 batch was just put in a mylar bag and then sealed.

The aromas were best in the jar that was opened once per week and the jar that was never opened. And then the mylar bag was also real good.

Taste wise and structure wise, the one in mylar won hands down!! The ones in jars smelled great after a month but did not taste the same. They were alright in the vape but real green in a joint.
The one in mylar was sweet and tasted just like the smell.

In mylar they don't sweat that much as in glass jars. The same weed in a jar would get real moist whereas the one in mylar equalizes the moisture but doesn't really sweat. I think this is due to the fact that there is not much air in a mylar bag to lose moisture to. (low VPD)

What I also did in another test was letting a mylar bag that came out of the freezer breathe for 15 minutes and then I put the mylar bag in a jar and let it rest for 2 weeks. This also works really well for me.

For some reason (probably low VPD in the bags) as long as the buds stay in the mylar, the structure and moisture content and aromas remain stable and improve.

As soon as I put buds in a glass jar they lose their balance. Also the buds in jars taste different each day it seems. The same weed in a mylar bag in a glass jar does not have this problem. Taste and high stay the same and the structure improves.

The reason I put mylar bags in jars is because I have ziplock mylar bags. In winter here RH is real low so after a few days in the mylar they will start to dry out. So after a few days, when the outside of the buds becomes a lil drier/less sticky, I put the mylar bag in a jar and then after 2 weeks it is just perfect.

With losing their balance I mean changes in taste and smell etc... or for example that they smell great but don't taste like they smell.

I think I am going to make a procedure using only mylar and ditching the jars. This really seems key to preserving the fresh smells and the good full rich taste and smoothness.

The more I experiment the more I dislike jars. With the mylars there is so little that can go wrong compared to jars and also the end result is not the same. They also age way better in mylar. No stale smells of brown coloration after a year in bags.

Jars are great if you want to cure the weed and you can wait 6-12 weeks but the end result in jars is not the quality I am looking for. I need a faster method that focuses on fresh dank in your face smells. With curing the aroma gets deep and complex but it is not my preferred kind of weed.

Finally found a great way to cure without funny smells of aromas changing all the time.

When most branches snap, but some of the bigger ones still bend I remove the buds from the branches. Then I let them sit overnight in a closed closet in an open jar.

As soon as I notice the outside getting a bit crispy and the bud is crumbly but still sticky, I put them in a glass jar and keep it closed, no burping. Stems snap at this point, some can still be a lil bendy and snap at 45 degrees.

After a month I just get the fresh, dank original smell of the bud with a great smooth taste in a joint AND in a vaporizer.

I am now experimenting with small jar to see for how long smells stay fresh and how it improves (or deteriorates) over time.

This works for me!!! Burping just doens't work for me, I don't like it how weed changes with burps. Even tried Simon's method, but it was not what I was looking for.

Btw As soon as I open a jar I put all the buds in mylar bags and seal so they stay that way. If I open a jar a few times the quality is fucked for me.

This method gives you more of a commercial type smell and texture (bit on dried side but still sticky). But it stays FRESH

That being said, Simon's method does make for some interesting smell development so I was thinking of trying to cure a jar at 64% RH for 2-3 months and as soon as it smells amazing I will try to bring humidity down by using the method described above.

And so we keep on experimenting and testing