Curing is the process of preserving cannabis for long-term storage. There are various techniques, burping/purging/venting; folks even using water these days 😱. But I'm taking a wider view to include the impact of wet or dry trimming, and how they affect ultimate taste and aroma.
What trimming & curing technique gives marijuana buds the best aroma and taste, preserving a much of the plants terpenes as possible.
To keep our experiment scientifically accurate as possible:
- We are only using 2 plants, from same mother/breed, and F5 (really stable genes)
- We'll evenly distribute the ~16 colas of each plant across the groups
- All drying & curing will occur in full darkness (not trimming for obvious reasons..)
- Blind tasting/smelling will judge outcome
Method 1 - Dry Trimming, hang dry, standard cure - control group
I'm including this first not as my own personal method - it isn't. But as the one I concede as the "standard" to getting really nice looking and smelling buds when done correctly. For our experiment it is the control.
- Plants are harvested live
- Plants are dissected into smaller segments, but not trimmed.
- Plant Segments hang dry for ~4-5 days until small buds snap off without stringing
- Plant segments are hand trimmed into buds
- Buds go in glass jars, 2 weeks, dark place
- Daily burping, 1 hour open air per day
Method 2 - Fresh Trim / Wet Trim, hang dry, Standard Cure
This method is my go to. I find wet trimming to be fast an easy, but admit the buds tend to keep more of that "fresh cut hay" smell than I'd like.
- Plants are harvested live
- Plants are dissected into smaller segments
- Smaller segments are trimmed leaving only sugar leaves that will dry into bud
- Plant Segments hang dry for ~2-3 days until small buds snap off without stringing
- Buds go in glass jars, 2 weeks, dark place
- Daily burping, 1 hour open air per day
So you can see the only change is that trim first, dry second. Since the buds dont have the outer leaves they dry much faster.
One theory is that faster drying doesn't allow the natural processes as much time to break down chlorophyll and enrich cannabinoids. All my alternate methods from here, for this initial experiment, are chasing methods to slow drying.
Method 3 - 1 day delay, wetish trim, dry, Standard Cure
The idea here is to mimic the outer leaves with an open jar that doesn't prevent the osmosis of water, but slows it considerably by keeping the air around the buds at a much higher moisture.
- Plants are harvested live
- Plants are dissected into smaller segments
- Segments hang dry 1 day
- Smaller segments are trimmed leaving only sugar leaves that will dry into bud
- Plant Segments placed in a drying basket
- Looking for humidity of jar to drop from initial ~90 RH down to ~60, small buds snap off without stringing
- Buds go in glass jars, 2 weeks, dark place
- Daily burping, 1 hour open air per day
Method 4 - Fresh Trim, OPEN Jar Delay, hang dry, Standard Cure
The idea here is to mimic the outer leaves with an open jar that doesn't prevent the osmosis of water, but slows it considerably by keeping the air around the buds at a much higher moisture. Unlike method 3 we though we're focusing on first 48 hours, and then backing off. T
- Plants are harvested live
- Plants are dissected into smaller segments
- Smaller segments are trimmed leaving only sugar leaves that will dry into bud
- Plant Segments placed in a 2 quart jar (big ol one) with open lid for ~2 days (humidity still high)
- Plant Segments hang dry for ~1-2 days until small buds snap off without stringing
- Buds go in glass jars, 2 weeks, dark place
- Daily burping, 1 hour open air per day
Results
Stay Tuned..