Hey everyone, I haven't studied the sciences of curing, and a few plants I plain old did a bad job on. But I thought I'd share my experience really quick about these two cures I did for girl scout and sin mint last year. After doing a general 7 day drying with humidifier and fan, the buds were dry enough to move to jars. So I put them in mason jars and for one month, 30 days, I burped them and what not. They got better, but I expected these two to knock my socks off, for that time they didn't. They were slightly above OK. Then a little better at the end of the 30 days. From there I thought "is this it?" all that work? I did the process... Then I had the idea to vacuum seal the mason jar, so I did it and waited another 30 days, left it in the dark. When I popped that lid off. Oh my goodness, straight up dog farts! It was the best smelling weed I had ever had the pleasure of. And the smoke was even better. I'd say medical grade. It easily made it 2 times better than day 30. The smell was beyond glorious for both of the breeds. I took some of my older ones and vacuumed them too, left th up there for 60 days while smoking the other stuff. The quality of high didn't get to much better, they were not all star breeds. But the smell became fabulous on them too. I thought I'd share this for anyone who's got a small jar and a fresh harvest. Or heck maybe I stumbled onto a well known curing practice. Either way. Wanted to share the xp.
Did you put your jar inside a vacuum sealer bag and then seal it, or did you use one of those Mason jars with a hand vacuum extractor lid?
Sorry I shoulda have said. I used wide mouth mason jars and a food saver vac, the kind you vacuum and freeze steaks in bags with, it has a little hose and head attachment you can purchase for wide mouth jars. So the jar ended up 100% airtight. FoodSaver T03-0006-02P Regular-Mouth Jar Sealer FoodSaver FM2000 Vacuum Sealer Machine with Starter Bags & Rolls | Safety Certified | Black
Curing doesn't increase potency, it increases the smokability, smell, and flavor. I know there's a lot of people who say it increases potency but that's a myth. Since expectations play such a huuuge role in our high, if you think curing will give you a better high you'll probably have a better high. Putting a vacuum on bud should pull off more terps and moisture so perhaps the delicious smell of aged dog farts that hit you in the face when you opened the jar was the evaporated terps. It's possible that a longer cure time will allow some of the THC to degrade into the less psychoactive CBN which gives the high a less euphoric, more sleepy feel (couchlock) but I don't know if curing for only a couple of months will be enough time to allow enough THC degradation to affect the high.
Well either way it was wonderful stuff, if you got a little extra jar then I suggest trying it. It was magical.
Containers by RecliningCough posted Oct 9, 2018 at 4:18 PM This is what I use - and they work great - I do burp for a week after drying but that is all...
I've done the same thing with a FoodSaver with my jarred harvest. I think it keeps better. I've also added oxygen absorber packets to the jars instead of a vacuum and since air is about 20% oxygen, as it's absorbed it puts a small vacuum in the jar. I've added O2 absorbers to Mylar packaged bud and after a time the packages looked all....sucked in? squeezed up? like raisins and the bud inside was slightly compressed so I won't do that again.
I've always wondered if back filling the jars with nitrogen would be of any benefit.... you can pick up cans of compressed N2 for back flushing water and O2 sensitive materials --- I used to use it all the time with adhesives. I figure if they are filling potato chip bags with it, it has some merit.
Oxygen does contribute to the degradation of THC into CBN, that was my point in adding O2 absorbers to my long term storage jars of bud. Displacing the air in the jar with nitrogen would extend storage time but unless you're talking about long term storage it won't make a difference. A few months wouldn't matter enough to notice. Nitrogen for potato chips keeps the oil from turning rancid and may have other benefits. THC is oil.