We growers sometimes hear terms that leave us scratching our heads in wonderment. We know about drying and trimming, but what’s up with curing? When people talk about perfectly cured buds, what do they mean exactly?
Personally, I put my dried and trimmed flowers into Mason jars or into C-Vaults for a few days to a few weeks to allow for the residual moisture content in the flowers to become even and balanced throughout the jar. I will “burp” the jar once a day for the first few days then just let it chill in a cool and dark spot until the buds are perfectly ready to burn.
What do you do to cure your flowers? What’s your method?
Once I have dried the flowers, I jar them up on mason jars (one gallon and one quart jars). For the first two weeks they are in jars, I crack them open for 20-30 minutes each morning and evening.
After those two weeks, I go down to burping them for 10-20 minutes every day for the next two weeks.
After that first month, I just burp them weekly for another month or two. After that I find them to be pretty stable, and will burp them monthly. I find that in my curing process, around 6 months after harvest the buds are in their best state as far as taste/smell/smoothness.
I cure more like @Growernick. I live in a very dry climate so I will jar them in quart jars, not any more full than 2/3rd. Then open and close, gently toss to make sure nothing is sticking together, lol. I’ll do that daily for a week, then once again about a week later and a long as everything looks good they chill in a cool dark place.
I Dry, trim, and then put into jars with a boveda 58. I like the boveda 62s but I just seem to get more “snap” when breaking a bud in half that has been in a jar with a boveda 58.
After wet trimming, I hang the branches to dry for 3-5 days, then trim off the buds and box them for another 2 days.
My cure, in quart Mason jars, in a 65° dark place:
First 2 weeks 2x daily burping, 15 mins each time
Week 3 once daily burping
Week 4 burp 3 days a week, once a day
After one month, time to stop regularly burping.
I hang the whole plant (unless I’m making hash) for 10 days in a humidity controlled space 45% , for the first 36 hrs the room is kept at 72° then I drop the temperature to around 60° for the remaining time .I dry till the major stalks snap inside the bud when bent( some give but stalk must snap before it can be bent to 45° then I jar up in mason jars 3/4 full and put in a boveda pack and burp twice a day and give a quick shake, after a cpl weeks of that I do it once a day for another month (I keep them in a dark cold place for storage long term)
Oh yea forgot to mention I recently started using nitrogen/CO2 gas to displace the oxygen in my jars so as to minimize the oxidation of the product.i also do this for extract storage;)
Fill each container of flower full of distilled water.
Close the container.
24 hours later, open each container.
With a folded-up paper towel, place that over the opening and then tilt the container to filter the salt, chlorophyll and nutrients that were left over will pour through the ‘filter’ (folded paper towel).
Note - the water will be orange/yellow for the first couple of days
After the water and grossness is drained out, replace the water with fresh distilled water and re-seal each container.
Repeat the above steps for 6-8 days, your flower will be ready to smoke!
(The potency will increase at the slight loss of terpenes- they won’t be gone completely, just slighted decreases in intensity)
I have never heard of this, how does it dry out if you have it soaking in water? on the last day let’s say it is day 8, and you take it out of the water, then what do you do with the bud to dry it out before smoking?
I’ve read that wet curing tends to severely affect the taste and aroma of the buds, though this allows one to be stealthier.
If it causes an actual loss in terps, that’s a no-go for me, personally. Those terps are what make each strain special; it’s not just about flavor and aroma, but about EFFECT.
First I do a little wet trim but still leave big leafs to aid in drying process then hang dry until I can snap stems easily “usually about 9 days due to the humidity in the PNW” , then I do a light dry trim and place them inside of 5 gallon spintop buckets with two 67 gram Boveda packs “58% Relative Humidity” & close for a week, then once a day for the next month I open bucket for 10-20 mins, after the first month I go to opening the buckets once a week for 10 min-15 & month 3 I start placing them into clean large Mason jars with new lids and 1gram Boveda packs. I have jars that are 2 years old and taste amazing.
