Once I get my buds in jars, how do I know when it is all the way cured and ready for storage? Is vacuum sealing a good way to go or could that ruin a great crop?
I’m interested as well. I’ve got a food saver, but long ago lost the air hose and lid adapter.
My current routine is chop to branches, hang in dark, well vented dry box (literally pulling my tent input air through the dry box first, to scavenge odors). Once stem breaking dry, buds snipped off limbs and into dark brown canning jars, stored in a dark place, burped as needed until the cut hay odor dissipates, and awesome weed aroma returns. Then it’s cured to a state I want to preserve as long as possible. It is at that point I’ve thought of gently vacuum sealing jars. The idea of course is to stop time where possible at the point of best product. What I don’t want is crushed buds. So I’m looking into vacuum sealing jars in a civilized way, lol.
ITOD (in the old days) we didn’t know about curing. When it was dry enough to smoke, we smoked it. I doubt the stuff coming in the hulls of barges was cured properly. I thought I was way ahead of the curve because I had an “air proof” Tupperware container which I kept in the fridge. It certainly had to be better than baggies. I knew that tobacco was cured for a time, but I didn’t know how or why. Now is a different time though. We have forums like this and tutorials, but curing is hardly covered. I know about burping after jarring, but for how long and how often? When to stop burping.
I recently harvested some Banner Fast which was dried for 15 days before jarring. Through the last weeks of flower, drying, and the first month in the jar, it had a sour gassy diesel odor. Then almost overnight, it changed to a sweet fruity almost flowery scent. I never noticed this before and plan on having a smoke test soon. We will see how it goes. If it is as good as I think it should be, I may seal it up good (after taking a few select buds out first).
Like most of us, I lived most of my life in prohibition, where secrecy and bro science ruled. We aren’t yet entirely free of that , actually.
What I’ve been able to understand and do is this. The green in leaves is chlorophyll. It smells like cut grass or hay when deteriorating, and as we all know, is rough as hell to smoke. Chlorophyl needs light, we dry in the dark to kill the chlorophyll, once it’s gone, the background chemicals that create the flavors and aromas we love pop out at us much more. That’s where we want a cure to go.
I’m no expert, and my vision is horrid, so I need simple. Here is what I do.
I use the hygrometers they sell ten for twenty, in my drying box (literally mounted one in the door of the box), and in each cure jar.
Once the flower is dry enough to snap small twigs, it goes in jars. I use quart size dark brown ball jars. Keep it loose, so air circulates, and into each jar of bud, I place a hygrometer and a 62% Boveda pack.
Date the jars. You’ll mix them up. Just do it.
The first few days I burp the jars twice a day, then once, then every couple of days. When burping, note the rh, and give each jar a sniff. You’ll soon develop a nose for ripeness. It’s almost like the smell of fully ripe strawberries or peaches. The perfume chemicals working overtime, and you just know when you’re there. The hygrometer and boveda pack means after a couple of weeks, you’ll notice rh trending toward the target of 62%, give or take a bit. It’ll correspond with the scent ripening as well.
I’m generally running out of previous product before complete maturity, but have reached that place where the current product is superb, and I want to hold it like that as long as possible. Just store in a cool, dark place, and it ought to be good a very long time, and decent tasting a year or more.
Flavors and aromas, like colors, will vary, even in the same bag of high quality auto seeds, but the above is always the same. How long it takes to dry and how fast it cures is going to vary because we have only partial control of conditions along the way. Imagine the stress on the boutique growers marketing fancy weed in dispensaries? And that’s why eventually we will be as rare as the home tobacco grower and cigar makers. The corporations will take it over and add flavors like Marlboros, and nobody will remember what real weed was.
In any event, boveda 62, and watch your RH and temp. Gently agitate jars when you burp them. You’re literally airing the stuff out, including letting go of some products of decomposing chlorophyll etc that are funky as gym socks.
That’s about it.
Oh, I also believe in trying to do at least somewhat legit science in the sense that I try to keep the method simple and as consistent as possible. I’m on the far end of a dozen blueberry auto, grown in twos and threes. I have two left in the seed safe, and three in the dirt at the moment.
Repeating the same strain, same soil, adjusting one thing at a time, using controls when changing things, etc, so I can validate my thinking or change it. This round the changes I’m experimenting with are pot size and a bit of modification of dosing of additives.
The batch I’m currently smoking was a plant that I almost lost due to a transplant accident, almost pulled when it failed to thrive, then just surrendered to babying it and seeing what happened. What happened is stress caused premature aging, and it cashed its chips in, turned all kind of colors, and died on the stump at under ten weeks. It is awesome, delicious, potent smoke. The “healthy” plant that was all sorts of flexing beside it? No colors at all, completely green, lush, dense bud, but it has a diesel funk to it I’m hoping goes away. I just put it in jars yesterday after a twelve week chop and two weeks in the dry box.
To the above I would add, the chemicals that give weed it’s scent, flavor, and some of its psychoactive properties are very light oils that evaporate at low temperatures. That’s why a joint in your pocket reeks. Somewhere I recently read that one key chemical evaporates at something like 75F. Sunlight of course tears up any aromatic compounds, so sunlight might dry weed faster (thinking of the cool kids drying a big ole bud by hanging it on the car sun visor). It may be cool, but degrades the smoke horribly.
SO
Dry and cure in the proverbial “cool, dark place.”, and don’t be in a hurry. Low and slow.
That’s what I’d advise based on my experience.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna fish a little nug out of the jar, gently snip off a chunk, and pop it in the glass bowl of the bong and fire it off before it loses its sick af aroma.
All that stuff is not needed just get a 4 tier drying rack for 20 bucks and boveda packets 62 percent humidity is what you want
I broke down and opened my billfold and got some boveda 62% packs along with some mini hygrometers. I put both in my latest harvest and the meter showed 62% in little time, which tells me 2 things: the packs work and the meter is accurate. I love when devices work properly. They work in vacuum as well. I hope the b-packs don’t add or subtract scent or flavor from the flower. Time will tell.
Exactly mirrors my experience. Packs don’t seem to have any effect on odor.
Put a pack and a hygrometer in each jar. You’ll see when you burp them how the RH approaches 62 and finds a happy place close to
There
