The curing process is talked about a lot, and it’s easy to get misinformed. Does curing affect the potency of your buds? Apart from being a delicate procedure that involves keeping a keen eye on the internal environment— humidity, temperature, light— must be monitored. If the curing process is this demanding, then it better be beneficial to your buds.
One thing should be clear though, whether curing helps improve the potency of your weed or not, it is a necessary procedure. It has to be done if you intend to keep your buds for later use, or simply put, if you want to use the herb.
After harvesting, you dry the weed, but they’re never completely dry; they retain a lot of moisture. They’ll look entirely dried on the outside, but the insides still hold moisture. It’s through curing that you can expel the moisture from the buds efficiently so that you can store them for a longer time. So yeah, you still want to cure your weed properly— even if it had nothing to do with the potency of your weed.
Does Curing Affect the Potency of Cannabis?
Curing affects the potency of your buds positively. It is during curing that cannabergerol converts to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), enhancing the potency of your weed.
Cannabergerol is the non-psychoactive compound from which THC develops. As metabolism continues in the buds, they’ll need food to sustain the process, and so they’ll breakdown the sugars in the buds, further purifying your buds.
Also, chlorophyll breakdown happens during curing as the buds senesce, removing the harshness from your weed.
What is Curing?
Curing is a slow-drying process that eliminates moisture content from the buds at a slow, controlled pace. After drying, the buds will appear dry on the outside but will still be holding moisture inside. Curing helps remove this moisture without losing the beneficial compounds in the buds. It involves packing the dry manicured buds in a jar to control the humidity and temperatures in the jar.
The same way you need a controlled environment to grow potent buds, you need a controlled environment for curing. You cure the buds by keeping them in an air-tight mason jar and burping as appropriate. You also monitor the internal environment so that the buds don’t grow molds or degenerate— rot in storage. Curing the buds properly will bring out the weeds terpene profile boldly and potentiate the cannabinoids too.
Why Cure Cannabis Buds?
The curing process requires patience and attention to detail. Monitoring humidity, temperatures and having to feel the buds between your fingers is no small commitment. However, the results are worthy of the effort. The benefits of curing cannabis include;
1. Curing Improves the Potency of Weed
Metabolism continues into the curing process, facilitating the conversion of CBG to THC. CBG is the compound from where THC evolves. If the fresh buds had high concentrations of CBG, the curing process allows for perfect conditions for their conversion into the psychoactive THC.
It is also at curing that the sugars and chlorophyll breakdown happens. The buds break down the sugars to sustain their metabolic processes, while chlorophyll breakdown occurs naturally as leaves senesce. The breakdown of sugars and chlorophyll makes your weed cleaner and smoother. You won’t choke on the smoke as chlorophyll that causes the harshness has been broken down during the curing process.
2. Curing Improves the Aroma of Weed
Curing preserves desirable flavor in your weed because gentle drying at low temperatures during curing prevents terpenes degradation, giving weed its characteristic taste.
3. Curing Increases the Shelf Life of Your Buds
With proper curing, you can store your buds long without worrying about mold or cannabinoid degradation. You can keep your weed for up to two years without significant loss of potency, especially when stored in airtight containers in a cool dark place.
How to Cure Your Cannabis
Proper drying of the harvested produce precedes the curing process, and the better dried they’re, the easier the curing process will be. Sometimes the buds are too dense, and so a lot of moisture remains inside. You might begin curing, and then you realize they’re too wet for curing. It happens a lot when you rush your way through the drying phase.
Curing, unlike drying, has no other serious stage ahead of it, so if you get it wrong, you can spoil even well-dried buds. Here’s how to cure your cannabis the right way;
- Manicure the buds; This involves separating the buds from the branches if they were not dried individually. While manicuring, rid the buds of all sugar leaves.
- Keep them in airtight jars; Pack the buds loosely into the jar, leaving airspaces between them so that they’re not stuffed. Gently shake the jar; if the buds stick together, they might be too humid for the curing process. Air them out until they begin to rattle when you shake them.
- Proper placement; After adequately sealing it, place the container in a cool, dry, dark location, maintaining a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius and relative humidity of 60%-65% percent within the jars. Within the first day, you should notice that the buds are not crunchy and dry anymore since the moisture within the buds has rehydrated them. If this is not the case with your buds, it is possible that you overdried them and may have to remoisturize them with Boveda Packs.
- Keep a close eye on them; Check on the buds regularly— at least twice a day in the first few days of curing. Open the lid for a few minutes daily to allow fresh air into the jars and maintain the humidity levels. When the humidity levels are higher than 60 – 65%, leave the jar open to allow them to breathe. If the humidity falls below the optimum levels, leave the lid on for longer hours without burping sessions. If you notice the smell of ammonia when you open the jar, it means that the buds were not dry enough to be cured. They are therefore being consumed by anaerobic bacteria, which will result in moldy and rotten cannabis. After the first week, reduce the burping sessions to once a day.
Your cannabis is ready for smoking after four weeks of curing as it can provide a quality experience. The longer time it takes to cure, the better since curing cannabis is equivalent to wine aging. The older the wine, the better it is—up to 6 months of curing, beyond which nothing much improves.
In Conclusion
The curing process has tremendous effects on the final product. It allows you to dry the weed completely without losing the weed’s core compounds. Curing doesn’t just dry your buds; it also potentiates your weed by increasing cannabinoid production and improving the strain’s terpene profile.
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