Curing cannabis in Ziploc bags isn’t something you hear about often but still is talked about.
For most budget growers, anything that costs money is substituted by another that doesn’t. Thus, those who find airtight mason curing jars expensive are inclined to try curing cannabis without the curing jars.
Most people who cure weed have a good amount of it, and the curing jars provide the best means of curing.
But sometimes, you get your weed from the dealer and realize it isn’t properly dried, and if you don’t cure it further, it may get moldy and pose health risks to users.
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When you have just a few buds to cure, using Ziploc bags could be a good idea.
But when you have your entire harvest already dried, I won’t think of using Ziploc bags for curing. That isn’t a personal preference, most growers would instead cure in mason jars, but let’s find out if curing in Ziploc bags is a valid choice for a good harvest.
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Can You Cure Cannabis In Ziploc Bags?
Ziploc bags can cure weed, but they shouldn’t be your standard curing method. Ziploc bags leave a huge opening when you burp, leading to the buds rapidly losing moisture. This will dry out your weed, making them harsher when you smoke. But Ziploc bags degrade your weed in many ways.
Fast-dried weed is harsh and doesn’t cure to the perfect potency. You steal a lot of goodness from your weed when you decide to use Ziploc bags.
The plastic bags are known to crush the buds, bursting the trichomes and stealing the terpenes, flavonoids, and cannabinoids from your buds.
Related Read: How to Dry and Cure Cannabis Properly; A Complete Guide
Why You Should Never Use Ziploc Bags To Cure Weed
Ziploc bags seem attractive because they’re everywhere. They cost way lower than a basic curing jar.
They also seem economical for a dealer who wants to move his weed fast and doesn’t want to invest in curing jars for long-term storage.
But plastic bags spoil your weed, and you should never use them. So let’s get into details.
Plastic Bags Leak Smell
If stealth matters to you, then you should never use Ziploc bags for curing. Even when the bags appear to seal tightly, they’re porous. The smell will permeate the bags; thus, you can’t hide them from prying noses.
The Buds Will Lose Flavor Or Smell Weird
The smell infiltrating the plastic doesn’t only cost you stealth. The porous papers also allow the weed’s true aroma to escape.
In the end, you end up with buds that either smell weird or don’t smell at all.
The weed’s smell is a unique quality factor, and most growers I know won’t want to compromise on weed’s aroma.
In contrast, airtight curing jars allow the buds only to lose what they should— extra moisture. Everything else is trapped in the glass!
Plastic Bags Crush Your Buds
Plastic bags offer no physical barrier between the buds and your storage.
Be it in your cabinet, in your pocket, in your bookshelf, or wherever you decide to keep your weed, everything that your weed gets in contact with crushes it.
The continued crushing will reduce your buds to a lot of dust at the base of the Ziploc bag.
Unfortunately, resin glands also crush easily, leading to a significant loss of essential weed components.
When I cure my weed, I want the buds to remain intact. Any physical crushing, especially when the buds are still fresh into curing, could also lead to loss of trichomes.
If you’ve noticed a thin, greasy film on the insides of the Ziploc bags, that’s where your trichs got lost at.
Glass curing jars afford your buds the defense against ‘brute force’ contact in storage. The buds remain intact; thus won’t be reduced to dust at the bottom.
Plastic Bags Reduce The Potency Of Your Buds
The essence of curing is to mature your weed as you would wine. Curing is the art of retaining enough moisture and losing the excess.
Curing with Ziploc bags means you can’t control the amount of moisture that leaves the bag effectively.
When you open the bag for burping, it opens wider, leading to a rapid moisture loss. Losing the moisture in the buds rapidly leads to dried-out buds that lack in taste and potency.
Dried out weed is also harsh to your throat and can induce incessant canna coughs.
The plastic bags are porous, and this leads to lose of essential cannabis compounds.
According to Danny Danko, the author of Cannabis; A beginner’s Guide to Growing Marijuana, buds that are dried out completely lack taste and are less potent.
Related Read: Does Curing Affect the Potency of Cannabis?
Buds In Ziploc Bags Are Prone To Mold
When you open the bag, the big enclosure drops the pressure in the bag, leading to more humid air coming in. Then it gets cold, and the high volume of humid air condenses on the side of the bag or back onto your plants and starts to mold.
Other Methods Of Curing Weed (Pros and Cons)
Using Ziploc bags is not the only alternative to curing weed in airtight glass jars. There are other ways, and we’ll look at them in intricate detail.
Curing In Paper Bags
The brown paper bags aren’t a new thing in the cannabis curing world. Long before Ziploc bags, growers used grocery paper bags to store their weed.
Today, they’re less common, but some people still use them.
The biggest problem with paper bags is that they’re more absorbent and will absorb all the moisture from your weed.
The buds will thus dry out faster, becoming harsher and losing their aroma.
To stay safe, do not use any bags used for grocery in curing weed. The most available curing bag isn’t always the best.
Water Curing
Water curing involves submerging your buds in water for a short time to cure your weed.
It is different from air curing in that instead of the buds breaking down the unwanted components, the water absorbs the water-soluble components from the buds.
The water-soluble components include pesticides, chlorophyll, and sugars—all the impurities the curing process seeks to remove.
Water curing works because, unlike water-soluble impurities, cannabinoids aren’t water-soluble and thus remain.
Compared to air curing (the traditional method), water curing is much faster.
You don’t have to wait for the buds to break down the unwanted components; the water hungrily absorbs them.
To hasten the process of water curing, you can use reverse osmosis water because it encourages faster dissolution.
With reverse osmosis water, your weed will be well-cured and ready for consumption in five days.
Change the curing water every day. Freshwater brings in more particles to absorb the unwanted components.
Think of it like rinsing your favorite white linen shirt. It gets cleaner with every addition of clean water.
Pros Of Water Curing Cannabis
- Water curing is fast. Your buds will be ready for use in less than a week.
- It is easy. If you can change the water according to schedule, you know enough to start water curing your buds.
- It helps in eradicating harmful components of weed, even solid ones. Your weed, therefore, becomes smoother when you smoke it.
- Due to its purifying effect, it’s a clever way to use buds attacked by mold.
Cons Of Water Curing Cannabis
- Water curing losses the distinct weed aroma. Though cannabinoids aren’t water-soluble, most flavonoids are, and thus they get lost during water curing, reducing the distinctive weed aroma.
- It reduces the aesthetic appeal of your buds. Water-cured buds do not look as attractive as air-cured buds and don’t smell as good.
This might pose a considerable challenge if you intend to sell your weed.
Deep-Freeze Curing
If you thought that water curing is the fastest curing method, the joke is on you.
Deep-freezing cures your weed in a matter of hours— not days, not weeks!
The deep-freezing curing method involves freezing your buds below 40°F.
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide, and when you enclose your buds with ice cubes, they will suck the moisture out of the buds, drying them.
Your buds do not get wet because the water is lost through sublimation.
Sublimation is the process that turns solids into gas without passing the liquid state.
Freeze-drying compartments have a vacuum system that then sucks out this water vapor.
Pros of Deep-Freeze Curing
- Deep Freezing cures your buds faster. Within 36 hours, your buds should be ready.
- Since it’s superfast, your buds are free from mold infestation.
- It doesn’t degrade your weed. Instead, it preserves its potency and aroma.
Cons of Deep-Freeze Curing
- The weed will taste different because the dry-freezing method doesn’t break down the chlorophyll.
- The presence of chlorophyll will also make the buds a little harsh to your throat.
- Defrosting the weed after deep freeze curing exposes the buds to extreme temperature changes, which makes them susceptible to environmental hazards like mold.
The Verdict: Can You Cure Cannabis In Ziploc Bags?
Curing in Ziploc bags is practical when you either have too few buds to cure in a mason jar or when you have an industrial-scale quantity of buds to cure.
You can’t cure in mason jars when you have just a few buds because the extra space means more air in the jar, leading to the buds drying out fast.
Industrial-scale growers also find stuffing buds in mason jars overwhelming and impractical. They thus, use large Ziploc bags to cure their colossal harvest.
However, for a home grower, investing in airtight mason jars for curing will rewards you profoundly.
The mason jars offer physical protection to your buds so that the resin glands remain uncrushed.
They also make it easy to maintain proper environmental controls, a curing process that guarantees high-grade buds!
So What’s The Best Way To Cure Cannabis?
The best way to cure cannabis depends on your needs and expertise. If you want a quick process, then you can go for deep freeze curing.
But if you want the best buds, then the old-school air curing in airtight glass jars is the best way.It is slow but preserves your bud’s essential compounds without compromise. Therefore, it is the most recommended curing method when quality is your key concern.
