As growing cannabis plants at home has become more common every year, drying and curing cannabis buds has also grown in popularity. Properly cured buds are substantial enhancements to traditional buds, but it’s impossible to receive their advantages without the right tools and techniques.
So in this post, we will walk you through the best methods for curing marijuana buds, teach you how long to cure cannabis for ideal results, and why curing buds is worth the extra hassle.
It can take as many as four weeks to dry and cure buds. However, dried buds’ upside is easily worth the wait.
For starters, putting your cannabis flowers through a proper drying method enhances their flavor far beyond that of traditional marijuana plants. Because you’re giving the trimmed buds the chance to shed excess starches and sugars, your cannabis crop won’t have any unwanted substances diluting its terpene content.
Additionally, dry buds put through a slow curing process last longer and have more potency than wet buds, thanks to the time they get to develop their THC content.
As you can see, cured and dried cannabis is a time investment with several benefits. And thankfully, you won’t need anything outside the following items to start curing today:
You’ll need to decide how to trim your cannabis before you begin drying or curing.
With a “wet trim,” or trimming your buds as soon as they hit ripeness, you’ll want to trim every bud before you dry. On the other hand, you can start the initial drying process before trimming if you choose a dry trim.
After deciding on a trimming technique, you’ll move your buds into a temperature-controlled room with a drying rack. This room should be roughly 18 degrees Celsius and not a degree below 16.
Additionally, you’ll want to use your humidifier and dehumidifier to keep the relative humidity around 50%. For the best results, use a small fan to circulate the air around the room.
Set up your drying rack in the room and hang your buds. Check on them daily to ensure no moisture or fresh air has interrupted the process. Drying takes a week on average, but you’ll know your buds are ready when the flowers are crunchy.
After drying, place your buds into a jar and move them into a dark room with minimal humidity.
You’ll need to leave your jars in place for a month before the buds are properly cured, inspecting them daily for texture and smell, and shaking them occasionally to separate stuck-together buds. If the jars smell like ammonia, they’ve developed anaerobic bacteria from not being properly dried.
Drying and curing cannabis is simple–it just takes some time. But if you do it right, it produces cannabis with better flavour and potency than un-cured buds.
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