Water Curing??
- Thread starter Hettyman
- Start date
Water Curing is done by cutting down your buds and removing the fan leaves. It's optional to do further trimming, but note that cured trimmings always make better hash. Place them in a bin of Reverse Osmosis water and keep below above 65F and below 75F. Use something to gently weigh them down. Once a day for 3-7 days (depending on personal preference) change out the water with clean fresh RO water. Because there is a high concentration of chlorophyll and salts in the buds and none in the water, Osmosis will naturally occur, drawing it out of the plant until the levels are equal. The water is changed out to keep the osmotic pressure at its highest: day old water will not have the same osmotic force to suck out everything. After the 3-7 days, hang and dry the buds like you normally would. Done!
Results:
-Less bag appeal
-The smoothest bud you'll ever smoke
-Bud is more potent, but only because the total weight is reduced. IE- where you may get 1.5g air curing, you'll only get 1g with water cure: a much purer product
-Using them method allows you to pump in nutrients all the way to the end, with NO 1-2 weeks of flushing. That could increase yields significantly.
Remember that nothing we want to smoke is water soluble. That means it will not leach out into the water. The only thing that can happen is trichomes can break off if you treat the buds roughly: be gentle.
Results:
-Less bag appeal
-The smoothest bud you'll ever smoke
-Bud is more potent, but only because the total weight is reduced. IE- where you may get 1.5g air curing, you'll only get 1g with water cure: a much purer product
-Using them method allows you to pump in nutrients all the way to the end, with NO 1-2 weeks of flushing. That could increase yields significantly.
Remember that nothing we want to smoke is water soluble. That means it will not leach out into the water. The only thing that can happen is trichomes can break off if you treat the buds roughly: be gentle.
eDude
Well-Known Member
Save yourself some time and just take your buds over to the toilet and just flush them down the drain.. Water cure is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. My girlfriend tried it once and it was fucking horrible. If you lived in 100% humidity all the time then maybe if that's all you got but.. yeah, screw that. Worst thing ever.
mipainpatient
Active Member
#1 Terpenes, nuff said. (ok I'll throw you a bone here, one of them, myrcene, directly affects the uptake of THC)
#2 You are creating an environment where bacteria/fungi would thrive (food service this is known as the danger zone, wet/humid between 40-140F. If you see any signs of fungal or bacterial infection or had soil contact with the flowers consider yourself warned, this method should be reconsidered in light of this info.
#3 There are many other cannabinoids and terpenes which may actually be lessening the effect of the H2O insoluble THC and this may also contribute to the potency of water cured.
#4 You can water cure already cured bud to remove contaminants, considering you take #2 into account. Also if you water cure freshly cut plant matter, you are dealing with the living plant still. The shock from being almost 100% unable to uptake any gasses (CO2/O2) which are normally used for metabolism/photosynthesis plus the shock from being cut/trimmed is going to cause the plant to overproduce anything which relates to defense/shock. THC levels are known to be linked to abscisic acid levels (AA is a known plant stress hormone). This may also result in increased potency.
#5 This method (because you are already sacrificing flavor and thus the dehydration/flash dry step is not going to detract in that arena) is a potential option for someone who needs to harvest meds from an infested plant but wants to reduce chances of re-infestation from curing/cured meds. Just remember to set the dehydrator to above 140 for more than an hour and damn sure everything is gonna be dead. This process may also result in more effect decarboxylation of the THCA to THC which may result in more potent product, especially if you plan to cook with it, and don't normally include a decarbox step.
#6 Not trying to rant here but I have a bit of experience with this method and my results match consensus on a number of other forums (and possibly threads I read here at RIU) which is that water cured makes great stealth nug because the smells people associate with MJ are typically terpene based and thus have been selectively removed from the product. I have also enjoyed the combination with normal (hang-dry) cured for an effect unique to either.
It may also be that the plant is differently metabolizing the terpene precursors to make other terpenes which are water soluble too or ones that we just aren't familiar with. Water cure definitely smells different, but not grassy like poorly/half-cured product. I actually vape mine, so I kinda have to get a bit more personal with the flavor and usually don't like it very much. However I have never gone less than 6 days and also don't really water cure anything that would be just fine otherwise so definitely not tried it with any primo. You'd probably catch me dropping primo in the ol' turlet long before I water cured its flavor away. But there is something to the potency issue, I'd love to get around to running some analysis on a harvest which is cured both ways.
Hope some of this was helpful
MPP
Hettyman
Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the replies... especially the copy and paste guide to water curing. Guess the best thing to do is try it with one of the buds and make a comparison. Soil, complete organics and sensible feeding means my budd tastes pretty hella anyway, but striving for perfection as always
