Drying speed irrelevant to taste, "harshness" and potency [discussion]

Thought I'd try and create some dialogue on this. Does the slow drying and curing process provide any significant improvements to the psychoactive potency of cannabis?

There are also other things I've never understood, namely taste and "harshness" of quick-dried vs. slow-dried weed.

I notice a lot of talk about the taste of weed. I'm not much of a regular smoker but it seems hard to believe that any weed could leave a favourable taste in the mouth. Smoking it has always been a tasteless event to me lol.

As far as the harshness of the smoke goes, the weed itself seems to make equally little difference. Chlorophyll has often been the accused culprit of harsh smoke yet I got really high last week from no more than a gram of fairly smooth-smoking, early harvested (~2 weeks early), toaster-dried, finger-ground popcorn buds. I usually find that smoking only burns my throat if I'm too close to the roach and it becomes hollow because it's made out of the cardboard of a rizla pack or something.

Then there's the potency: would the relative boost in a joint's potency not be fairly negligible?

Well I think a good way for u to get an idea of the differences is take some of that toaster dried stuff and compare it side by side with some nice high grade MMJ buds or sumptin similar, and just look at the visual differences and the difference of the feel, one should be crispy and break apart easily the other should be kinda sticky bud dry at the same time with a much different smell to it. Then smoke a bowl of each, don't smoke joints the paper will affect the flavor of the smoke. That should give u an idea why we go thru the whole process of drying then letting the bud sit in jars for weeks curing, cause u damn sure know most of us really wanna smoke it and not wait.

I get what you're saying dvs, I haven't had any experience with long cured weed or bongs so I am speaking partly out of ignorance to the more refined methods of smoking lol.

Not sure what to gather from your comment, copreal D: edit: if you mean to compress the point of this thread then yes I'd be interested to see more input about the drying and curing process.

From what I understand terpenes are responsible for the aromatic scent of weed given sufficient time to cure, but they don't affect potency. The cannabinoid profile of any given plant might be affected if dried too quickly or at too high a temperature, but if the toaster method does well at avoiding this, then quick drying may not be as bad as people think, assuming the smoker enjoys the novelty of a joint and/or doesn't mind the subtle but noticeable degradation of quality when using a bong or vaporiser.

sounds like your smoking garbage weed being tasteless maybe your premature toaster dried stuff and are you serious their is a big difference on flavor and harvest time and potency what are you ten or what have you never smoked good weed

what did you do grow your own weed to try it for the firt time

As a new grower only in my 2nd year I have some issues with the whole drying process myself. Mostly, for me it doesnt matter if its summer or winter or where I hang a plant to dry it, if I left it up for a couple of weeks as some recommend, I would have a naked stem and a pile of dust on the floor. I've tried hanging in different areas of my house and it doesnt seem to matter, its dried out in a matter of 3-4 days every time. And as for curing goes, I've read how it gets danker the longer it is in jars, and it is optimal at say 15 weeks or so ! Hell I'm lucky if I can keep it jarred for 15 days before I need it. I only yield an oz or 2 from each plant. And another thing I found is if I do manage to keep some in jars beyond 3-4 weeks, it begins to dry out in the sealed jars too and I end up dropping a fresh leaf in the jars to put a little moisture back in them. Thats been my reality which is different than everything I read about drying and curing. So, what am I doing wrong?
Now, in the winter, I have forced air heat and I know thats going to speed through the whole process.

Yeah actually when u mentioned temps I thought up sumptin else u should check out, and I wasn't tryin to compress the point of ur thread at all. Anyways when u use a vaporizer from what others said when u control the temp of the vaporizer the higher the temps the more of the well i forget which ones cannabinodes or trichromes not sure but there r different ones and they supposedly burn at different temps for a diff high. Like for someone that smokes for pain issues use a higher heat, but if u only roll I would suggest tryin some different smoking methods will bring out more of the flavor ur lacking, or u just might not have a very subtle pallet.

Cobnobuler said:

So, what am I doing wrong?

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I'd recommend investing in a thermo/hygrometer to monitor your drying environment. The guidelines of slow drying usually fall around 20-22C at 40-60% relative humidity. Within those ranges it apparently takes 1-2 weeks.

@bluntmassa: yes, I'm a first time grower. I'm not a first time smoker but neither do I smoke regularly. I should mention that the same early harvested weed I talked about had me "overdosed" once: intense time distortion for many hours, racing thoughts, multiple laughing fits, could feel my aorta contracting and dilating from a rapid heatbeat... I can vouch for potency despite early dried weed. And now that I feel like I've been called out, here's a show and tell of my first grow.



2nd pic is the top of a 7 inch wide, 16 inch long cola (in soil).

@dvs it's cool, the comment was directed at copreal, which is a rather conspicuous name lol

for most it takes 5-7 days before theyre ready to go in jars.

Nice man they r lookin good, but looks like one of ur plants has a couple buds that r fox tailing on u there. Its where u get a bunch of lil points growin out instead of the bud growin to one point. Not sure what causes it.

Cured bud smokes so much better then stuff thats been forced dried. Theres a massive taste difference too, ive tried both and its not in the mind at all, cured but is smooth and tastes great!

As for cured weed being more potent i dont think it is at all. Stuf thats been hung dry for 5-7 days will give me a numbe feeling in my limbs if i smoke enough of it, wheras the cured stuff just gets me totally stoned!

Personal opinion, cure the weed youll enjoy it more and get a better taste from it.

dvs1038 said:

Nice man they r lookin good, but looks like one of ur plants has a couple buds that r fox tailing on u there. Its where u get a bunch of lil points growin out instead of the bud growin to one point. Not sure what causes it.

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well noticed. im not sure ither but im going to do some research umm

dvs1038 said:

Nice man they r lookin good, but looks like one of ur plants has a couple buds that r fox tailing on u there. Its where u get a bunch of lil points growin out instead of the bud growin to one point. Not sure what causes it.

Click to expand...

Thanks, yeah there's definitely a lot of foxtailing going on. I think it's to do with the average lights-on temperature in the tent (28C) + the pictures I regularly took during the dark cycle which probably interrupted normal growth.

Guess I'll leave some aside to cure for a couple months and decide whether it was worth the wait.

Kronicle420 said:

Cured bud smokes so much better then stuff thats been forced dried. Theres a massive taste difference too, ive tried both and its not in the mind at all, cured but is smooth and tastes great!

As for cured weed being more potent i dont think it is at all. Stuf thats been hung dry for 5-7 days will give me a numbe feeling in my limbs if i smoke enough of it, wheras the cured stuff just gets me totally stoned!

Personal opinion, cure the weed youll enjoy it more and get a better taste from it.

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Always interesting to hear someone speak from experience. Do you notice a distinct difference in the psychoactive effects from cured weed compared to anything but? I've never experienced a different "type" of high, it's always been a cerebral/head buzz and I cannot stop talking

If u get a green colored light bulb just a regular incandescent one for ur room when u wanna work in there during ur dark periods it will not disrupt their dark times. And usually I only get a different type of high depending on whether its indica or sativa, the cerebral heady high ur talkin about comes more from sativas, and u get more of a body sleepy high from indicas. That is why I prefer to cook with indicas.

Well obv drying time will effect smell/taste, either because its been flash dried and still has the green smell since it not long of the plant, or quick drying has been said to damage certain parts of the plant that produce its smell etc.

When it comes to quality best thing i saw was a clip on youtube , about those labs that test the weed in cali , they had before and after tests with non cured bud and cured bud , and on there wee computer graph the cured stuff seamed to be kicking the arse out the non cured stuff.

From personal experience, I've quick dried and cured bud from the same plant to find this out.

The quick dried herb got me high, tasted and smelled grassy and didn't hold up to storage without turning into powdery shake after a week.

The mason jar cured bud got me high for longer, tasted and smelled like weed is supposed to and held up to months and months of storage without turning into shake.

As for curing, I still recall back in my 20s when I bought a bag of "homegrown" (what we called the weaker stuff years ago). It was OK stuff, but not as good as some of the better stuff we were getting. I wrapped the weed up tight and stuck it in a jar and hid it in a hollowed out stump (hiding from other people). I forgot about it until about 3 months later, when we hit a dry spell. Took it out and it was as potent as anything else we could find before the dry spell.

I think you are just saying that you have a very unsophisticated pallet... If you can't taste differences in pot nor notice different levels of harshness then awesome for you. You can buy cheap bud all day long and have nothing to worry about. My wife can't taste the difference between wines types/grades or coffee types which makes shopping for those things very affordable. But there are people who notice drastic differences between bud, coffee, wine, chocolate, tobacco...

Where do these differences come from? Well both the plants genetics, how it was grown, and the cure process. What happens during a cure? The material breaks down for the most part. This breakdown changes phenols, sugars,... Water content changes, chlorophyll breaks down... You don't happen to smoke tobacco do you? Even smoked green uncured tobacco? Nothing at all like what you buy in the store.

Potency changes as well to a degree. THCA breaks down to THC over time (not just in the presence of heat) which means you can boost the levels of psychoactive THC in raw bud by letting it age - of course if you are going to smoke the bud this doesn't have a huge impact as most all THC will decarb with the flame. At the same time THC can degrade as well so if you let it go too long you'll be degrading total THC content. This same process also impacts the other cannabinoids.

Might be easier to think about wine. Take two bottles of the same vintage and they taste the same. Age one more than the other and they taste different due to the slow controlled oxidization. Let the bottle sit open for a week and it's vinegar because you let it oxidize too much too fast.

Hmmm that sounds pretty good especially since I've been rollin my own cigs for a while now I'd be interested in growing my own tobacco wanna see what a fresh green tobacco leaf looks and smokes like. I think its kinda funny though some wine tasters act like their pallet is as sensitive as a dogs nose and they can taste each ingredient used in the wine it makes me laugh. Like y yes I detect the subtle flavor of pineapple with a hint of marshmellow, tangerines, and praying Mantis sperm!!!!!