Curing, a myth perpetuated by bad growers

WestDenverPioneer said:

Cannabis and peaches are not the same. Many fruits and vegetables are picked early as you described. Cannabis does not ripen once it is cut. It simply decays. Clear trichs turn amber. Clear trichs do not turn milky. Cannabis has to be picked ripe. It's not a peach.

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This is not true. Until the plant has dried, it is still alive after cutting, and some trichs will indeed shift from clear to cloudy during the drying process as the plant completes it's life cycle. The plant is still alive for a considerable time after cutting, that is why we can clone plants, if it died immediately upon snipping then the whole cloning process would be futile. As a matter of fact, the drying and curing process is to PREVENT the plant from decaying, that is why weed stays (relatively) green in color and firm to the touch after being properly dried, whereas a plant left to dry on the vine, so to speak, will be entirely brown and desiccated and crumble under pressure just like a dead leaf or flower from any other plant.

Ace Yonder said:

This is not true. Until the plant has dried, it is still alive after cutting, and some trichs will indeed shift from clear to cloudy during the drying process as the plant completes it's life cycle. The plant is still alive for a considerable time after cutting, that is why we can clone plants, if it died immediately upon snipping then the whole cloning process would be futile. As a matter of fact, the drying and curing process is to PREVENT the plant from decaying, that is why weed stays (relatively) green in color and firm to the touch after being properly dried, whereas a plant left to dry on the vine, so to speak, will be entirely brown and desiccated and crumble under pressure just like a dead leaf or flower from any other plant.

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Drying it in the dark is what keeps it green.
Trichs don't turn cloudy after the plant has been cut.
After you cut it off the plant, clear trichs turn amber, not cloudy.
The enzymes needed for synthesis are not made after the plant has been cut.
Link -> http://biocyc.org/META/NEW-IMAGE?type=PATHWAY&object=PWY-5140&detail-level=4&detail-level=3&detail-level=2#

Ace Yonder said:

if it died immediately upon snipping then the whole cloning process would be futile.

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It's not dead instantly but many things stop happening inside the plant when you cut them down and hang them in the dark.
Clones are treated differently to keep them from dying. That's why we handle them carefully, keep them under lights, provide them with water and so on. Nothing is done to prolong the life of your flowers after you harvest them. The THC is decaying. The only reason you are drying it is so that it will stay lit and can be smoked. The THC is best when it is fresh.

Your flowers (smoke) may taste better after you dry them and let the vegetative material relax a little, but the THC has decayed during that time. Once you cut it you are no longer producing THC. Clear trichs will simply age and eventually turn amber in storage.

WestDenverPioneer said:

It's not dead instantly but many things stop happening inside the plant when you cut them down and hang them in the dark.
Clones are treated differently to keep them from dying. That's why we handle them carefully, keep them under lights, provide them with water and so on. Nothing is done to prolong the life of your flowers after you harvest them. The THC is decaying. The only reason you are drying it is so that it will stay lit and can be smoked. The THC is best when it is fresh.

Your flowers (smoke) may taste better after you dry them and let the vegetative material relax a little, but the THC has decayed during that time. Once you cut it you are no longer producing THC. Clear trichs will simply age and eventually turn amber in storage.

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When you say THC is best when fresh, does that imply smoking it before it has been cured, cause unless you do an extract of some kind, you are not going to smoke "fresh" weed at all, unless you want to remove your lungs from the current position and plaster them on the ceiling.

The process slows down rapidly, but it does not stop the moment the plant is cut. There is still enough of the processes going on that it will indeed finish out the trichs that were already in transition, I have seen it myself several times on my own plants. Will it cloud up a fresh trich, no, but it will finish one that was already started. I also have bud that was stored for over a year and the trichs were pretty much as I left them, they did not amber up at all.

Hell, our fingernails and hair grow for awhile even after being filled with embalming fluid and stuck in a dark cold hole 6' down.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

the cure is for the plant material not the trich's

ASMALLVOICE said:

When you say THC is best when fresh, does that imply smoking it before it has been cured, cause unless you do an extract of some kind, you are not going to smoke "fresh" weed at all, unless you want to remove your lungs from the current position and plaster them on the ceiling.

The process slows down rapidly, but it does not stop the moment the plant is cut. There is still enough of the processes going on that it will indeed finish out the trichs that were already in transition, I have seen it myself several times on my own plants. Will it cloud up a fresh trich, no, but it will finish one that was already started. I also have bud that was stored for over a year and the trichs were pretty much as I left them, they did not amber up at all.

Hell, our fingernails and hair grow for awhile even after being filled with embalming fluid and stuck in a dark cold hole 6' down.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

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You had me until the fingernail thing... We die and nothing grows but a mans dick for a few hours after we die. The appearance of growth from hair and nails is just the skin drying and shrinking.. We've known that for a long time.

Cannasutraorganics said:

You had me until the fingernail thing... We die and nothing grows but a mans dick for a few hours after we die. The appearance of growth from hair and nails is just the skin drying and shrinking.. We've known that for a long time.

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Okay, I am not a forensic pathologist, so I will take the bullet on that one,

But I do know the rest of what I said is 100% correct. The plant does not turn off like a light switch the moment it is cut,

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

Bump!

Now I would have to say I am enjoying this much more than when it was first dried around 6 weeks ago.. What I have found that I don't like though are humidipacks. They seem to leave the leaves, buds and stems in a soft rubbery state and it doesn't grind well... I can lay them out for a day and they will grind nice and fine but I have to remember to set them out and frankly, I'm so stoned most of the time I sometimes forget to unzip before I pee! ...

For some clarification, a plant is only ever considered dead once all vascular motion has fully ceased. Until then it is still classed as alive.

As long as some degree of vascular motion remains, a plant can recover from some impressively severe injuries. But for any injury too serious to recover from, it just serves to keep the plant alive in the rough analogy of a brain-dead state until that motion finally stops due to pressure or input, and it "dies".

i cure my weed so it stays consistent over the 6 months or so that it takes me to smoke it all
if i did not cure it i find it will dry out too quickly and become harsh tasting over this time

the best tasting weed imo is more dependent on pheno/strain drying and flower structure, curing comes last

some phenos are bursting with flavor and have a great calyx to leaf ratio and also dry light/pale green
when weed like this is dry it will taste much better than weed that has been cured but had a poor flower to leaf ratio
and or was dark green to start with and had little smell

rather than trying to remove the green/chlorophyll with curing
it makes more sense to me to try not to have too much to start with in the first place
which means selecting plants that produce large calyx with little leaf in the bud
and or removing the little leaf before drying
most of the nasty taste comes from these little leaves and some buds are full of leaves

Wow, this was some read. I dry and cure my weed different than most. I actually invented a chamber with fans and heaters. it's discussed in one of my old threads here. I have had a lot of forum members over the years visit and post smoke reports afterwards.

The most recent happened a few weeks ago, several growers sat around for a few hours smoking my weed. One of the offerings was a strain I named Lil Bush that had been in the jar for 7 months. At the end when they all went home and posted about the gathering, ALL of them picked Lil Bush as being the best taste, best smoothness, etc..

Since I know ttystick, (and live in Colorado) I am gonna have to meet with the OP and swap some buds Could be interesting lol

As for this thread I'm gonna stay on the curing side

My stuff rarely stays around long enough to give a proper cure....usually out the door 7-10 days after chop.

I've been growing G13's Pineapple Express for about 6 months (one of my favorite strains) and found a jar that was accidentally stashed away since July. Normally I can only smoke about 1/2 a joint (I'm a light-weight) of the fresh weed, but with the cured weed I actually finished a whole joint......the difference was that it tasted so much better than the fresh weed. It was like warm butter going over my tongue. If there was any THC drop I certainly didn't notice it.

Now I'm jarring around 1/2 an ounce of each harvest and stashing it for personal use later down the road. If THC drops over time I think that the better taste makes it worth it.

I am sitting here wondering if different strains cure better or worse than other strains? Dense buds vs. airy buds? Sativa vs. Indica?

to be truthful I will not waste my time reading this thread as nobody could ever convince me that curing is a myth

I can be open and willing to listen to opinions about flushing, defoliation, PK boosters or almost anything else....but not to cure is just plain stupid

I once bought 2 ounces from my cousin grow,,,, 3 month latter after I cured it, he could not believe we were smoking his pot....he bought mason jars that very day and has never looked back

I have read and perhaps RM can collaborate that it takes some time for degradation to occur and that light is a contributor. Curing does not imo lead to degradation of thc in a normal time frame. In saying this I never have it around long enough to actually test this lol.

waterdawg said:

I have read and perhaps RM can collaborate that it takes some time for degradation to occur and that light is a contributor. Curing does not imo lead to degradation of thc in a normal time frame. In saying this I never have it around long enough to actually test this lol.

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That is correct, I tested it, left a bud out for a month and compared it to a bud in the jar the one left out in the light and air lost a few % points from 25% to 22 THC

Good information @RM3.

I have grown just for myself for years, every 6 months or so, and every time I do a harvest I will shelf the old stuff and start using the new grow as soon as the green taste goes away. Why? I personally like the flavor more and I believe the high is better/different.. sharper maybe. I recently found an old bottle, around 4 yrs old... of course it was as brown as dog turds but I was really surprised at the good high when I vaped it.... I only vape so the flavors are more mild anyway but to me it had a flatter/not much actual taste to it.... still a surprising good buzz tho.

SO question. Has anybody tried to just put in directly into jars? I mean since its supposed to pull out moisture wouldnt it do that anyway? I mean instead of drying and curing wouldnt this just do both jobs at once?

Ok, what homebrew420 seem to be saying is that you can get the curing going while drying the buds i.e. while they are hanging in the drying room. It's all a matter of how well you regulate the temperature and RH in that room so to make the drying process as slow as possible... Am I right? Because if that's true then I am indeed quite confused... Doesn't the curing process consist of anaerobic bacteria that feeds on the remaining chlorophyll, sugars and starch left in the buds after drying? That's what I have read in many places and if that's true that means that you need an air tight seal in order to get that process going (anaerobic = life without air) which would make the process homebrew420 is describing insufficient in removing all left-over junk in the buds that makes it taste nasty. Or have I missed something? Isn't there an anaerobic process involved in clearing out all left-overs in the buds?

Captain Greenbeard said:

Ok, what homebrew420 seem to be saying is that you can get the curing going while drying the buds i.e. while they are hanging in the drying room. It's all a matter of how well you regulate the temperature and RH in that room so to make the drying process as slow as possible... Am I right? Because if that's true then I am indeed quite confused... Doesn't the curing process consist of anaerobic bacteria that feeds on the remaining chlorophyll, sugars and starch left in the buds after drying? That's what I have read in many places and if that's true that means that you need an air tight seal in order to get that process going (anaerobic = life without air) which would make the process homebrew420 is describing insufficient in removing all left-over junk in the buds that makes it taste nasty. Or have I missed something? Isn't there an anaerobic process involved in clearing out all left-overs in the buds?

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I was thinking the same thing Captain.

Mt Doo said:

SO question. Has anybody tried to just put in directly into jars? I mean since its supposed to pull out moisture wouldnt it do that anyway? I mean instead of drying and curing wouldnt this just do both jobs at once?

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One word. Mold.