What is the chemical reaction Difference between Drying and Curing

iknownothink

Well-Known Member
My Initial question is basically does Curing make your bud more potent ? After a whole lot of answers on google like.
"it certainly does", "No, there is no wayit could possibly increase potency" to as far fetched as the trichs carry moisture and the curing drys them out and they become the THC ..

So does anyone know if your buds get more potent the longer you leave them or are they at their max after they are dried, and curing is 100% purely for taste. My answer is relating to people who bake with their buds, should those people even bother curing as you can't taste anything anyway. :)
 

Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
IMO:
Drying is getting down to the required RH%. Curing is the bacterial (?) action that eats the Chlorophyll. Ageing is ageing.

Yes, my smoke does get better in every way and stronger. Without a doubt in my mind.

I don't bake allot and when I do its to debacarb for oil. But less chlorophyll = cleaner product.
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
thc in a live plant isn't thc, it's thc-a. thc-a isn't psychoactive, a carboxyl molecule is bonded to the receptors that our bodies use to absorb thc. you have to break that bond to make it psychoactive. that's one of the purposes of drying. the other purposes are allowing chlorophyll, sugars, and carbohydrates time to break down.
the drying stage is to get them close to the right rh. once they drop below about 55% rh, the curing process stops. some people claim you can restart it by re-humidifying the weed, but i don't think you can......
so what it really comes down to is, the weed contains the same amount of thc whether you dry and cure it properly or not, but properly dried and cured weed will allow more thc to enter your system, since less of it still has to be broken from the carboxyl group. it will also burn nicer, and taste and smell better. i don't think the percentage of thc that you miss from improper drying is very large, but why throw anything good away? and i know it won't taste as good
 

buyyouabeer

Well-Known Member
properly dried and cured weed will allow more thc to enter your system, since less of it still has to be broken from the carboxyl group
I agree with everything else you wrote but not this. Decarbing cannabis at room temperature takes years; however heat it a bit in the oven, vaping or by smoking and it happens very rapidly.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
My Initial question is basically does Curing make your bud more potent ? After a whole lot of answers on google like.
"it certainly does", "No, there is no wayit could possibly increase potency" to as far fetched as the trichs carry moisture and the curing drys them out and they become the THC ..

So does anyone know if your buds get more potent the longer you leave them or are they at their max after they are dried, and curing is 100% purely for taste. My answer is relating to people who bake with their buds, should those people even bother curing as you can't taste anything anyway. :)
Too many noobs hyped curing dude, ignore them :-)

Many pros here too but i wont troll them for everything.....
 

iknownothink

Well-Known Member
Ok cheers lads, some pretty smart cookies here :) ok so pretty much as per the original thoughts the curing has no effect at all on the chemical properties of the THC psychoactiveness it is purely for the taste, breaking down the plant material ete. Perfect so that saves me having to cure the buds going in the cooking.

So my next question if I can ask. What does the drying time specifically do to the THC. Say we are throwing out the idea of taste and how it smokes smells etc. And the Drying is the process of reducing the Humidity and start to slowly Decarboxylate into the THC-A to THC-B.. does this process need to take time.. for example can it be speed up with more heat ? Eg what would happen if you threw in some green buds into a cookie. decarb it and bake it like you normally would with dry bud ? Does that chemical reaction of the dying need to be spread out over a long period just because thats how it works ?

eg. I can cook an egg in warm water and it might take a few hours, or I can cook it in boiling water and its cooked within 1 minute and they both produce a cooked egg lol.
 
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Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
So many people say one thing and others say its 100% wrong lol

https://ardentcannabis.com/decarboxylation-myths/
this one seems to think you can just throw wet weed straight into decarb.
you can, if you're going to make butter or something like that. i freeze all my trim fresh, and usually make dry ice hash with it, but every third or fourth run i'll make a pound of butter, and make a big run of fudge and freeze part of it. i decarb it overnight in the crockpot, and people ask for it in advance....
 

iknownothink

Well-Known Member
Thats pretty much what I'm doing right now with some sugar leaf thats about 2 days old. Just decarbing its now like this

The reason why I asked if you can cook with wet trim/buds is I've never seen a cooking video on decarbing with wet weed ? They always start off with dry weed... even if you youtube cooking with wet trim it comes up with nothing . It's like the Bermuda triangle

found this one eventually
 

Subu

Well-Known Member
Thats pretty much what I'm doing right now with some sugar leaf thats about 2 days old. Just decarbing its now like this

The reason why I asked if you can cook with wet trim/buds is I've never seen a cooking video on decarbing with wet weed ? They always start off with dry weed... even if you youtube cooking with wet trim it comes up with nothing . It's like the Bermuda triangle

found this one eventually
As long as the material reaches the requisite temperature for the right amount of time it's going to work.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
Al B Fuct designed a quick drying method by taking the inner bud that had never seen the light and quick drying in a box that connected to airflow, that was intresting and not a bad idea.

The inner plant material is very low in chlorophyll compared to the outer bud.

Of course the greats are dead and we have these new guys now :-)
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
quick drying is always a bad idea. always. inner plant material may have less chlorophyll that the outside of buds, but not enough less that you don't need to give it time to break down.
you can dry weed in the microwave and smoke it in 1 minute...if you like weed that tastes like shit, and smells like shit....
i've tried quick drying, and i do not recommend it, to anyone, for any part of a plant
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
quick drying is always a bad idea. always. inner plant material may have less chlorophyll that the outside of buds, but not enough less that you don't need to give it time to break down.
you can dry weed in the microwave and smoke it in 1 minute...if you like weed that tastes like shit, and smells like shit....
i've tried quick drying, and i do not recommend it, to anyone, for any part of a plant
I hope were getting over the times of growers jarring not yet dried bud too as many werent even achieving dry with the amount of bad curing info.

Personally in the uk it takes two weeks of drying to reach max potential. It smokes before that but its never as strong as the two week mark.

Everything is a slow process :-)
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
i keep my drying area at 65% rh, and have a small exhaust fan set up to run for 3 minutes every hour, just to keep theair fresh. it takes 4 to 7 days at those conditions(depending on the size of the individual buds) to get the product down to 65%. then i jar and burp daily for a week, then i just check them every couple of days till they get to 62%...then i leave them alone. that give them enough time for most of the chlorophyll, carbs, and sugars to break down. anytime i've tried to speed it up at all, the final product has suffered. i don't understand what you're trying to get past.....you're never going to stop over eager people from doing just about everything wrong, then asking why their weed sucks....that's the nature of people, they've been stupid since they were invented, and they'll stay stupid till the day the last one dies.....get used to it
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
i keep my drying area at 65% rh, and have a small exhaust fan set up to run for 3 minutes every hour, just to keep theair fresh. it takes 4 to 7 days at those conditions(depending on the size of the individual buds) to get the product down to 65%. then i jar and burp daily for a week, then i just check them every couple of days till they get to 62%...then i leave them alone. that give them enough time for most of the chlorophyll, carbs, and sugars to break down. anytime i've tried to speed it up at all, the final product has suffered. i don't understand what you're trying to get past.....you're never going to stop over eager people from doing just about everything wrong, then asking why their weed sucks....that's the nature of people, they've been stupid since they were invented, and they'll stay stupid till the day the last one dies.....get used to it
For comparison my longer dry time means i have no need to burp jars.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
i can't extend the drying time any more without getting into the mold danger zone...

To note im not actually keeping the buds damp for two weeks, nah thems smokable after five'ish days and pretty dry after a week. Then i just leave em for a week and then they dont spit back up moisture when i jar.

Everyone seems to live in hyper humidity climates or super extreme desert here for some reason but my way works for the rest of the world.

I guess the thing is my buds are actually finished drying but yours arent hence the need to burp and probably some weird cure method that relies on a five day dry...

:-)
 
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