Blueb680

[Blueb680]

How many months should buds cure before they are vacuum sealed. Is 4 months long enough for them or should I wait 5 or 6?

[Bluey]

If cured at room temperature and regularly burped fir the first month, moisture levels in the buds are not too high then that is fine.

[9fingerleafs]

Agree. Just remember you shouldn't keep them vacuum sealed for more than a month at a time. If you want to keep them longer you have to open the bag and burp them before vacuum sealing again.

[Gingerbeard]

What about vacuum purging with argon or some other inert gas? Remove the oxygen, stop the oxidation, no need to burp and reseal?

[9fingerleafs]

I think that would just accelerate the anaerobic bacteria growth, the constant burping is mainly to regulate bacteria growth. Once is sealed the aerobic bacteria will grow and brak down complex molecules like chlorophyll while consuming oxygen and releasing water molecules to the air. Once the oxygen runs out the anaerobic bacteria will grow and do the same breaking down but using fermentation and releasing nitrogen compounds like ammonia into the air. So after a while you need to introduce oxygen again so that bacteria dies and the cycle starts again. Otherwise the air will get very funky and the bud turns brownish yellow with that sweet sour smell found in most brick weed.

That's how those "miraculous" curing bags work. They have a patch made for gas exchange letting oxygen in and other gases out but keeping the big smell molecules inside

[Gingerbeard]

9fingerleafs, you are the first person to answer when I ask about this. You got me curious.
Anaerobic bacteria didn't even cross my mind. I was focused on the aerobic. A cure for things like WPM and oxidation prophylaxis. Maybe even stopping at a particular cure for the connoisseurs who taste undertones and notes and such.
What is the point of vacuum sealing if you are not removing all the oxygen? You're talking bags. What about jars?

[9fingerleafs]

You got me thinking too, about oxidation, the important part that oxidates are the trichomes and the cannabinoids inside them. Turning them amber and degrading thca into CBN. So maybe some industrial packaging must use something cheap like nitrogen, like potato chips, in those sealed bads that look like candy bags.

In my experience as a producer (I sell my crop and it's my household only income) the reason to use vacuum sealed bags it's not about the vacuum. I actually never actually create a vacuum inside the bags. I only remove enough air so the buds don't shake around. The important part is the seal. It's the only way to actually seal the smell in. I've had police dogs sniff around cars with half a pound hidden on fenders and they don't smell it. That's why it's used for moving product.

I think I wouldnt use a vacuum jar either just because I think some of the terpenes and probably a lot of molecules would evaporate due to the lack of pressure. Just like water boils in a vacuum, extracting all the smell and moisture out of the bud. But I have never tried it and it's only my prediction

[Gingerbeard]

I always thought well sealed drugs got sniffed out by drug dogs because the bags are being touched by the people loading the bags and just the ambient miasma of the product.
After writing a bunch, I did some research and deleted what I wrote. Here's what I'm talking about. The idea, not the machine. Some weed is sold in a nitrogen flush. It makes sense to me that a producer would do such a thing. However long that bag/jar of weed sits on the dispensary shelf, it never gets burped. If you package with oxygen, what you get out won't be what you put in. Cure-wise, I mean.
Amazon.com: Automatic Continuous Sealing Machine with nitrogen Flushing and Vacuum Packaging Machine with Date Coder : Industrial & Scientific

[9fingerleafs]

That's very true. There must be some secret industrial practices we don't know about. I've heard once that the cannabis industry created their methods with the help of the dog food industry. They perfected the drying and inoculating of dog food so they know exactly how to kill all spored and bacteria. That's why dry dog food lasts for so long. I imagine maybe they dry the buds completely to kill all bacteria and then rehydrate in a sterile environment or something like that. Then do those flush packaging proceses. I don't know. I just know my weed gets all funky and brown if left sealed for two months.

[Gingerbeard]

Maybe, then, for long term storage, vacuum sealing is not the optimal way to go? Whatever long term storage is. For growers who transport, a vacuumed bag takes up less space and smells less. But it is not for long term storage unless you spend the time burping.
Maybe, then, for long term storage, a non-vacuumed, nitrogen flushed container is the way to go? If I go buy a jar, it'll be months old with no burps.
Now I'm thinking about cold cure live rosin. With the handful of grams of tier-1 I've had, the older the CCLR is (6 months or more) the more flavorful it is. I am much more the unappreciative stoner type than the learned connoisseur when it comes to weed, but CCLR makes my ginger, gingerier. I have to find out if that stuff is nitro purged.
Was it Bluey who laid down with the zillions of tons of weed in storage? Gotta be a lotta burping going on if all that isn't put to sleep with gas, huh?

[Bluey]

I burp regularly for about a month at around 20⁰C and then a dozen times over the next few months then put into storage (dark cool room 16⁰C ish 50 to 60 RH) in the sealed mason jars at 63% or under RH measured in the jars. I ocassionally check a jar maybe once every few months at the most, the smell tells me how they are going. I have jars over 3 year old still doing fine but I prefer the recent stuff I've grown most of the time because it's just better weed. Better genetics and probably better grown and dried.

[Gingerbeard]

I meant an article you(?) posted about the backlog of overproduced weed, B-diddy. I have a mental image of a big warehouse of dope with a person walking around burping bags. That's not it, I know. But I do drugs and that's the way my mind works.
You still with us Blueb680? Your thread done been hijacked. But it's for a good cause.

[Gingerbeard]

Had I the occasion to store flower, bags would not be my choice only because of the crush factor. You can't crush a bud in a mason jar.
We need to ask that wandering warehouse burp hippie in charge of all that dope what the skinny is.

[Bluey]

He was roped off out of his tree?

[Gingerbeard]

Sure..