keeping buds on the shelf for a few years?

V

vajra

Member
Hello everyone.
I love to grow cannabis, and do it for myself only. I am a very light smoker (I don’t even toke every month, but truly enjoy it when I do) and so an oz of bud could conceivably last me a couple of YEARS, especially if I have other varieties. So my question is about shelf life.

I have a harvest of some wonderful indica (Schnazzleberry #2) that has surpassed my expectations in every way. I have an oz or so, and want to preserve it.
I prefer sativas, and have a beautiful crop of MH, SSH, and La Nina in week 5 of flower. When these plants come in, there will be more bud than I can get through for years to come, and I don’t really have any friends who smoke. It is just me! How long will my buds stay smokeable?

I will dry and cure them properly, keep them in the dark in mason jars, in a cool place. What can I expect? I know sativas last at least a year, because I have some SSH that is as fresh today as it was last year at this time when I got it. But what about 2-3 years?

Does anyone have any experience keeping buds for the long haul?
 
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Great. I appreciate the responses. Thank you.

As I said, I am aware of the ability for herb to last a year with no problem, and it even benefits from a longer cure. But in this case, my question is specifically about long term, and I would love it if someone who had experience with keeping buds not for a year, but three or four years could offer their counsel. Is it possible to keep herb this long in good shape? Has anyone actually done this? surely someone has...
 
Thank you, Sensi: that is very helpful. I have heard similar things about freezing and rethawing: damages the trichs.

I am also considering transforming most of my MH and SSH into bubble hash, and then freezing it. Maybe an oz of bud and the rest hash.

thanks for the clarification, I am glad to know that it worked. Did the herb lose any of its properties?

v
 
If freezing is not an option I have found that after curing, letting the bud sit out for a few days, letting the bud get bone dry, and then resealing in mason jars, in lightproof bags stored in a basement if possible, or some other cool place(ie buried in ground) works quite well. when ready for use, bud can be reconstituted with a cheap $1 cigar/tobacco humidifier.
 
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Speaking of tobacco humidifiers. I researched humidifiers for curing. One particular brand was very effective but expensive. I found a way to lower the cost. They use 50/50 mixture of Propylene Glycol (PG) and distilled water but with a twist. They put this solution in super absorbent polymer crystals. There's two different kinds of crystals. The one they used is a potassium-based copolymer. Just like the product Water keep.
Welcome to Water-Keep
When the solution is mixed with the Water Keep it is absorbed. This balances the humidity level to a perfect 70% humidity. When the water gets low in the absorbent just add more distilled water. The Propylene Glycol stays in the crystals.
 
I have kept bud for about 2 years in tightly packed mason jars flushed with liquid nitrogen and stored in a root cellar. It was still pretty nice but definately had lost some terpenes. I have never tried the freezer for bud as i just cant imagine it working well after more than a year because of the plant matter.

I have kept unpressed trichomes and also pressed hash and cannaghee in freezer for extensive periods 7-8 years with no noticeable degradation. I packed trichomes into five gram vials, tamp lightly then flush with the liquid Nitrogen they sell for preventing open bottles of wine from oxidizing. Then place in styrofoam container as buffer against temp fluctuations and put in bottom of freezer.

Imo the most effeicient thing to do is save some buds for dry sifting/smoking and icolate the rest while still wet once quickly 10-15 minutes max. Then take the processed leaf/bud material and cook it in ghee for 4-6 hours, once the wter is separted ghee will keep very long time (way longer than butter). It can be stored in the freezer same methods as described above or drop it into gelcaps first so you dont have to thaw a whole jar.
 
vajra said:
Great. I appreciate the responses. Thank you.

As I said, I am aware of the ability for herb to last a year with no problem, and it even benefits from a longer cure. But in this case, my question is specifically about long term, and I would love it if someone who had experience with keeping buds not for a year, but three or four years could offer their counsel. Is it possible to keep herb this long in good shape? Has anyone actually done this? surely someone has...
Click to expand...

many yrs ago, yes a long time ago I had a book by ed rosenthal and mel frank and in it they had a long term degredation study of thc vs temp vs time that showed very little loss of thc if kept froze over the 5 yr length, but if kept at room temp was a significant loss over the same 5 yrs.
I do not have the book anymore but I am sure someone remembers their 2 grow guides as the bible of outdoor and of indoor for the 70's
 
CO2 storage?

I've never tried it with cured marijuana buds, but I have used small ball jars with sublimated dry ice (CO2) replacing all the air to store cracker-dry mushrooms with success. No refrigeration needed, though I put them in a cool basement. I suppose it would work with pot, since reactive oxygen is completely replaced with non-reactive or nearly non-reactive CO2. It's easy to do, just put a small (1"x 1" max) piece of dry ice (may get from any ice-cream shop) in the bottom of a half-pint ball jar containing the buds, place the lid on with the screw band loose, and when the dry ice is sublimated completely, tighten the screw band and that's it!
 
vajra said:
Hello everyone.
I love to grow cannabis, and do it for myself only. I am a very light smoker (I don’t even toke every month, but truly enjoy it when I do) and so an oz of bud could conceivably last me a couple of YEARS, especially if I have other varieties. So my question is about shelf life.

I have a harvest of some wonderful indica (Schnazzleberry #2) that has surpassed my expectations in every way. I have an oz or so, and want to preserve it.
I prefer sativas, and have a beautiful crop of MH, SSH, and La Nina in week 5 of flower. When these plants come in, there will be more bud than I can get through for years to come, and I don’t really have any friends who smoke. It is just me! How long will my buds stay smokeable?

I will dry and cure them properly, keep them in the dark in mason jars, in a cool place. What can I expect? I know sativas last at least a year, because I have some SSH that is as fresh today as it was last year at this time when I got it. But what about 2-3 years?

Does anyone have any experience keeping buds for the long haul?
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get a foodsaver and use vaccum bags!!im sure it would stay well for at least a couple years
 
this machine pulls all the air out of the bag and seals it air tight...im sure you can find for relatively cheep online mabey ebay.
 
Freezer

I have never been able to save anything for a year but I do believe in freezing. Once it is frozen I don't believe it can change very much. I know alot of people who freeze stash and dont see what would happen in between 1 year and 3 years if it wasn't opened. However if you constantly open a frozen jar then it's not the same. I would try some frozen and unfrozen and tell us in a few years how they taste.
 
If you freeze it , put it into a vacloc foodsaver bag, and Vacloc it. keep it out of light as well. Some types of weed keep for years. ie some Hazes, correctly dried and cured
 
If it's frozen it should be bone dry. I make things bone or cracker dry by putting it in a sealed jar with the some amount of dessicant, like anhydrous calcium sulfate (drierite). Jasmine of Mandela says: "For unlimited storage you need to dry down the buds to maximum and then pack them into the freezer".: If it has moisture in it, the freezing can begin to deteriorate the cell walls and the product itself. Even freezing meat will begin to deteriorate the flesh and if frozen more than once or twice, can spoil the meat only from the freezing.

Also, for storing in ziplocks or other plastic, plastic, though it seems impermeable, is in fact permeable. There is a slow exchange of gases through most plastics, esp. soft plastic.

Plastic baggies tend to get a charge attracting the trichomes in weed so carrying it around in very long in baggies degrades the product. One can notice pot baggies eventually becoming dusted or whitish. I've read that the whitening comes from the separated trichomes & fragments clinging to the bag.
 
donb said:
I've never tried it with cured marijuana buds, but I have used small ball jars with sublimated dry ice (CO2) replacing all the air to store cracker-dry mushrooms with success. No refrigeration needed, though I put them in a cool basement. I suppose it would work with pot, since reactive oxygen is completely replaced with non-reactive or nearly non-reactive CO2. It's easy to do, just put a small (1"x 1" max) piece of dry ice (may get from any ice-cream shop) in the bottom of a half-pint ball jar containing the buds, place the lid on with the screw band loose, and when the dry ice is sublimated completely, tighten the screw band and that's it!
Click to expand...

Now that I recently learned something about decarboxylation in the thread on making Rick Simpson's PTO, I am wondering if the room temp decarboxylation of buds is arrested if sitting in a half-pint sealed ball jar completely filled with CO2. Of course, it's said that weed is largely decarboxylated only from being very well dried.. just an interesting thort, I thort (love the new way of spelling ;).
 
My best uni mate doesn't consume as much MJ as he grows, so he made a small press mold and ran all his herb through, pressing his bud into 1-oz "pucks", each about the size of 5 credit cards stacked up. Then vac sealed each "puck" and put into freezer in a dark tupperware container. That way he could pull out a 1-oz sealed "puck" at a time.

Last summer he gave me a "puck" that had been in his freezer 7 years, of some HempStar I had grown and given to him back when we were in uni, and I was impressed by the quality of the herb that had been stored that long.
 
Chronic Don said:
many yrs ago, yes a long time ago I had a book by ed rosenthal and mel frank and in it they had a long term degredation study of thc vs temp vs time that showed very little loss of thc if kept froze over the 5 yr length, but if kept at room temp was a significant loss over the same 5 yrs.
I do not have the book anymore but I am sure someone remembers their 2 grow guides as the bible of outdoor and of indoor for the 70's
Click to expand...

I Have That Book;) A Little Dated Now But Still A Whopper Of Info
Chronic Don; What Page# So I Can Absorb Myself Into the Book ?
Muchly Appreciated
Joe:)
 
I was looking @ putting an oz of my cured recent "cbd crew outdoor mix" grow in the freezer for use when i need it (at least 8 months) but have heard freezing it causes the trichomes/crystals to snap off. From the sounds of things, it should be just fine! can anyone confirm if putting buds in the freezer (in there cured jar) will actually have any affect on the trichs snapping off??.. Otherwise im thinking of putting it in my beer keg fridge (controlled temp variation of 0-10 celcius)
 
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