A weed crop, no matter what, is a major investment. If you’re a home grower, this represents the time and money you spent setting up a growing environment and taking care of your plants all the way until the harvest stage. If you purchased the weed, there’s also a financial investment.
In both cases, it’s important that you protect your investment. One of the key ways to keep weed from going bad is to invest in proper weed storage. Here are some of the options you have on the table, as well as some common mistakes people make when they take care of their weed.
Weed Storage Options
Generally, when it comes to weed, your enemies are dryness and mold. If your weed becomes overly dry, it loses a lot of its cannabinoids. This doesn’t mean that you can’t smoke it, but the high won’t be nearly as potent as it would be if you stored it properly. If mold develops on your weed, it can ruin the taste and aroma. In addition, smoking mold-infested marijuana can pose mild health issues for those with mold sensitivity or respiratory problems.
With all this said, your goals for weed storage should be:
- Maintaining temperature: Keeping your weed in a cool, dark place is the easiest way to minimize the risk of mold. In addition, you want to have as much control over how much air comes into contact with the weed as possible.
- Humidity: You generally want to keep humidity in the 59% and 63% relative humidity range to lower the risk of mold, but not potentially dry out the trichomes.
- Not too much light: Remember, you’re not growing any more. Too many UV rays can dry out weed over time.
With all these points in mind, what are your best options for storing weed?
If you’re a true purist and anticipate growing your own crops for a while, it may be worth investing in a marijuana storage container made specifically for this purpose. However, you do have a lot of other options available if you prefer to save money. Probably the best option you have for weed is small jars, either ceramic or glass. This is because they are very easy to store in cool, dry spots and are also manageable when it comes to air control.
In addition, if you want to store weed for over six months, you can vacuum-seal the jar for added security. Other options include traditional stash boxes and other containers. The key is making sure they have a neutral charge (we will explain how this matters in a bit), and that they are in a cool, dark, dry place. In optimal conditions, weed flowers can stay fresh for as long as 2-3 years. However, they can also deteriorate quickly if left unattended.
Where People Go Wrong With Storing Weed
No matter which of these options you choose (and all of them can be ideal in certain situations), failing to follow basic storage best practices means that your weed can still go bad or have a shorter shelf life. Here are some things you need so that this doesn’t happen to you.
For one thing, many people think that plastic bags are “airtight,” which makes them an ideal, inexpensive way to store your weed. Not the case at all. These aren’t as airtight as you think, and you generally get what you pay for. Also, plastic baggies have a static charge that can affect the trichomes. This is why looking for containers with neutral charges is extremely important.
Another common suggestion that is actually a bad one when it comes to storing weed is putting weed in the freezer. Weed is not like certain foods that freeze well. When you are ready to thaw and use it, it will become extremely brittle.
In other cases, mistakes people make when it comes to storing weed are following the proper guidelines in the wrong way. For example, oversized containers are a bad idea because they naturally expose the weed inside to too much oxygen, which can cause it to dry out and lose its potency faster.
In addition, you want to mind your surroundings, like if you put the weed near electronics. Electronic devices naturally give off heat, which means that cool, dark place you were thinking about suddenly isn’t as cool or dark anymore.
Weed storage is an essential part of not only keeping weed from losing its quality, but also improving key factors like the intensity of the high as well as its unique odor and taste. Everyone has a different ideal option, but you want to make sure that you have some sort of a plan in place.