Best Way Of Storing Your Cannabis

 During his first season, Drako reported that he grew six primary varieties and three experimental varieties. He had a total of sixteen plants that came and went (never more than twelve at one time), and the total dry weight of flowering tops (not including trim) came to 1.5 pounds.

“I grew too much,” he confided to me. “Now I’m violating the state medical marijuana statute for

possession of what I grew. And I’m not allowed to sell it or give it away. So I have to throw some of it away, or hide it.” Drako estimated that his larder would last him two years because he smokes an average of one ounce per month to help with his back pain. In the end, he couldn’t bear to throw it away, so he stored it.

The THC in the cured tops naturally degrades into CBD, which is nonpsychoactivecannabidiol. That

process is aggravated by the two biggest enemies of cured marijuana: light and heat. Ideally, if I were a grower and could choose the best preservation method for marijuana, I would vacuum-seal the totally cured tops and then irradiate them with the same process used for food. This would kill all bacteria and mold spores. Next, I would place them in a light-impervious container, and store it in the back of the refrigerator. But, unfortunately, home irradiators are not yet available to consumers. However, if you omit the irradiation, this method still works very well. Refrigeration retards the breakdown of THC, but whatever container you use must be airtight. You can freeze the seeds but not the tops.

In addition to light and heat, another enemy of cured marijuana is dryness—poorly stored tops dry out, lose potency, and fall apart. There are commercial storage containers available, like Tightpac and Tightvac from the same company, and CannaFresh jars that come in various sizes. But some of these containers are plastic, which most growers don’t like because it leaches and imparts a chemical odor to the marijuana. The real drawback with polyurethane containers, and especially thin plastic bags, is not the supposed chemical odor, but rather the fact that they are porous to air and may cause the tops to dry out. In the refrigerator, with a humidity of about 65 percent, the bags are also porous to water vapor, so your tops may rehydrate, making

themunsmokable.

Some storage containers are transparent because they are used to display tops in a dispensary setting, thus admitting THC-destroying light. Some of these are made of glass and could easily break if dropped. And some are quite expensive, so you could also shop secondhand stores in order to find inexpensive, opaque ceramic cannabis canisters for both curing and storage. Drako packs the canisters so the tops don’t rub against each other and lose dried trichomes, but he doesn’t pack them so tightly that they are crushed. These canisters are airtight, very difficult to break, and store easily in the refrigerator. I use the same ones for storing coffee

beans.

You have learned how to harvest your tops, break them down into a manageable size, dry them, and cure them, so you now should have enough marijuana to ease whatever medical conditions you are growing it for— assuming, of course, that you have not run into any pests or problems that would jeopardize your crop. But if you do run into problems, this website will help you out.