The Best Way to Store Your Cannabis and Preserve its Quality
When it comes to cannabis, we tend to focus on how to get it. But how to do keep it in great condition once we’ve got it? There are a few old tricks we are happy to share with you, and we’ll clarify some cannabis storage myths while we’re at it.
There are four major factors to consider when trying to preserve your bud; light, humidity, heat, and time. If you keep these four variables relatively under control you can increase the shelf life of your cannabis by months. Yes, we said it, months!
How Does Light Damage Cannabis?
Cannabis is a plant (obviously) and can be heavily altered with long periods of light exposure. Light transfers energy, and with enough energy transferred light will degrade organic material. When cannabis degrades it takes away the terpenes that provide you with the great unique flavors of cannabis. Degradation also means drier cannabis and less THC and CBD available, meaning that your cannabis will be dry, burn to fast, not taste good, and not get you the desired affects you bought it for in the first place.
How to Prevent Light Damage for your Cannabis
It’s very simple- keep your cannabis out of the light. Most research shows that cannabis is best stored in glass jars. This eliminate cross contamination due to the ease of cleaning a glass jar, and it has no porous openings. The problem? Most glass is clear; the solution would be to keep it in a dark cupboard or the top shelf of a closet. Or if you’re in New Brunswick, under lock and key. This strategic placement will do wonders for preserving your cannabis, while also keeping it out of the reach of children. Another option would be to get dark, tinted or colored glass. The containers and bags that your purchased cannabis comes in are all dark, and relatively air tight, but we do suggest that if you’re ordering a lot or often that you invest in a storage set up. These baggies or containers do work to keep light out and are a great option until you can get a storage set up. Lets be honest, the laws around labeling cannabis have made having pretty containers or bags a no go for producers so they aren’t exactly “easy on the eye” and it creates a lot of clutter having multiple baggies and containers laying around.
How Do Humidity and Air Effect Cannabis?
Air can be very drying, which is why air exposure and humidity go together. If you don’t purchase a lot of cannabis at a time, one of the easiest ways to help control the air flow and humidity is to make sure you purchase an appropriately sized glass jar. If you are purchasing a gram at a time, it’s could be considered excessive to store it in a massive mason jar. The goal is to eliminate air circulation around the bud. Less air circulation means reduced drying, which will preserve the terpenes and overall original quality of your cannabis.
How do I Control Cannabis Hummidity?
If you read one step, read this one. Overly-dry cannabis burns hot and fast, tastes horrible, and most importantly wastes a lot of the cannabinoids and terpenes in your plant. At the same time, wet cannabis has potential to mold and doesn’t burn evenly either! Luckily the innovative stoners of the world (blessed) have created many two-way humidity control packs like Boveda and Integra Boost. Two-way means that if the cannabis is to humid it will extract the humidity, while if it’s too dry it will infuse humidity, which is great and impressive. Both of these companies provide “relative humidity” percentages and varying sizes. This will help you choose how big of a humidity pack you want for your varying-sized jars or government containers. Once you become more experienced with controlling the humidity of your cannabis, you can play around with the level of humidity you are trying to reach! If you are new to humidity control for cannabis and don’t know where to start, 62% humidity is a relatively common humidity level.
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How Do Heat and Temperature Damage Cannabis?
Seeing how all of the consumption methods for cannabis involve, at some point, heating up the bud to cause decarboxylation, it is clear that heat not only can change the quality of bud but can also do so rapidly. We aren’t going to explain decarbing here, but it is fascinating and a great topic to research so feel free to check out our blog on it. Heat changes and degrades the cannabinoids and compounds within cannabis. Storing your cannabis in a hot area will accelerate this process and essentially “cooks” your cannabis. If you have a jar of bud in a window or next to heat then it’s in its own little oven, slowly cooking away all of the good terpenes and cannabinoids you want!
How does Time Damage Cannabis?
Last but not least we have the slow killer of all good things in the world, time. Drama aside, over time, the elements will eventually degrade your cannabis. Cannabinoids over time degrade and turn into other cannabinoids or eventually disappear. How long do you have? If you have followed our advice and have taken good care of your bud, well stored cannabis will stay good for at least 6 -10 months. That being said, if your cannabis is on its last leg, try turning it into an edible oil, cookies or even a topical. Putting it into an oil or a topical will ooze as much goodness out of it and waste as little as possible. You’ll get far more from your old bud in an alternative form than if you smoked it. It would also, be a lot more enjoyable.
How to Store your Cannabis Successfully
TL;DR: Store your cannabis in an appropriately sized glass jar that is either tinted or stored in a dark, cool spot for it with a humidity pack and lid for the best storage results.
Follow these general guidelines for storing your cannabis and you’ll be able to start storing your cannabis for longer. The best part? Your cannabis will taste way better WAY longer and get you feeling the effects just as much as it did the first day you got it, that’s a win!
As always, start low go slow and get in touch with us through our social channels and show us your storage set up, we love connecting with you guys.