Anaerobic cure: anyone tried it?

Only Ornamental · Aug 21, 2013

Hi everyone,

I stumbled upon anaerobic curing of perique tobacco and I wondered whether this would be feasible with cannabis, mainly because this anaerobically fermented tobacco develops an intense sweet-fruity aroma.

I imagine that an anaerobic cure might have dramatic effects on cannabis flavour because its essential oil is rich in hydrocarbons (non-oxidised terpenes) and, especially myrcene-rich plant material being highly susceptible to oxidation and polymerisation, might undergo interesting changes under oxygen exclusion or retain more of its original aromas...

I suppose that one would have to use some method allowing leakage of progressively generated volatile nitrogen compounds (the thing one wants to eliminate with a good cure) or alternatively do anaerobic cure after a first aerobic one (the latter is sometimes done by hobby tobacco 'farmers'.
Did anyone ever tried it and how did it go?

Greetings
P.S. Started an experiment myself: You find the journal (which I will update regularly) from post #10 on

.

jammie · Aug 21, 2013

I guess I do an anabolic cure. As soon as the weed is dry I seal my jars with a pump n seal which removes most all the oxygen. At 2 months it tastes, smells and smokes as good as the frequent burping and opening The jars. The real benefit as I see it, is that it prevents any mold from forming or if there was some mold to begin with, the lo or no oxygen levels will kill it

Only Ornamental · Aug 21, 2013

Hi Jammie,
Thanks for the fast reply

.
Do I get it right that you seal it when pretty dry and not when still a bit humid?
And there is no real difference in taste/smell (or even appearance?) to the standard curing procedure?
I wonder, because even with a good household backing pump one may have quite a bit of oxygen left for mold and bacteria to grow when enough humidity remains (and when nothing else is utilised to avoid that)... no offence, but I kind of suspect that you don't really cure your weed but just stock it air tight (yet I may be totally wrong

) like many people do...

Only Ornamental · Sep 16, 2013

Really no one else? Reformulate topic: Cure under complete oxygen removal

Really no one else? Reformulate topic: Cure under complete oxygen removal

Does really no one else has anything on that?
And still waiting on a reply of jammie

Maybe I need reformulate myself...
With anaerobic cure I mean a cure (and maybe even drying) under complete absence of oxygen. That is for example by biological or chemical removal of oxygen like it's done when cultivating anaerobic bacteria.

jammie · Sep 16, 2013

hey there OO, sorry for the delayed reply, lost track of the thread. i usually seal when they get to 60%+-. use a small hydrometer to check humidity (similar to the simon method). the nice thing about vacuum sealing is that mold and most bacteria require oxygen to grow and multiply. i was always under the impression that O2 and bacteria were required to break down chlorophyll, but because i do a long slow dry (2-3weeks), i suspect that some curing is under way before i jar and seal.

jammie · Sep 16, 2013

here's that link to the simon curing thread:https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=156237

Only Ornamental · Sep 16, 2013

Hi Jammie

Didn't thought about puttin in a hygrometer (seemed too big LoL)... Thanks for the imput!

Well, you're partially right about chlorophyll, it goes faster with oxygen but it does not need bacteria. One way is oxygen, some humidity and a bit of light (not much is needed) and it breaks down itself (via radicals). That's what leaves do during fall

. The other way is via enzymes from the plant itself; here, I have no idea whether the involved enzymes need oxygen or not... this is the way most people want it to go. Another is by simple oxidation in air where your leaves simply become straw :mopper:

.

Uhhh, that reminds me of an early, funny experiment with one of my first harvests! Bacteria and other micro-organisms are usually used for fermentation of other food stuff and so I tried that with trimming crumbs and inoculated them with something (forgot what microbe I took back then, was it blue mold from cheese?). The thing didn't work with every little bag I made (forgot also how I incubated them) but a few were actually pretty great (if you ignored the fungi filaments all over it

). Truely funny taste and super mild, mellow smoke! Bad thing was, I was the only one to appreciate it. For one, it was from leftovers but it surely lost in potency

. So I didn't go further with it but am thinking about something new

.

RonSmooth · Sep 19, 2013

isn't ammonia a byproduct of anaerobic bacteria?

It would seem that the ammonia smell wouldnt be too pleasant.

Only Ornamental · Sep 20, 2013

Well, you can cure with and without bacteria (and with or without air/oxygen present) and you get ammonia and similar amines in both cases

. Though usually, cannabis is cured in the absence of micro-organisms (fermentation of cabbage or milk on the other hand...). The good thing about producing ammonia is, that it comes from the breakdown of amino acids (proteins) which means that the more ammonia you produce during the cure the less proteins remain in the bud. As reminder, proteins aren't pleasant to smoke and often smell like burnt hair

. Important at that point, one needs to vent the jar well to get rid of the ammonia (unlike proteins it's volatile) before consumption.

I'm interested in a cure without bacteria and not only without air... Thought already about ammonia in such a set-up; good, that we have ion exchange resin laying around in the lab so no need for me to open a jar during cure and then re-remove the air.
But that's also why I started this thread: I don't know whether there is no problem with volatilising ammonia after the cure or if too tightly sealed weed gets spoiled by it (if such a cure even works)?

Only Ornamental · Sep 24, 2013

Experiment journal from the mad scientist

Experiment journal from the mad scientist

Today I told myself: Why ask if you can do it yourself?
Now, I have killed one Purple #1 3 days ago because it was so small, lanky and unhealthy, its flowers are so scarce it has no buds at all, it has nearly no smell and its taste resembles fir resin with a hint of bitterness to it... really ugly that plant! But perfect to do some experiments (can't get worse that thing).

Today, it should be dry enough for a cure. Therefore I organised a jar, a vial containing calcium hydride, calcium chloride and palladium on charcoal and each one vial with an anion and a cation exchange resin (moistened). Each well caped with a cotton stopper.
The trick will now be that residual humidity gets caught by the hygroscopic CaCl2. That one liquefies and ameliorates the reactivity of the mixed in CaH2 to produce hydrogen from water to neutralise the oxygen (catalysed by the palladium catalyst) in the jar's atmosphere. So, the estimated excess of hydride will result in an overpressure of hydrogen gas (to prevent anaerobic micro-organisms from growing or to explode...) whereas the ion exchange resins will quench built volatile acids (e.g. acetic acid) and bases (e.g. ammonia). Notably, CO2 will react with the built calcium hydroxide and be removed too.

I keep you posted how well it cures!

Only Ornamental · Sep 24, 2013

Pictures

Pictures

Back home, I took some pictures and prepared the alchemic brew.

Picture 1 and 2: The sacrificed Purple #1 from DP, semi-dry (front right, ~40 cm), its living sister (front left, ~50 cm), and a Super Silver from Dinafem (in the back, ~ 1 m). To show you the reason why I chopped that plant and why amongst others I think Purple #1 sucks.
Picture 3: What's supposed to be a bud *cry* . As proof of concept, the plant was taken a bit too humide and only the biggest fan leaves (~1/3 of all leaves) were removed (pic not shown) so that the few calyxes won't dry out within a day. Also, mould resistance will be a bit stressed.
Picture 4: The ingredients used for the ominous anaerobic cure as described in the post before.
Picture 5: The jar has been closed rather loosely (to avoid an explosion) and therefore sealed with Parafilm to lock out air and lock in hydrogen.

Only Ornamental · Oct 6, 2013

It's been now 12 days since the experiment started. I couldn't resist and opened the jar.
First observation: The weed was now deep green with reddish-greyish hues. It was still very moist and supple.
I realised just now, that I took the anion exchange resin in the Cl- form and not the OH-, so it didn't work (but the ammonia should be captured by the cation one...?) and the buds have a terrible smell of ammonia

. No mold though...
Apart from that, there still is not much smell to it (obviously) but I can't judge whether its better or worst due to the overwhelming ammonia stink.

Looks like the calcium hydride is used up too, so I'll organise a new vial of that and prepare the resin as OH- tomorrow.

Only Ornamental · Oct 25, 2013

One months has passed and I re-opened the yar. The weed has turned purplish-brown and was still humid. The air in the yar had only a faint odour of ammonia this time.
So I took the buds out and let them dry for 3 days. Now it's crumbling to dust as soon as I touch it (guess, it auto-digested itself too strongly). It smells like wet rotten wood and forest soil with a touch of sweetish rancid licorice. There's not too much left of the fir resin aroma and the hempy hint has fainted further.
Might test it still... but honestly, that rotten stuff really doesn't tease me...
For now, I'd say, the experiment went well but the result is crap.

Ed Canna · Oct 29, 2013

Removing oxygen and replenishing with nitrogen.

Only Ornamental · Oct 29, 2013

Hi Ed,
Yes, that was the strategy but please tell me how I could do that without a Schlenk line at home, eh? Transporting liquid nitrogen home or the buds to work is no option for me.

Chemically removing oxygen is rather easy but replacing it in a safe and inexpensive way with nitrogen is beyond my knowledge... Replacing with CO2 would be the common strategy but that lowers the pH, carbon dioxide isn't inert and certain anaerobic organisms still thrive in 15% CO2. I chose hydrogen because at high concentrations it stops micro-organisms from growing and it might also induce new chemical changes in the terpenes.
Producing nitrogen may be achievable by using diazomethane and derivatives which are either toxic, explosive and/or expensive.

Yesterday, I tasted the buds, which were kept a few days in a normal yar, again and they showed hints of menthone and chokolate (but still that wet wood aroma). Not too bad but it doesn't resemble cannabis at all...

Cereals · Nov 3, 2013

Keep up the great work! This is very intriguing

hush · Nov 3, 2013

Tagged, this is very interesting to me. :tiphat:

TheCleanGame · Nov 3, 2013

---Snip---

Only Ornamental · Nov 3, 2013

@TheCleanGame: Did you ever try that? What's the difference in smell/taste between regular aerobic cure and one in a carbon dioxide atmosphere?
I'd expect the pH in the leaves to drop; anthocyanes may turn reddish and would degrade less and also THCA theoretically doesn't decarboxylate as fast at a low pH. Furthermore, I'd expect less enzymatic degradation, so a longer time to fully cure... Did you (or anybody else) observe such effects?

TheCleanGame · Nov 4, 2013

---Snip---

Anaerobic cure: anyone tried it?

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