Finish drying my bud in the freezer in my kitchen?!?

[ProfGerbik]

id also like some more detailed information about the after process, my only concern is if something happens because my freezer can be set to any temperature or because it gets opened quite a bit for ice, that it may not work as well as it should because of that.

i think leaving it closed all cure is a no brainer but most people use their freezers quite often, so i wonder how well this method works with a household of people who regularly use their freezer opening it several times a day.

i also thought how every freezer ive ever looked in has had ice on almost anything that was in it, i dont know if it was because it was in there long or what but id like to know some way to insure you dont end up with iced over buds that will just melt which im sure is not the idea of this method.

any info on how you jar after the freeze dry process would be great, once jarred do you go about it almost as a normal cure, burping a couple times a day for the first week then slowly keeping it closed longer over the weeks?

interesting method but the risk of freezing it improperly scares me so much i may just stick to jars only.

personally i think you should experiment by making test that are made to fail, to test the ease of use and reliability of this method, for people who might have active freezers, different freezer settings, temps or what not, all fridges are very different thats the only thing that worries me and leaves me with a lot of unknown information about this.

 

[repoocbd]

id also like some more detailed information about the after process, my only concern is if something happens because my freezer can be set to any temperature or because it gets opened quite a bit for ice, that it may not work as well as it should because of that.

i think leaving it closed all cure is a no brainer but most people use their freezers quite often, so i wonder how well this method works with a household of people who regularly use their freezer opening it several times a day.

i also thought how every freezer ive ever looked in has had ice on almost anything that was in it, i dont know if it was because it was in there long or what but id like to know some way to insure you dont end up with iced over buds that will just melt which im sure is not the idea of this method.

any info on how you jar after the freeze dry process would be great, once jarred do you go about it almost as a normal cure, burping a couple times a day for the first week then slowly keeping it closed longer over the weeks?

interesting method but the risk of freezing it improperly scares me so much i may just stick to jars only.

personally i think you should experiment by making test that are made to fail, to test the ease of use and reliability of this method, for people who might have active freezers, different freezer settings, temps or what not, all fridges are very different thats the only thing that worries me and leaves me with a lot of unknown information about this.

I am just starting the process with my fresh harvest so I can't speak to what happens after you are done. But to answer some of your other concerns.

1. A freezer that gets opened allot.

As long as you do not leave it open long enough to cause it to start to defrost (that frost build up starts to melt) you will be fine. In fact the added air flow from a sudden temp change will actually cause the sublimation process to work faster.

2. Temperature settings in the freezer.

Most freezers have a temperature control so that is not something to worry about really. As long as it is set to be at least 32 degrees farenheit your going to be fine. Going colder won't hurt the sublimation process it also wont speed it up. Your biggest worry will be if you have a fridge attached to the freezer the fridge is actually cooled by the excess cold coming off your freezer. So if you set it too low you may freeze your fridge and end up with slushy soda's

3. The frost build up in your freezer.

This frost is actaully the humidity in your household air that is trapped in the freezer when you open then shut the door. As that air gets cold the moisture is frozen out and begins to collect as frost. If you have a freezer that causes allot of frost build up very quickly then you may have a problem of frost crystals forming on your buds as the humidity freezes and falls on top of them. You can of course minimize this by not opening the freezer as much. But if you live with allot of people good luck with that. In my case I have a freezer with a vacuum seal that sucks all the humidity out everytime I shut the door so it hardly ever has a frost build up. Something else you can try is suspend a piece of paper over the top of your buds so that it is not touching them. That will catch most frost crystals that may try to fall on them.

 

[Rusty-Axe]

deep chest freezer?

deep chest freezer?

would a deep freeze like one would store a side of beef in, long and deep.would it be to damn cold? seems perfect size to string a line and hang em in.

 

[repoocbd]

would a deep freeze like one would store a side of beef in, long and deep.would it be to damn cold? seems perfect size to string a line and hang em in.

Unless you are producing a massize increase in atmospheric pressure or getting the temperature near absolute zero then sublimation will happen normally.

 

[City Twin]

I dry mushrooms in the freezer set about 32 degrees f. They come out much larger than air or heat dried with perfect color and better taste.

What happens is it takes 1 calorie of energy transfer to raise or lower 1 cc of water 1degree f. but 10 to change state from liquid to ice or steam. There’s not enough cold available for freezing, but the low humidity in the freezer allows for rapid dehydration with even transfer of water from inner to outer cells..

 

[jus'plain'gill]

any info on how you jar after the freeze dry process would be great, once jarred do you go about it almost as a normal cure, burping a couple times a day for the first week then slowly keeping it closed longer over the weeks?

This question can be answered by reading this thread. Post #'s 25 and 30 give good info but post #'s 18 and 32 also address this.

interesting method but the risk of freezing it improperly scares me so much i may just stick to jars only.

Read this thread, you have nothing to be scared of. You can also stick to jars if you like

I dry mushrooms in the freezer set about 32 degrees f. They come out much larger than air or heat dried with perfect color and better taste.

What happens is it takes 1 calorie of energy transfer to raise or lower 1 cc of water 1degree f. but 10 to change state from liquid to ice or steam. There’s not enough cold available for freezing, but the low humidity in the freezer allows for rapid dehydration with even transfer of water from inner to outer cells..

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I'd be apt to try this too.



repoocbd- Thank you for contributing great info, you seem to know a bit on this subject



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[City Twin]

A quick note. For mushrooms I leave them on a rack till all surface moisture is gone and any sheen has dulled. For leafy herbs, hang for a day or two. For bud I would probably also hang for a couple of days. Maybe till the stem snaps, but probably not would be OK. Moisture in the stems would wick evenly. Might take a little longer in the freezer, but would expect even the largest to be ready to check in 5 to 7 days.

Be sure to calibrate the freezer with a thermometer.

A frost-free freezer operates by maintaining the chamber as dry as possible. To keep frost down the unit will heat its walls on occasion to melt any light frost and a fan agitates the warmish air to defrost other surfaces.

With mushrooms the smaller specimens are usually well dried within 24 hours. Larger, like Boletes might take 3 or 4 to lose their 90% water weight. It doesn't seem to depend much on load. A half dozen mushies or 5 racks full.

Inside humidity is reported by manufacturers to be around 55 to 65% at zero degrees F. I have weight checked loads against herb dryer processed and found the weight to be comparable.

A freezer might actually make the bud a little too dry. Give that a thought if your batch of meds is a larger supply.

 

[BongDaddy]

Thanks for the tip CT. I won't really have any choice but leave it in there for the 3 weeks that I'll be away, but I'll try to keep it away from the walls so that it doesn't experience too many temperature extremes.

 

[bigAl25]

Has anyone tried shoe boxes? Top on or Top off? I'm going to use this method on my recent harvest.

 

[bigAl25]

How about brown grocery sacks, instead of boxes. Anyone tried these for the freezer?

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

The Marijuana Grower's Handbook is the best book I have read on the subject of growing pot. When it comes to a question I have, the information in this book comes closest to the usual consensus I find here in these forums. I would say in general this book has relevant and up to date info. This is why I am so curious about something I read in the "Harvest and Beyond" chapter. I have searched but found nothing directly addressing my question here on ICmag.

Rosenthal spends a couple paragraphs discussing drying your buds (not just storing) in your home's frost-free freezer. I'm not sure if it is okay to quote the whole passage here so I'll try to summarize as best I can:

He states you should dry your bud to the point of stem snapping and to the point you would normally begin bagging and sweating or jarring and burping your buds. Once at that point you put the partially dried buds in the freezer to "freeze dry". The water in the plant tissues freezes and then evaporates over time (10-20 days according to the book) through a process called sublimation. The claims are better taste and preservation of psychoactive compounds.

Any experiences or opinions?



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I dont know if someone already said this but...... I went to his class and he brought this up. He simply referred to it as one way of doing things. I think he emphasized more on just a slow dry at 70 degrees followed by a proper cure.....

 

[JohnnyHopkins]

How about brown grocery sacks, instead of boxes. Anyone tried these for the freezer?

should work just the same as a box..... I dont see myself putting flowers in the freezer again..... tried it once and didnt like it and thats enough for me to keep my shit in jars in a dark cabinet. I also tried drying some bubble hash in the freezer for a month and the stuff just never dries. Maybe this would work better if left in freezer for like 4 months?

 

[jus'plain'gill]

Has anyone tried shoe boxes? Top on or Top off? I'm going to use this method on my recent harvest.

Yes sir. I used a shoebox with lid on and filled loosely with buds and I also used a cardboard box with similar shape and size to a shoebox but with no top or lid. Both yielded the same, awesome results.

How about brown grocery sacks, instead of boxes. Anyone tried these for the freezer?

The "container" your buds go in before they go in the freezer just needs to be breathable and something with an interior texture that won't harm or snag the brittle trichomes. I believe brown paper sacks would work. Just hanging the buds/branches right in the open of the freezer would work fine in fact, at least in my experience.

I dont know if someone already said this but...... I went to his class and he brought this up. He simply referred to it as one way of doing things. I think he emphasized more on just a slow dry at 70 degrees followed by a proper cure.....

Very cool! It is always great to get the knowledge firsthand and in person! I agree that this is just one way you can cure your buds and your second point is very important to why this method is preferred in my situation over other options. At that time of year, and year long actually, there's no way I could maintain conditions for a "proper cure" (assuming you mean "jarring" and sweating). I could, however, maintain perfectly constant conditions by leaving the buds in the freezer. This curing method resulted in "properly cured" buds on a consistent basis for me, again, with very little effort.

.... I dont see myself putting flowers in the freezer again..... tried it once and didnt like it...

Mind if I ask what you didn't like? Was it the finished product? The actual process/method? I can see where, if I had pulled them out of the freezer sooner or not been flexible with my time-lines, I wouldn't have gotten the desired results but maybe I got lucky and just got it right every time

I also tried drying some bubble hash in the freezer for a month and the stuff just never dries. Maybe this would work better if left in freezer for like 4 months?

That might be because bubble hash has less surface area than buds and that doesn't allow sublimation to occur as efficiently/evenly? I'm sure it would dry eventually but you could prob speed the process by spreading it to give it as much surface area as possible.



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[JohnnyHopkins]

Hey man.... to further explain myself..... I guess I havent given the freezer technique and "honest" try. The bud that I used I wasnt really impressed with in the first place. It ended up smelling just like a brown paper bag though and the stem was still a little moist so maybe a longer time in the freezer would have helped. I guess for me, i dont have any reason to cure differently than i do. I mainly just wanted to say that i heard Ed talk about this first hand. My memory suffers a bit but I'll try to repeat what I heard.... "I had some of the best cured bud in my life by putting a bud in the freezer for a long time" blah blah... and I believe he would do it by putting it in the freezer wet and not dry..... but i really cant be positive on my memory so i guess im not to much help lol.

I have tossed around the idea of somehow using a big freezer or fridge with a good seal to imitate a big jar...... wouldnt be to hard.

You are likely correct about the bubble hash thing..... i think the freezer idea just makes everything take longer which isnt a bad thing it just depends on what ya wanna do!

 

[BET]

Tried freezing a couple of small pop corn buds - I have to say that the smoke was fantastic, really creamy texture with a lovely white smoke. Will be using this method again. You really can just leave it in the freezer for days and let it do its thing

 

[jus'plain'gill]

Hey man.... to further explain myself..... I guess I havent given the freezer technique and "honest" try.

Give it a genuine shot and you will not get disappointing results!

I have tossed around the idea of somehow using a big freezer or fridge with a good seal to imitate a big jar...... wouldnt be to hard.

I have thought about this (although there's a slim chance I'd ever have enough pot to necessitate a full size fridge) and I can't see why it wouldn't work. It might take a bit more attention, a wireless hygrometer, more "airing out", etc but it should work. However, a working freezer will do a much better job without all the needed attention and guesswork

Tried freezing a couple of small pop corn buds - I have to say that the smoke was fantastic, really creamy texture with a lovely white smoke. Will be using this method again. You really can just leave it in the freezer for days and let it do its thing

I'm so glad you got good results! You're description of the smoke is spot on, "...creamy texture with a lovely white smoke." Are you going to give it another try? Bigger buds and tops instead of popcorn buds?

Thanks for going out on a limb and sharing your results. More people here, especially novice growers and growers without a ton of time they can afford to growing/curing, should give this a try.

Good luck all!



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[jus'plain'gill]

It's been fairly warm out here for a lot of us. Try curing your pot in your freezer where it's nice and cold for your buds



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[THC123]

i have been doing this for years

i freeze them as soon as the stem snaps and the buds are still sticky , this is after 10-12/14 days here(with all the leaves on)



i remove the leaves prior to freezing

when they come out of the freezer after months they are real tasty and after a few days in a jar they are nice and smelly


i never put them in the freezer in jars, i use small baggies to have nice and fresh bud all year long

curing in glass jars is real nice but in the very long run jars will become a bit stale compared to frozen pot

since 2010 i dry with the leaves on cuz i think this gives the best taste after 14 days

what i am gonna try next is combining simon's method with freezing

first i wanna cure for 2 , max 3 weeks and then when the stem snaps i'll freeze it

i love simon's method but not in the long run , but in the first few weeks i reall notice a taste and effect imrpovement , i wanna try to keep the pot at that point

 

[dansbuds]

have been using simons method for the last year with great success but after reading this thread i tried a few tops from my last harvest & it worked great ... better in fact i think . the smell was better , more intense . the flavors were better & a much smoother smoke . this after 21 days in the freezer untouched , brought out thawed & put directly into glass jars then not touched again for 2 days . for a total of 25 days before smoked from harvest . will be using this method from now on .... thanx Gill for showing this to us .



growem green & stay safe ...Dans

 

[mad librettist]

guys, the fridge portion of your frost free fridge is dry as fuck too!

when doing the perfect cure method I use the fridge to burp jars. RH in there is very, very low.