Malawi Style Cob Curing.

[canna.ballistic]

All well and good, but bottom line, how do the catfish taste?

Tangwena, Shark Bay is a very interesting place to camp and fish ... I spent a couple of weeks last year a bit further north up at Ningaloo ... loved it, spectacular landscape and heaps of fish.

With respect to eating catfish, they are actually quite good ... I used to live a few hundred kms north of Shark Bay many years ago, and would often catch them on the incoming tides across the mudflats, around mangroves and up coastal creeks when fishing for mangrove jack or threadfin salmon. They have a firm flesh and make good fillets or cutlets, especially grilled with lemon and garlic. However, those barbs on their fins were lethal when trying to unhook them ... good luck with your co-ordination and reaction times when you've smoked a strong joint, and you're trying to unhook a couple of kilos of angry slippery catfish jumping all over the place!!

I would rather eat those other reef fish you caught though (tuskfish, rock cod), as they are as good eating as any fish you can catch in the ocean.

 

[canna.ballistic]

... and getting back on track with this thread ... cob curing !!

Left - Ace's Nepjam ... this was the cob which was given a cool sweat at 20C for a week, then dried for 24 hrs, and then a slow cure for a fortnight ... has developed a very nice spicy smell, and my earlier concerns about the cool cure are no more.

Centre - Ace's Nepjam ... this was the cob which was given a warm sweat at 30C for a week, then dried for 24 hrs, and then a slow cure for a fortnight ... has lost its intense sweet molasses smell, and now has a more balanced and rounded sweet smell.

Right - First Lady (a mexican IBL from Delicatessen Seeds) ... this cob used Tang's recent method 2, i.e. a hot sweat for 24 hrs in a yogurt maker at 40C (without an initial pre-sweat in an unsealed bag for 24 - 48 hrs), then dried for 24 hrs, and a slow cure for a fortnight. Also has a balanced and rounded sweet smell.

Because these strains will only be moderate strength, I decided that 2 weeks of slow cure (rather than 4 weeks) would be suitable.

Cobs are now being slow dried until slightly moist in the centre, and then vac sealed again to age for a couple of months.

 

[Tangwena]

... and getting back on track with this thread ... cob curing !!

Left - Ace's Nepjam ... this was the cob which was given a cool sweat at 20C for a week, then dried for 24 hrs, and then a slow cure for a fortnight ... has developed a very nice spicy smell, and my earlier concerns about the cool cure are no more.

Centre - Ace's Nepjam ... this was the cob which was given a warm sweat at 30C for a week, then dried for 24 hrs, and then a slow cure for a fortnight ... has lost its intense sweet molasses smell, and now has a more balanced and rounded sweet smell.

Right - First Lady (a mexican IBL from Delicatessen Seeds) ... this cob used Tang's recent method 2, i.e. a hot sweat for 24 hrs in a yogurt maker at 40C (without an initial pre-sweat in an unsealed bag for 24 - 48 hrs), then dried for 24 hrs, and a slow cure for a fortnight. Also has a balanced and rounded sweet smell.

Because these strains will only be moderate strength, I decided that 2 weeks of slow cure (rather than 4 weeks) would be suitable.

Cobs are now being slow dried until slightly moist in the centre, and then vac sealed again to age for a couple of months.

View Image

Nice job my friend and cudos for the experimentation on the sweating times and temps. Nice pics also I can tell from the color you got a good fermentation started.
After aging and further drying you will be surprised when you try them compared to dried and aged buds in a jar.
That ColJam has a reputation for being a nice smoke and the Mexican should be on the right track as well.

Thanks for the info on the cat fish, do you still live in WA. i dont get many people who lived here let alone fish here as well.
Once you have tried chewing a bit of those cobs once aged you will be able to understand how much more amazing it was we didn't get impaled on those spines.
They are amazing contortionists and well aware of what they are doing while they go crazy in the boat.
lucky when I am tripping on the chewed bud I am not clumsy depending on the strain of course. Its more like watching a movie you know how when watching a movie you can see things about to happen better than if your involved in real life.

Please post pics after aging it would be nice to compare the colors of the cobs after a few months. Thats where the magic is.
Nice job my friend welcome to the other side, once bitten you can never go back ha ha.
Tangwena

 

[seeded]

Goddamn it

Thankfully it only happened on about a quarter ounce that was an experiment on seeing how slowly I could dry the cobbed bud in a jar but the loss hurts all the same so don't try it yourself

 

[cravin morehead]

Thanks for posting that seeded. If we don't ever push the boundaries, we would never know what they are...

Cm

 

[seeded]

Thanks for posting that seeded. If we don't ever push the boundaries, we would never know what they are...

Cm

It's my pleasure because if we share both our successes and failures we'll learn twice as fast. Speaking of sharing failures here's another bud from the same stash that shows how the full blown mold infection looks on average. It's actually all over it though it has it's worse spots like the bit I cropped out.

What's baking my noodle though is that while I can't give you an accurate measurement I'd estimate the humidity in the jar to be around 85% as the buds are significantly damper than the ones I pressed up against 75% boveda packs and after 10 weeks in a jar they haven't turned to mush when normal buds would have been long gone. I've seen jars of green turn white in under a week before so to last so long intrigues me though it's not something I care to experiment with as it's not worth the risk but knowing my luck it'll probably be the future of natural preservatives I'm giving up on

 

[Tangwena]

Hi Seeded Yes mold is enemy number one dont put these buds in a jar unless well dried first. On the plus side gotta love the resin color. Lovely amber and gold.
Makes me want to dry those buds (not the moldy ones) and dry sift some resin I bet its different from the dried green buds resin.
Also the oil from fermented buds is the best you will ever try.
Nice pics though my friend and trying new things is where its at Respect to you brother.
Tangwena

 

[seeded]

Hi Seeded Yes mold is enemy number one dont put these buds in a jar unless well dried first. On the plus side gotta love the resin color. Lovely amber and gold.
Makes me want to dry those buds (not the moldy ones) and dry sift some resin I bet its different from the dried green buds resin.
Also the oil from fermented buds is the best you will ever try.
Nice pics though my friend and trying new things is where its at Respect to you brother.
Tangwena

Thanks mate and yeah I definitely won't be putting them in jar like that again as I've lost a fair bit to mold twice now and I'm also going to stop being so cheap and invest in a decent vacuum sealer. It's not happening a third time.

Since you liked the nasty pics here's the worst bud I could see

I hate to imagine how much normal bud I've consumed with that filth on it when at a quick glance it looks like milky trichomes

 

[Tangwena]

The photos are fantastic I have never seen mold like that, its like little buds of mold growing on the resin to think they would have exploded from that start, to cover the whole thing.
Another member McKush had a similar experience with a cob when he tried something different and it backfired.
Luckily he has heaps left so it wasn't the end of the world. But it scares the shit out of you when it happens. If its not sealed its got to be dried.Simple as that give it the right temps and it could explode over night I should imagine.

Dont be paranoid about the mold you inhaled I have never heard of anyone having adverse reactions to a little mold. I wouldn't be loosing sleep over it I'm still here and I dont think a lot of the Africans I bought it from looked after it It was always semi moldy if you bought it in the rainy season ha ha.

Anyway I was going to post some Malawi buds I am going to test. It was a tester pack I made to see which cure suited it better.

 

[hard rain]

Goddamn it
View Image

Thankfully it only happened on about a quarter ounce that was an experiment on seeing how slowly I could dry the cobbed bud in a jar but the loss hurts all the same so don't try it yourself

Thank you for your sacrifice to science.

Bad luck mate.

Just a question. Your plants seem to have a heap of amber trichs? Did you harvest like that or is that a result of post harvest practices?

 

[Tangwena]

Thank you for your sacrifice to science.

Bad luck mate.

Just a question. Your plants seem to have a heap of amber trichs? Did you harvest like that or is that a result of post harvest practices?

Its what the cure does to clear and milky resin if its done a certain way.
There are manipulations to the cure you can do to get anything from cloudy, golden, caramel or amber or combinations of them from buds that were clear and cloudy to begin with.
Thats why the high is changed in its effects compared to just drying and aging them in a jar.
Which produces minimal change to the resin, this cure produces quite radical changes to the resin and terpene smell, taste, appearance and most of all effect.
It is one of many benefits of fermenting cannabis and one of the reasons it is done.
Tangwen

 

[seeded]

The photos are fantastic I have never seen mold like that, its like little buds of mold growing on the resin to think they would have exploded from that start, to cover the whole thing.
Another member McKush had a similar experience with a cob when he tried something different and it backfired.
Luckily he has heaps left so it wasn't the end of the world. But it scares the shit out of you when it happens. If its not sealed its got to be dried.Simple as that give it the right temps and it could explode over night I should imagine.

Dont be paranoid about the mold you inhaled I have never heard of anyone having adverse reactions to a little mold. I wouldn't be loosing sleep over it I'm still here and I dont think a lot of the Africans I bought it from looked after it It was always semi moldy if you bought it in the rainy season ha ha.

Anyway I was going to post some Malawi buds I am going to test. It was a tester pack I made to see which cure suited it better.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=67486&pictureid=1733925View Image https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=67486&pictureid=1733926View Image https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=67486&pictureid=1733927View Image https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=67486&pictureid=1733928View Image https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=67486&pictureid=1733929View Image

I'm not overly concerned about the mold I've already inhaled. I'm alive and seemingly fine for it and I imagine if I were desperate enough to chew some of those buds my stomach acid would take care of it. I'm just a little grossed out by all the memories of bud tasting a bit off is all.

That malawi cob looks absolutely delicious

Thank you for your sacrifice to science.

Bad luck mate.

Just a question. Your plants seem to have a heap of amber trichs? Did you harvest like that or is that a result of post harvest practices?

Thanks and I let some of my girls get some amber but what you see in those pics was all from the sweat. Those trichs were all milky going in and came out golden though some of the super immature trichs came out a softer yellow colour which has darkened with time.

 

[seeded]

From mold to gold. A tiny super silver haze nug from the 69% boveda pack aging experiment I started a while back.

 

[seeded]

After seeing the last cropped pic I decided to set everything back up and try for a half decent shot of the leaf

 

[Snook]

After seeing the last cropped pic I decided to set everything back up and try for a half decent shot of the leaf
View Image

how the hell do you get pics like that?? very nice.. cept for the white bits..

 

[McKush]

nice pics Seeded!

 

[seeded]

how the hell do you get pics like that?? very nice.. cept for the white bits..

24mp dslr, 40mm macro lens, speedlite flash, tripod and computer trickery to stack the slices that are in focus together, make the shadows brighter and the overall colour more natural.

If you want specifics the exposure time was 1/200 of a second, the iso set at 100, the aperture was set to 10, the flash to 1/16 strength and I manually focused the lens

 

[Dawn Patrol]

computer trickery to stack the slices that are in focus together, make the shadows brighter and the overall colour more natural.

Care to elaborate on this part? I end up shooting at max fstop for greatest depth of field but would like better results. PM me if you don't want to post here pls

 

[seeded]

Care to elaborate on this part? I end up shooting at max fstop for greatest depth of field but would like better results. PM me if you don't want to post here pls

I load the raw files into an app called darktable which is the linux equivalent of lightroom. There's a stupid number of image editing options they call modules which are well beyond anything I'd ever need so I've just added these ones to my favourites for easier access.

I usually start with the shadows and highlights sliding the first bar to the right to make the shadows much lighter. Putting it at 65 is usually enough for the shadows to look good but it can blow out the rest of the pic so sometimes I also have to lower the white point to even it out.

I always take the white balance off the camera preset and choose spot when there's a bit of white/grey that I can select in the picture. A single hair coming out of a flower is usually good enough to get it perfect but sometimes you have to scroll down through the menu to see which one gives the most natural results but for me 99% of the time cloudy has been the best alternative when spot hasn't worked.

I then press the little power button on sharpen which applies these settings to the picture to make a very slight but noticeable improvement.

Lastly for the editing I do a profiled denoise based on my camera and the iso speed detected in the exif data as I've tried a bunch of different settings and it's impossible to beat the profile specifically designed for how the picture was taken.

I then open the next pic and repeat the same process until they're all to my liking and then I go to the lightroom tab in darktable to export the edited pictures.

 

[seeded]

Now that the pics have been edited and exported I load them into Zerene Stacker by dragging the files from the folder their in to the list area in Zerene Stacker. It's seriously just a matter of then going to the Stack drop down menu and clicking Align and stack all (both) and waiting for this slide bar to pop up.

It starts at 30.0 by default but the best results I've had have been dragging it to the right until the darkness reaches the bud like this.

After that I've got to export all 3 versions of the stacked pictures to see which one is the best just in case the dmap one I set with the slider isn't the best version of the picture and then I've got to crop and resize the image to fit on here which I save as a new file free of exif data.