Malawi Style Cob Curing.

[Taima-da]

I imagine it's more like how I picture the "original" cobs...
Care to show a picture?

Does it taste different to the pur flower cob?
How's the high?

This lot is really dried out, it's from years ago and I've had it open for quite a while, been making cookies with it, they're pretty good.

Some of the rustic cobs make great chewing, picking out a good bit is easy. There might be a little more green tea to the flavour, but not necessarily.
When mulled it reminds me of stuff you get in North Sumatra that looks like mostly leaf but hits like space dust

Greater variety of plant material seems to change the way the cob colours up, a bit more variety in colour, but the process works just fine, the buds ferment really well and are usually fairly easy to separate out, if you want to.

 

[Taima-da]

Darker piece on the left is rustic, stems, shade leaves, the piece on the right is fairly clean flower. Both from a couple of years ago and both great chewing.
Green haze X Malawi, very late hazy pheno
Special occasion stuff

 

[Tangwena]

Caviar brother love the potent cobs.

 

[moose/MI]

Cob #4 @5 months.
Bruce Banner clone - sungrown, organic 42.2N
This was an experiment using a previous seasons nugs (2022) that had been stored properly in a Grove bag.

Its turning out pretty good so I put a little more time into bringing all the information together in one spot.
It opens up other possibilities for starting material, etc.

Ive included the four original posts hopefully in order ...
I haven't opened it since Christmas

https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18798419

https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18798579


https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18805739


https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18867872

A little back story:
This is Bruce.
A clone I bought from a sketchy guy in a parking lot.
It took some doing but I wanted something different then all the cookies stuff that was in my area.

My situation had changed.
I previously quit growing for 40 years.
Life took other directions.

New life - new direction
I talked the girlfriend into letting me grow 1 plant in a container in the backyard amongst her extensive flower gardens.

Never has there been a plant that got more love and attention.
All that pent up emotion got poured into it.

And I was rewarded

She was a tremendous entry back into growing again. Always uplifting!
You can see I wasn't shy with her. I took her to October 30th because I could.
Something I never experienced in the cornfield plantings of my youth.

That brings us to today.
Surprisingly shes holding her moisture.
Sticky to the touch and stuck to the inside of the vacuum bag.
Possibly some sort of resin seal is holding the moisture in?
It's not moist in a bad way at all.
In fact I think it's perfect - chewy/dense like a good plug of tobacco if you've experienced that.

The bright lime yellow green color with shades of gold has given way to dark coloring.
The reflections are sticky spots of surface resin that stuck flat to the bag and created a reflective surface.

When I try and cut it with kitchen shears it mashes down completely before shearing off with difficulty. It's chewy all the way through.
It holds together like little matchsticks.
(there's a picture in one of the links from around Christmas where it sheared off dry - quite the difference)

I took 2 maybe 3 hits in my dynavap first thing this morning while writing this.

Smooth, not as tasty as when in flower but still flavorful, bright, pine/menthol like feeling in the exhale.
One of the best tasting cobs so far!

A familiar buzz with more warmth.
Up and down in waves ...
I didn't vape anymore because I wasn't sure how it was going to go.
I was enjoying my spot right where I was at. ️

It's taken an hour and half going on 2 hours to write this while I had my coffee, chatted with the girlfriend and watched the morning news.

I just decided to take another big pull on a fresh bowl. Sublime!
And when I mentioned that it wasn't as tasty as when smoked as flower.
I now feel that the taste lingers in my mouth longer than normal.

Another observation - in that hour and a half it seems the end of the cob has sealed itself off and gone shiny again.
I can't imagine that's a bad thing.

So that's my report.
My favorite let's say most successful cob so far flavor and high wise.
It was made in an unconventional way.
Starting material being 1 year old, etc.
Food for thought. Opens up more possibilities.

I've been reading along with the pipe tobacco people and will probably experiment next with some weed that seems to have gotten too dry for our purposes.
They have recipes and methods of spraying it with a weak sugar water solution that they call casing before pressing it that might be right up our alley.

Finally I'll mention the possibility of bias on my part.
I really liked this plant. It means something to me so I have to at least acknowledge that.
However at this point a plant that that I liked the most has made a cob I like the most.
While some I have not liked as flower that I made into cobs have so far not magically turned into something better.
I had kinda hoped they would but that's to be seen.
A way to save them.

Thoughts of silk purses and sows ears, fire in - fire out , etc. run through my head.
As always having a blast.
Thanks Tang and everyone who contributes to this thread.

moose

 

[ledo]

Cob #4 @5 months.
Bruce Banner clone - sungrown, organic 42.2N
This was an experiment using a previous seasons nugs (2022) that had been stored properly in a Grove bag.

Its turning out pretty good so I put a little more time into bringing all the information together in one spot.
It opens up other possibilities for starting material, etc.

Ive included the four original posts hopefully in order ...
I haven't opened it since Christmas
View attachment 19174974


https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18798419

https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18798579


https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18805739


https://www.icmag.com/threads/malawi-style-cob-curing.309936/post-18867872

A little back story:
This is Bruce.
A clone I bought from a sketchy guy in a parking lot.
It took some doing but I wanted something different then all the cookies stuff that was in my area.

View attachment 19175016

My situation had changed.
I previously quit growing for 40 years.
Life took other directions.

New life - new direction
I talked the girlfriend into letting me grow 1 plant in a container in the backyard amongst her extensive flower gardens.

Never has there been a plant that got more love and attention.
All that pent up emotion got poured into it. View attachment 19174992 And I was rewarded
View attachment 19174978 She was a tremendous entry back into growing again. Always uplifting!
You can see I wasn't shy with her. I took her to October 30th because I could.
Something I never experienced in the cornfield plantings of my youth.
View attachment 19174979
That brings us to today.
Surprisingly shes holding her moisture.
Sticky to the touch and stuck to the inside of the vacuum bag.
Possibly some sort of resin seal is holding the moisture in?
It's not moist in a bad way at all.
In fact I think it's perfect - chewy/dense like a good plug of tobacco if you've experienced that.
View attachment 19174981
The bright lime yellow green color with shades of gold has given way to dark coloring.
The reflections are sticky spots of surface resin that stuck flat to the bag and created a reflective surface. View attachment 19174980 When I try and cut it with kitchen shears it mashes down completely before shearing off with difficulty. It's chewy all the way through.
It holds together like little matchsticks.
(there's a picture in one of the links from around Christmas where it sheared off dry - quite the difference)
View attachment 19174984
I took 2 maybe 3 hits in my dynavap first thing this morning while writing this.

Smooth, not as tasty as when in flower but still flavorful, bright, pine/menthol like feeling in the exhale.
One of the best tasting cobs so far!

A familiar buzz with more warmth.
Up and down in waves ...
I didn't vape anymore because I wasn't sure how it was going to go.
I was enjoying my spot right where I was at. ️

It's taken an hour and half going on 2 hours to write this while I had my coffee, chatted with the girlfriend and watched the morning news.

I just decided to take another big pull on a fresh bowl. Sublime!
And when I mentioned that it wasn't as tasty as when smoked as flower.
I now feel that the taste lingers in my mouth longer than normal.

Another observation - in that hour and a half it seems the end of the cob has sealed itself off and gone shiny again.
I can't imagine that's a bad thing.

View attachment 19174985
So that's my report.
My favorite let's say most successful cob so far flavor and high wise.
It was made in an unconventional way.
Starting material being 1 year old, etc.
Food for thought. Opens up more possibilities.

I've been reading along with the pipe tobacco people and will probably experiment next with some weed that seems to have gotten too dry for our purposes.
They have recipes and methods of spraying it with a weak sugar water solution that they call casing that might be right up our alley.

Finally I'll mention the possibility of bias on my part.
I really liked this plant. It means something to me so I have to at least acknowledge that.
However at this point a plant that that I liked the most has made a cob I like the most.
While some I have not liked as flower that I made into cobs have so far not magically turned into something better.
I had kinda hoped they would but that's to be seen.
A way to save them.

Thoughts of silk purses and sows ears, fire in - fire out , etc. run through my head.
As always having a blast.
Thanks Tang and everyone who contributes to this thread.

moose

lovely write up and thanks for sharing brother Moose and always much love for my brother Tang, hope the fishing & life is good my man, I know it is !

 

[ost]

Nice colors my friend you will have a nice array of cures by the time they are all done.

mine are really starting to go thru color phases,so i wait for at least three more months ,before open to try i think things are looking really good compared to the pics by the rest of this crew!

 

[ost]

This lot is really dried out, it's from years ago and I've had it open for quite a while, been making cookies with it, they're pretty good.

Some of the rustic cobs make great chewing, picking out a good bit is easy. There might be a little more green tea to the flavour, but not necessarily.
When mulled it reminds me of stuff you get in North Sumatra that looks like mostly leaf but hits like space dust

Greater variety of plant material seems to change the way the cob colours up, a bit more variety in colour, but the process works just fine, the buds ferment really well and are usually fairly easy to separate out, if you want to.

View attachment 19174835

i have been puttin mine in a zip lock folded over so it will get a vac drawn on it then bind it tight with string ,to really compress it tightly, this seems to work good for me!

 

[StickyBandit]

This is about 1oz left from a 4oz block which was started 23rd December 2022, just about to be repackaged for more storage
2 years and 3 months down
The white is flash reflection from the resin
It has quite the sour funky smell and is very sticky
It's from the same batch that had me seeing things and having a lie down about a year ago. Lightweight though
Edit: this was from a lb of KA5Hz cobbed

 

[Tangwena]

Killer plants make killer cobs, nice brother.

 

[ost]

View attachment 19174837
Darker piece on the left is rustic, stems, shade leaves, the piece on the right is fairly clean flower. Both from a couple of years ago and both great chewing.
Green haze X Malawi, very late hazy pheno
Special occasion stuff

i am slowly starting rolladex to log number /date it takes time to have a good cob stash .

 

[ost]

This is about 1oz left from a 4oz block which was started 23rd December 2022, just about to be repackaged for more storage
2 years and 3 months down
The white is flash reflection from the resin
It has quite the sour funky smell and is very sticky
It's from the same batch that had me seeing things and having a lie down about a year ago. Lightweight though
Edit: this was from a lb of KA5Hz cobbed

View attachment 19176185

you being a light weight, i could help with those problems, really like the looks of your problem ,nice !

 

[moose/MI]

Cob #7 @ 5 months
A seeded little cob of a green pheno of Mountain Gold by Green Mountain Seeds.

Moisture is good

Smells great! lemony and spicy

Green or gold depending on the light.

That's a reflection not mold. It broke rather than sheared off clean

I vaped a bowl and it was smooth and still had the lemon like flavor.

I'm very familiar with this strain as it's my favorite morning puff from last season.
I can say while I enjoyed it. I can't say it was better than the flower yet.
I have kept the smell and taste by going the dryer route on the cobbing though.

I'm starting to see a pattern of not much change at the 5 month mark for these drier cobs.
I suspect they will just need more time.
9- months to a year maybe to see movement because there's no jump start on the fermentation process at the beginning.
Time will tell.

 

[Tangwena]

Cob #7 @ 5 months
A seeded little cob of a green pheno of Mountain Gold by Green Mountain Seeds. View attachment 19176464 Moisture is good View attachment 19176465 Smells great! lemony and spicy View attachment 19176467 Green or gold depending on the light. View attachment 19176469 View attachment 19176470 That's a reflection not mold. It broke rather than sheared off clean View attachment 19176471 I vaped a bowl and it was smooth and still had the lemon like flavor.

I'm very familiar with this strain as it's my favorite morning puff from last season.
I can say while I enjoyed it. I can't say it was better than the flower yet.
I have kept the smell and taste by going the dryer route on the cobbing though.

I'm starting to see a pattern of not much change at the 5 month mark for these drier cobs.
I suspect they will just need more time.
9- months to a year maybe to see movement because there's no jump start on the fermentation process at the beginning.
Time will tell.

The main benefit from cob curing is the smoother smoke and changed high.
The chewing is just something I do because I cant smoke anymore.

I tried vaping and found it very tedious and less potent but thats just me.
I think for vaping, flower in its natural state probably works better.

I could never get high enough from vaping no matter how much I vaped ha ha.
Its like people who mix tobacco with their bud its a completely different effect.