What is Drying and Curing?

So you’ve spent months walking in and out of the flower rooms, watching your plants grow from their veg stage into flower. It’s come time to chop them all down, and now you have to make sure that all of that aroma, and taste stays with the bud from the facility to smoke. 

Hang drying our cannabis over a long period of time in a state of the art, medical grade facility, gives us the ability to subtly dial in drying conditions dependent on the needs of each strain. There are a number of factors that adjust the way we will dry a plant, depending on things like, wet weight, bud density and plant morphology. By adjusting the balance of temperature and relative humidity we are able to control how quickly moisture leaves the buds ensuring a long gentle dry. 

In the dry room, our plants are checked every day for consistency in drying progression and closely monitored for cleanliness. Over the course of their stay in the dry room, the plants will lose 75-80% of their water content. Extra attention is taken near the end of the drying process so that the maximum amount of moisture can be preserved in the bud while maintaining a water activity that will prevent any microbial growth.  Water activity testing helps to predict the survival of microorganisms in the plant, which is imperative when ensuring clean safe high quality cannabis.

As cannabis ages, volatile compounds like terpenes degrade into less favorable compounds, and cannabinoids transform into less favorable cannabinoids. After removing from the dry room, the cannabis is placed into sealed containers and stored in a cool dark place to allow it to cure to prevent the volatile change from happening too quickly. In both curing and drying an excess of moisture and temperatures above 16 or 17 C is detrimental to the preservation of the bud. The containers are opened on a daily basis (burping) to allow excess moisture to escape and to replenish the bag with a fresh supply of oxygen. Properly cured cannabis in the right storage container can maintain most of its freshness for up to 6 months delivering those desireable terpenes and cannabinoids to consumers.

We take great care to develop our drying process depending on the needs of each strain, each one is a little different which requires us to be on our toes. At Ogen, we like to listen to the plants rather than force them into our timelines.