Query: Hello, I stay studying articles and social media posts about freezing freshly harvested buds to keep freshness, reduce mildew and mould contamination, and decrease manufacturing prices.
I latterly took a couple of dozen branches from freshly harvested vegetation and positioned them right into a walk-in freezer. After I checked on them a couple of days later, they’d principally became a frozen mass lined in ice at the floor.
Are you able to please give an explanation for why and methods to freeze, and the way it will decrease my value of manufacturing? I might no doubt love to decrease prices, however I am additionally very concerned about how I will make the most of this procedure as a way of storing my extra hashish and minimizing its degradation. Additionally, what’s frozen hashish very best applied for?
Resolution: It’s true sufficient that increasingly more growers are freezing hashish flower destined for particular varieties of extracts. Are living resin and are living rosin extracts, particularly, are made the usage of fresh-frozen hashish. Each warmth and oxygen are basically answerable for terpene loss and THC degradation. This system minimizes publicity and preserves probably the most terpenes conceivable.
Hashish buds yield a plethora of terpenes, which can be risky, leading to a big proportion of those terpenes evaporating right through harvesting, drying, and/or curing (see The Risky Oil Composition of Contemporary and Air-Dried Buds of Hashish sativa” through Samir A. Ross and Mahmoud A. ElSohly). Freezing the freshly harvested buds in an instant after harvest solidifies the chemical contents within the trichome heads, thus minimizing losses from evaporation. In a right kind sub-zero surroundings, fresh-frozen hashish will handle freshness and high quality for over a 12 months.
Some other benefit of fresh-freezing hashish is that the period of time between harvest to processing is minimized. The ensuing extracts have a for much longer shelf existence than hashish buds. Freezing hashish additionally is helping solidify undesirable compounds corresponding to wax and fat, which can be then more straightforward to clear out or take away from a hydrocarbon extraction.
A speedy transition from harvest to frozen too can reduce the expansion and proliferation of micro organism and molds that may contaminate the buds right through hang-drying and curing. By means of no longer drying and curing the hashish, growers can reduce the length of the post-harvest segment and will steer clear of having to buy and function pricey environmental keep an eye on apparatus to handle dry and treatment rooms.
(Editor’s observe: Contemporary-freezing is a fully other procedure from freeze-drying, which is used for consumable flower merchandise. For extra on freeze-drying, see this video interview with Buckeye Aid’s group.)
The right way to Contemporary-Freeze Hashish
The important thing to fresh-freezing hashish is to restrict the buds’ publicity to room temperatures after harvest. Moreover, if unsealed packing containers are positioned in a traditional non-sub-zero freezer, ice crystals can shape at the outer floor of buds. This ice can inhibit the extraction procedure, leading to a minimized yield of extract, in addition to efficiency, aroma, and taste.
Listed here are the stairs to observe to correctly fresh-freeze your hashish:
- Take away all fan leaves and secondary leaves with out trichomes.
- Take away branches and trim/dollar off the buds.
- Do a 2d go to take away all leaves with out trichomes.
- Right away position the harvested buds into insulated coolers with dry ice (by no means permit the buds to make touch with the dry ice) to precool the buds.
- Trim the buds.
- It’s best to paintings with buds in chilly temperatures.
- Position trimmed buds into sealable moisture-resistant luggage or packing containers, and position the packing containers into some other cooler with dry ice.
- Many growers wish to precool the buds using dry ice so that they’re going to be under 65°F (18°C) previous to hanging them into the blast freezer or freeze tunnel. Those speedy freeze processes reduce the formation of ice crystals.
- Beneath easiest stipulations, you need the buds to be within the 32°F to -4°F vary (0 to -20°C) at the floor of the buds, and ideally inside that very same vary throughout the better buds sooner than speedy freezing.
- Frivolously vacuum seal the packing containers that include the trimmed buds.
- Achieve this gently; don’t clump all of it in combination. Layer the buds so there’s a unfastened to medium consistency, and so they’re moderately flat to higher facilitate the blast freezer. This minimizes freezing time whilst making sure even freezing all through the contents. Vacuum sealing additionally minimizes oxidation and guarantees out of doors moisture does no longer migrate to the buds and shape floor ice.
- Position vacuum-sealed packing containers into a 3rd cooler with dry ice.
- It’s crucial that the frozen hashish isn’t allowed to thaw sooner than it’s applied for extraction.
- When the 3rd cooler is complete, position the packing containers into the blast freezer or freeze tunnel to be frozen.
- After blast freezing, position the frozen buds right into a sub-zero freezer in a position to attaining no less than 0°F (-18°C), however ideally, buds will have to be saved at -4°F to -22°F (-20°C to -30°C). Some growers want as little as -40°F to -112°F (-40°C to -80°C).
Contemporary-frozen hashish is a get advantages to each customers and growers as a result of freezing the hashish minimizes exertions prices and decreases the time between harvest, extraction, and processing. A grower can merely harvest, trim, and freeze a harvest, quite than harvest, trim, dry, and treatment. When fresh-freezing, the frozen buds are in a position for extraction or supply to the extraction facility simplest 24 hours after harvest. This ends up in a cheaper price of manufacturing of the beginning subject material, and in the long run a lower cost for the ensuing extract, bearing in mind a lower cost to consumers.
Issues to Keep away from When Contemporary-Freezing Cannabis
Frozen trichomes are exhausting and brittle. Over the top or tough dealing with of frozen hashish can harm and dislodge trichomes, thus diminishing efficiency and taste. Don’t drop or shake frozen hashish luggage.
Search for leaks or holes in packing containers. Any leaks can lead to trichome loss or freezer burn if no longer beneath vacuum. Freezer burn reasons mobile harm, leading to terpene compromise, cannabinoid degradation, and discoloration.
By no means permit buds to thaw sooner than use; simplest take away them from the freezer as wanted to be used in extraction. Allowing them to thaw lets in terpenes to evaporate, and it’s higher for the extraction procedure if the buds are frozen, no longer thawed.
You will have to take into account that the cause of freezing is to very best keep the required compounds. As such, timing is essential: If you don’t arrest terpene loss through in an instant solidifying the trichome head by using insulated coolers and dry ice in any respect trim stations, pre-blast freezer steps, and when using a freeze tunnel, some of these steps are meaningless. Because the hashish sits, it wilts and loses the qualities you are trying to keep.
Kenneth Morrow is an award-winning grower and breeder. He’s the landlord of Trichome Applied sciences, a analysis and construction corporate. He’s additionally a specialist and creator of the e-book “Marijuana Horticulture Basics” and a founding advisory board member of Hashish Industry Occasions, the place he has been a columnist since 2015. To find him on Instagram @trichometechnologies or succeed in him by the use of e-mail at: [email protected].
Query: Hello, I stay studying articles and social media posts about freezing freshly harvested buds to keep freshness, reduce mildew and mould contamination, and decrease manufacturing prices.
I latterly took a couple of dozen branches from freshly harvested vegetation and positioned them right into a walk-in freezer. After I checked on them a couple of days later, they’d principally became a frozen mass lined in ice at the floor.
Are you able to please give an explanation for why and methods to freeze, and the way it will decrease my value of manufacturing? I might no doubt love to decrease prices, however I am additionally very concerned about how I will make the most of this procedure as a way of storing my extra hashish and minimizing its degradation. Additionally, what’s frozen hashish very best applied for?
Resolution: It’s true sufficient that increasingly more growers are freezing hashish flower destined for particular varieties of extracts. Are living resin and are living rosin extracts, particularly, are made the usage of fresh-frozen hashish. Each warmth and oxygen are basically answerable for terpene loss and THC degradation. This system minimizes publicity and preserves probably the most terpenes conceivable.
Hashish buds yield a plethora of terpenes, which can be risky, leading to a big proportion of those terpenes evaporating right through harvesting, drying, and/or curing (see The Risky Oil Composition of Contemporary and Air-Dried Buds of Hashish sativa” through Samir A. Ross and Mahmoud A. ElSohly). Freezing the freshly harvested buds in an instant after harvest solidifies the chemical contents within the trichome heads, thus minimizing losses from evaporation. In a right kind sub-zero surroundings, fresh-frozen hashish will handle freshness and high quality for over a 12 months.
Some other benefit of fresh-freezing hashish is that the period of time between harvest to processing is minimized. The ensuing extracts have a for much longer shelf existence than hashish buds. Freezing hashish additionally is helping solidify undesirable compounds corresponding to wax and fat, which can be then more straightforward to clear out or take away from a hydrocarbon extraction.
A speedy transition from harvest to frozen too can reduce the expansion and proliferation of micro organism and molds that may contaminate the buds right through hang-drying and curing. By means of no longer drying and curing the hashish, growers can reduce the length of the post-harvest segment and will steer clear of having to buy and function pricey environmental keep an eye on apparatus to handle dry and treatment rooms.
(Editor’s observe: Contemporary-freezing is a fully other procedure from freeze-drying, which is used for consumable flower merchandise. For extra on freeze-drying, see this video interview with Buckeye Aid’s group.)
The right way to Contemporary-Freeze Hashish
The important thing to fresh-freezing hashish is to restrict the buds’ publicity to room temperatures after harvest. Moreover, if unsealed packing containers are positioned in a traditional non-sub-zero freezer, ice crystals can shape at the outer floor of buds. This ice can inhibit the extraction procedure, leading to a minimized yield of extract, in addition to efficiency, aroma, and taste.
Listed here are the stairs to observe to correctly fresh-freeze your hashish:
- Take away all fan leaves and secondary leaves with out trichomes.
- Take away branches and trim/dollar off the buds.
- Do a 2d go to take away all leaves with out trichomes.
- Right away position the harvested buds into insulated coolers with dry ice (by no means permit the buds to make touch with the dry ice) to precool the buds.
- Trim the buds.
- It’s best to paintings with buds in chilly temperatures.
- Position trimmed buds into sealable moisture-resistant luggage or packing containers, and position the packing containers into some other cooler with dry ice.
- Many growers wish to precool the buds using dry ice so that they’re going to be under 65°F (18°C) previous to hanging them into the blast freezer or freeze tunnel. Those speedy freeze processes reduce the formation of ice crystals.
- Beneath easiest stipulations, you need the buds to be within the 32°F to -4°F vary (0 to -20°C) at the floor of the buds, and ideally inside that very same vary throughout the better buds sooner than speedy freezing.
- Frivolously vacuum seal the packing containers that include the trimmed buds.
- Achieve this gently; don’t clump all of it in combination. Layer the buds so there’s a unfastened to medium consistency, and so they’re moderately flat to higher facilitate the blast freezer. This minimizes freezing time whilst making sure even freezing all through the contents. Vacuum sealing additionally minimizes oxidation and guarantees out of doors moisture does no longer migrate to the buds and shape floor ice.
- Position vacuum-sealed packing containers into a 3rd cooler with dry ice.
- It’s crucial that the frozen hashish isn’t allowed to thaw sooner than it’s applied for extraction.
- When the 3rd cooler is complete, position the packing containers into the blast freezer or freeze tunnel to be frozen.
- After blast freezing, position the frozen buds right into a sub-zero freezer in a position to attaining no less than 0°F (-18°C), however ideally, buds will have to be saved at -4°F to -22°F (-20°C to -30°C). Some growers want as little as -40°F to -112°F (-40°C to -80°C).
Contemporary-frozen hashish is a get advantages to each customers and growers as a result of freezing the hashish minimizes exertions prices and decreases the time between harvest, extraction, and processing. A grower can merely harvest, trim, and freeze a harvest, quite than harvest, trim, dry, and treatment. When fresh-freezing, the frozen buds are in a position for extraction or supply to the extraction facility simplest 24 hours after harvest. This ends up in a cheaper price of manufacturing of the beginning subject material, and in the long run a lower cost for the ensuing extract, bearing in mind a lower cost to consumers.
Issues to Keep away from When Contemporary-Freezing Cannabis
Frozen trichomes are exhausting and brittle. Over the top or tough dealing with of frozen hashish can harm and dislodge trichomes, thus diminishing efficiency and taste. Don’t drop or shake frozen hashish luggage.
Search for leaks or holes in packing containers. Any leaks can lead to trichome loss or freezer burn if no longer beneath vacuum. Freezer burn reasons mobile harm, leading to terpene compromise, cannabinoid degradation, and discoloration.
By no means permit buds to thaw sooner than use; simplest take away them from the freezer as wanted to be used in extraction. Allowing them to thaw lets in terpenes to evaporate, and it’s higher for the extraction procedure if the buds are frozen, no longer thawed.
You will have to take into account that the cause of freezing is to very best keep the required compounds. As such, timing is essential: If you don’t arrest terpene loss through in an instant solidifying the trichome head by using insulated coolers and dry ice in any respect trim stations, pre-blast freezer steps, and when using a freeze tunnel, some of these steps are meaningless. Because the hashish sits, it wilts and loses the qualities you are trying to keep.
Kenneth Morrow is an award-winning grower and breeder. He’s the landlord of Trichome Applied sciences, a analysis and construction corporate. He’s additionally a specialist and creator of the e-book “Marijuana Horticulture Basics” and a founding advisory board member of Hashish Industry Occasions, the place he has been a columnist since 2015. To find him on Instagram @trichometechnologies or succeed in him by the use of e-mail at: [email protected].
