Dear Dan,
Hey, so I have a few questions about some things because my buddy is too big of a wuss to ask himself. He has a tent set up and does pretty well with everything. The end product is always dense, stinky, does the trick and looks great, but the downfall of it is that it smokes like shit—too harsh and burns the throat and lungs. So with this little bit of info, if you could please give me a few reasons as to why this is happening that would be awesome! — JonJon
Dear JonJon,
A variety of factors can cause weed to burn your throat. Overfeeding plants with nutrients is the biggest culprit. No amount of flushing with plain water can remove excess minerals and salts if you’ve been pouring on too much for months. Pesticides, neem oil and any number of other sprays used during the growing process can also cause your cannabis to taste harsh (and aren’t healthy to comsume). Plants can also get fried with too much light and heat which will certainly make the flowers taste awful. The problem could even be genetic, meaning your friend is growing from bunk seeds.
Sounds like your buddy is having post-harvest problems. Somewhere along the line between flushing, drying and curing, things are going wrong. These are the factors that you need to master to eliminate any harsh tastes and crappy burning buds.
Flushing is accomplished within the last two weeks of flowering by using plain pH balanced water instead of nutrient solution in order to leach out any remaining minerals such as salts from your growing medium and your plants. Pour the water until it flows heavily out of the bottom of your container during this time. You may see some yellowing of the leaves or other fall colors developing but don’t be alarmed. This is a good thing and simply means that your quest to reduce chlorophyll and other elements trapped within your buds is successful.
Drying requires hanging your harvested buds until they are bone dry to the touch on the outside. Slow drying is essential, so don’t try to get it done quickly with fans blowing on the buds or any other method to quicken the amount of time it takes to dry.
After at least a week of hanging dry (depending on your ambient humidity and temperatures where you live), the branches should snap instead of bending. Now is the time to remove the individual buds and begin the curing process in sealed glass jars. Open the jars at least once a day early on to remove moist air and replenish it with dryer fresh air. After two weeks of curing, or “sweating” out the remaining moisture within the center of your buds, they should be ready to grind up and smoke without any harshness or difficulty burning.
The cannabis from my medical dispensary is often harsh. Is it maybe the temps I store it 60-65 degrees ? Can storing temperatures cause harsh cannabis?
Thank you
Your medical dispensary doesn’t know what they are re doing then. My dispensary is why and how I started questioning and researching, through the dispensary I know exactly the strain and how it’s grown. Hydroponics are the best hands down for smooth clean smoke, soil grown bud will always have a harshness and depending on the factors above could be more extreme. After using dispensary weed for a few years and getting herb of guys on the streets or home growers got me really looking into why buds can be such shit. From my research,all these guys trying to make a quick buck tax free, don’t know how to flush,dry,cure,trim or all of the above and they throw it in vacuum bags and it’s crap. Improperly cured bud ages quicker, ageing bud will smell like mustard, and then ammonia. That perfume tasting/smelling bud too, if it’s not from a chicks bag it’s improperly flushed and old. People really need to start being more aware and picky about what they smoke, let’s stop these shitty growers in it for the money.
What do you all think of continuing the curing process after purchase when harsh…does anyone have any success with that?
Is there anything i can do after its dried to take harsh out?