The Croptober Crisis: Drying and Curing Gone Wrong

But Jim? Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating the bounty of the annual harvest? Sure. There will be a bunch of places and moments to do that. But today we’re dedicating it to the ones that will mess it up.

Some folks will do everything right all summer only to ruin their pot after they chop it down. Usually, it’s because of a lack of preparation for that moment. Sure maybe sometimes the power goes out or something like that but the vast majority of shitty pot in 2022 will be traced back to human error.

First, we should set the standard we’re speaking from when we describe a perfect dry and cure following the harvest. In the best-case scenario, you get an audible snap when you crack the stem 2/16ths of an inch away from the base of the bud structure but the surface of the flower is still covered in sticky glorious resin. When talking about good pot, you move backward from there because the best pot in the world has to start with that dry and cure. But we are not talking about the best weed in the world, that is for sure.

Even if you didn’t have a sense of smell, you’d be able to tell a ton about the quality of cannabis just from how it was handled in post-production.

So who is screwing it up? How are they screwing it up?

The Growers

Imagine having dirt under your nails for five months only to ruin it in the playoffs? That will certainly be the harvest tale for some. Likely it will start with them spending too much time in the field and then boom, they were halfway through August without a real plan, and now a month later whatever they’ve come up with won’t be up to the task. The pot will be too hot or too dry. The cure will get messed up and you end up with a bag that smells like lawnmower clippings with a dash of OG.

With how competitive east coast markets have become, this inferior product will be less acceptable than ever. Not even Billy in Ohio will smoke it. The middle-of-the-pack cannabis from places from Maine and Oklahoma is certainly better than the worst outdoor from California. In recent years some growers who always grew an inferior product have blamed the marketplace, but in reality, many never dried and cured their pot right. They were creatures of habit that wouldn’t change their ways and it cost them.

The Distros

It’s certainly not always the grower’s fault. Sometimes cannabis is ruined by the distribution company.

When California legalized weed it mandated distribution companies. Some people started their own to fully vertically integrate their companies from seed to sale. That means they grow, distribute, and sell cannabis.

Starting a distro wasn’t a realistic option for every small to medium-sized farmer. They were forced to pick companies that would get their product to shelves and pray it wasn’t screwed up in the process.

I have been a big fan of one NorCal brand for many years, but all my homies in Los Angeles were like, “Jimi this is not heat fam.” It was a direct result of the distro screwing it up on the long and hot eight-hour drive from the heart of Mendocino to L.A. Once you cook the terps off in a hot truck they’re gone for good.

Dispensaries

Dispensaries aren’t cold enough. I don’t want to be comfortable, I want the weed to be comfortable. I’ll wear a sweater. If that hurts your business plan because you use your employee necklines to flip product you’ve got a whole host of other issues at your establishment I’d imagine.

Every dispensary in my dream reality has a thermostat that reads 55 and a barometer that reads sixty. This gives the pot that comes through the doors the best shot at staying awesome for as long as possible. Even with these primo climate control conditions, you’re still going to want to shoot for that golden zone about 20 to 60 days after harvest.

You

Why did you leave that bag of heat in the sun fam? Why didn’t you just buy a little tent to dry in where you could dial in the climate conditions? Your closet tech was wack last year? Why did you think it would be any different in 2022? Don’t let this paragraph apply to you, there is still time.