With the legalization of marijuana across many states, people are becoming more interested in learning about the benefits and various uses of cannabis. However, one thing that concerns them the most is how to keep their weed fresh so they can get the most from the plant.
In general, any cannabis that has been professionally harvested, dried, cured and stored in a proper weed stash box will stay fresh for longer periods of time. Apart from this, there are other factors that can influence the freshness and quality of the buds and these include humidity, light and temperature.
Although these factors won’t make the weed expire, they can reduce its potency and change its overall taste. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t still consume your older weed because there are several ways you can actually use it.
In this post, we share five tips on how you can make the best of your old marijuana.
1. Rehydrate it
Any cannabis flower you consume should have some moisture for an optimal experience. Moisture affects the bud’s potency, flavor and aroma and needs to be at the right level so it can give you the smoke and effects you want.
However, if your weed loses its moisture and dries out, you don’t need to throw it away. Instead, you could rehydrate it using a citrus peel to return the moisture to your buds. All you have to do is cut off a strip of the peel of the citrus fruit, place it in a glass jar with your old weed and seal it up.
2. Vaporize it
Vaporizing is another common way to use up your old weed. Consuming it this way will give you the dense clouds of vapor you are looking for without the harshness of the smoke. This is unlikely with fresh buds because in this case the flower is moist and your vaporizer won’t work properly during the first few pulls.
The only downside of vaporizing your old cannabis is that the terpene content levels are likely to be low. This will result in changing the taste of your flower, making it less enjoyable for you. If you don’t want to taste old weed, then you should look at other ways to consume it.
3. Turn it into edibles
Making edibles from old weed is another genius way to consume your buds. This allows you to extract the THC compound from the plant without suffering through the stale weed taste that comes with old weed.
Typically, most people use their old, dried buds to make cannabutter. This is a combination of cannabis and butter which is most commonly used to make cannabis edibles, mainly baked goods such as cookies and brownies. If you do it right, you should expect good results with using your old weed.
4. Turn it into concentrate
Because old weed has a lower potency level, you can increase it by turning your aging flowers into concentrates. There are many types of concentrates you can make using old weed with bubble hash being one of the most common.
This is probably the best, cheapest and easiest way to repurpose your forgotten buds without using chemicals. The process involves using ice, ice water, or dry ice to break the trichomes off of the plant material, which are then collected to form hash.
5. Dry sift it
Instead of turning your old weed into concentrate, you have the option of dry sifting it. This process involves running dried marijuana through a grinder and collecting the powder, called kief, accumulated at the bottom. During the process, you will be able to separate the precious trichome heads which contain the highest levels of cannabinoids and terpenes from the rest of the plant.
This method is much safer than turning your weed into concentrates as the dry sieve contains all the good stuff. This actually makes it the purest and most potent way to consume cannabis.
Final thoughts
Although you should always be striving to keep your weed fresh, there may be times when you will end up with old, dried buds. Instead of throwing them away, you can use them in many ways to make the most out of your flowers.
From rehydrating and vaporizing your marijuana to turning it into edibles and concentrates, you have plenty of options on how you can salvage your old weed.
For more help, be sure to refer to our post and follow the tips on how you can use your aging marijuana.