Can You Freeze Weed? Here’s What You Should Know
If you don’t think you’ll be able to use something up before it goes bad, you put it in the freezer. It’s a natural reaction. You can put cookie dough, flour, dry rice, butter, and even whole apples in the freezer for later use. It’s almost like the freezer is a magical place where time stands still.
The freezer is one of the most useful appliances in your home, but it can’t do everything. Like cucumbers, coffee, and lettuce, some things won’t fare very well in the freezer. They require a specific moisture content and humidity level to maintain their integrity, and the freezer is too harsh of an environment to accommodate them.
Before you start packing your cannabis into neatly labeled freezer bags, you may want to consider the potential consequences of freezing your weed.
How Long Does Cannabis Last Before Going Stale?
The answer to this question largely depends on the way cannabis was stored. If you leave it out on the coffee table, it will last a few days. If you put it in a plastic bag, it will last a few weeks. If you put it in a mason jar, it will last a month or two. None of these methods are wise for storing cannabis.
When stored in ideal conditions, cannabis can technically last up to two years. By that point, time will have naturally degraded many of the cannabinoids. It’s safe to assume that cannabis will pass its prime at the 18-month mark. After that, changes will become noticeable.
Here’s Why The Freezer Sounds Like a Good Idea
Cannabis should be stored away from light and heat. Based on those criteria alone, your freezer sounds like the perfect environment. There’s certainly no heat in there. The light only comes on when you open the door. Putting your cannabis in the freezer almost feels logical.
While the freezer meets many of the surface criteria for cannabis storage, it fails in the arena of scientific criteria. Away from heat and freezing cold don’t mean the same thing.
Here’s How The Freezer is Going to Ruin Your Cannabis
The overwhelming majority of everything that makes your cannabis great is sitting on its surface. The trichomes, or plant hairs, play a crucial role in synthesizing cannabinoids and terpenes.
Many trichomes are so small that they’re unable to be seen by the human eye. The large trichomes, which satisfy the bulk of the plant’s production capabilities, look like little sugar crystals on the flower’s outside.
The trichome plant hairs holding onto the cannabinoids and terpenes are very small and extremely delicate. Freezing them will turn them brittle and cause them to shatter right off the plant.
When you finally take your cannabis out of the freezer, it will essentially be hemp. All of the potency is in little microscopic pieces scattered around the bottom of the container.
They’re going to blend right in with real frost or actual ice crystals. You’re never going to be able to separate them or handle them in a method efficient enough to re-incorporate with your cannabis.
Can You Put Any Cannabis Products in the Freezer?
If the trichomes have already broken off, there’s no risk of losing them due to the cold. Cannabis concentrates, like wax, shatter, badder, and budder can be stored in the freezer as long as they’re in truly air-tight containers.
The freezer can be immensely helpful for cleaning smoking implements and grinders. Silicone pipes and bongs that become caked with resin are really difficult to clean.
Until you put them in the freezer. The freezer is a huge game changer. Put them in the freezer overnight, and all the resin will freeze together. You can pop it right out of the silicone bowl or bong and dispose of it or use it to make hash.
If your grinder is gummed up and full of kief, do the same thing. When you easily remove the resin-coated in trichomes, you essentially already have hash. Don’t waste it. Drop it on your dab rig and vaporize it. It’s rich in cannabinoids, and it’s bound to be a good time.
The Best Way to Store Your Cannabis
Your freezer is for ice cream, your favorite scotch glass, and the vegetables you keep promising yourself you’re going to eat more of. It’s not designed for your cannabis. Storing your cannabis is easy. All you need is the right tools.
Keep it at Room Temperature
Cannabis shouldn’t be hot, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be placed in subzero temperatures. Room temperature is fine.
Make an effort to keep your cannabis away from hot areas of your home. Don’t place it near a heater, a fireplace, or a stove. Don’t put it near a windowsill where the sun will beat down on the container for several hours a day.
Your cannabis thrives at the same temperature you do. If you’re comfortable sitting in a spot, your cannabis will be too.
Block Out Light
We’ve all been on Pinterest. Mason jar crafts are clever and cute. They’re great for almost everything, except for cannabis storage. Clear glass lets the light right in. Even tinted or colored glass will allow light to pass through the container. If you can see the cannabis flower in the storage container, it isn’t lightproof.
Opaque plastic will block out the light, but it comes at a cost. Plastic carries a static charge. A little bit of friction can create tiny little zaps that fry the trichomes right off the outside of your cannabis flower.
Ceramic does a good job of blocking light out, but it’s very heavy. It’s fragile, and it isn’t good to travel with. Stori found the perfect compromise with food-grade aluminum. It won’t shatter, it’s lightweight, it’s lightproof, and it doesn’t hold a static charge.
Keep it Airtight
Where there’s air, there’s evaporation. When evaporation is possible, terpenes are guaranteed gone. Terpenes are designed to evaporate quickly. That’s their whole function.
The plant produces terpenes to send signals into the air, beckoning pollinators to come visit and telling predators to stay away. They’re always ready to float away.
If your container isn’t completely airtight, your terpenes will fulfill their function of escaping. This will leave you with bland and diminished cannabis. The lid on your container needs to prevent air from entering and exiting completely.
The Stori container’s airtight lids are also child-resistant and pet-resistant. There’s no chance they’re coming loose or that any curious children or pups will be able to pop the lids off.
Maintain Proper Humidity
Properly maintaining the humidity of your cannabis is the key to preserving terpenes and preventing them from drying out.
Humidity is something that sounds really difficult to control, but it only takes a few seconds every few weeks. We’ve made it as easy as possible.
Inside of the lid of your Stori pod is a little place to stick a size 1 Boveda pack. The Boveda pack essentially does all the work. You put it in the lid and let it work. The pack lays down a tiny bit of purified water to weigh the terpenes down while it regulates the humidity inside the pod.
It will keep working without intervention for weeks or even months. All you need to do is periodically check the pack for hard patches.
A few hard spots or some hardening at the corners is perfectly fine. If the whole pack starts to harden up, it’s time to switch it out for a new one. It’s as simple as can be.
Keep it Organized
This is a mistake we’ve all made at one point in time or another. You have several strains of cannabis, and you put them all into nearly identical storage containers.
Bedtime rolls around, and you’re looking for the strain that helps you sleep. How can you tell it apart from the strain that floods your brain with creative energy?
Stori has a simple way to solve that. Each pod comes with a different color lid. You can write on the lids with a dry erase marker to label your strains.
You can also input strain information into the Stori app. You’ll know your Northern Lights from your Jack Herer, and you won’t wind up with a weird urge to organize the junk drawers at midnight.
It’s Really Easy to Start
All you need is a Stori case, a box of Boveda humidity packs, and the Stori app. The case comes with six storage pods and six storage tubes. It has a place to put your rolling papers and your lighter.
The top of the case doubles as a rolling tray. You’re all good to go. Just pop a pack in each pod and plug the info into the app. Your cannabis will stay fresh for a long time, and your freezer will have more space for ice cream.
Sources:
What is a Trichome? | CannabisTech
What is Static Electricity? | Live Science
How Evaporation of Terpenes in Cannabis Can Cost You | Boveda
