Best Way to Store Your Weed: How to Keep it Fresh

If you take a look at any cannabis website, you will most likely find a plethora of information regarding the plant or bud itself and how it can be utilized to get you high. Some sites provide you with specific medical benefits. One topic you may not see pop up as often, is weed storage.

The truth about most weed enthusiasts is that they will have a fairly large amount on them at the time. They will often need to keep some stored away until they use it. The problem with storing cannabis is that not everyone knows how to properly put it away safely. Storing it the wrong way can result in weed that is not as great as it was when you first purchased it. When it comes down to it, the level of quality has a significant impact on your overall experience.

Close your eyes and imagine that sweet, fresh smell when you first open a bag of newly bought cannabis. That should put a giant smile on your face. That’s because within that aroma lies cannabinoids that have loads of medicinal qualities (and psychoactive ones too).

Quality and Consistency

To get the most out of your bud, you need to protect those chemical compounds at all costs. How you store your cannabis is detrimental to the longevity of your cannabis.

To make sure that you have a great dry herb vaping session every time, follow the guide provided below to ensure that you are storing your weed away properly until it is ready to be smoked.

Why Do You Want to Preserve Your Weed?

Weed preservation is just as important as any other aspect of the weed smoking process. When it is not properly stored away, the weed could dry out or face other issues that damage its material and its active ingredients. It also makes it harder for you to smoke if the weed is not the right consistency. It can easily crumble into a powder kief or is too moist and moldy to actually smoke. Put simply, high-quality bud is only as good as you manage to take care of it. If you store it poorly, you are going to quickly lose the quality of your medical marijuana flowers and possibly lose out on your stash altogether.

How to Best Store Your Weed?

With the importance of proper weed storage in mind, the next step to take is to figure out what the best methods of weed storage are. To get you started, here are some of the highly-recommended ways that will keep your weed safe from harm.

Pop Tops

If you’ve ever purchased a full ounce of weed from a proper dispensary, you have most likely received your weed in a couple of dark tubes. These pop tops are transparent or solid colored tubes that often have a dark surface. They serve to hold a certain amount of weed at a time. These pop tops are a great way to continually store your marijuana. You can save them as you accumulate them to store weed that comes delivered or purchased in bags rather than in containers.

Bags or ziplock baggies can deteriorate the quality because of the material they’re made from. They are often transparent too, which easily lets light attract through.

Mason Jars

Unlike pop tops, mason jars are absolutely everywhere and are another great way to safely store away your marijuana. These jars will help prevent moisture from getting into your stash and can also help you store larger quantities of marijuana at a time if you often purchase larger amounts. However, these types of jars are typically clear and you must make sure to store them in a place such as a pantry to make sure that the cannabis isn’t exposed to sunlight.

Mason jars are an easy and cheap way to store your cannabis properly. Glass jars will hold the flavor profile of your marijuana, maintain the cannabinoids, and will last longer as a storage container than plastic bags.

As Scott Radcliffe, a spokesperson for a California-based glass company, Lifefactory, told the Chicago Tribune, “Glass is made from naturally abundant materials—primarily sand—and it won’t degrade over time. Glass can last for decades.”

You can use an old mason, pickle, or jelly jar. However, the most effective way of keeping your cannabis stored safely is to put it in an amber jar. As studies with milk have found, UV rays can permeate through clear containers and disrupt the chemical profile. Amber glass filters the light, keeping your cannabinoids intact.

This isn’t the only way amber jars help preserve your cannabis. Volatile oils are highly concentrated, making them more powerful than any other part of a plant. As marijuana oils oxidize within its container, it chips away at the structure. That’s why plastic bags may start to lose their shape after storing cannabis for a while.

Amber stands the test of time, even fossilizing organisms. Therefore, it can withstand the oxidation of volatile oils far better than plastic, and better than clear glass. Most amber storage containers are a little pricer. Going with regular glass will suffice. Just be sure to sanitize the jars before putting any product in them. Then make sure the lid is secured tightly, and your stash is stored in a cool, dark, and dry place.

Pet Treat Containers

Having a pet comes with a ton of perks. One of them is the fact that having pet treat containers gives you the perfect storage containers for your weed as well. These containers are often airtight and help to protect your herbs. They are often rather large so they are perfect for handling larger quantities of cannabis as well. Just make sure that you clean it out beforehand so that you don’t smoke weed that smells like dog or cat treats!

Air-Tight Storage

It’s important to remember that the suggestions above are not the end-all-be-all of cannabis storage. If you don’t have access to any of these products, don’t fret! One of the most necessary parts of proper storage is simply having an air-tight container. Whether that is a Tupperware box or a cookie jar, it doesn’t matter. As long as it does the job, it works well for what you are trying to achieve.

What Degrades Weed?

Half of the battle is knowing what you should be storing your weed in. However, you can still make mistakes that will cause your weed to degrade despite storing it in the proper containers. Here are some of the reasons why weed degrades. These are some of the conditions you need to take into account in order to prevent your own weed from breaking down and losing its quality.

Light

Light is often closely linked with temperature. This will break down the organic components of your weed and render many of the natural ingredients much less effective than they would be if the marijuana was well-kept after harvesting the flowers. It applies to UV light so it is important to keep your cannabis away from direct sunlight. If it does come into contact with light, make sure that it is kept to a minimum as long-term exposure is what causes the most damage to marijuana. The darker the area in which your weed is stored, the better.

Air

You can take away all the light and this would only prove beneficial to the preservation of your weed. Air, on the other hand, needs to be much more balanced and you need to have a perfect balance between too much and too little in order to keep your herbs perfect.

If you have too little air, moist weed can quickly make the environment too humid and expose your weed to moisture-related problems. If you have too much air, the overexposure to oxygen will cause the weed to break down. You need just enough air to make sure that it doesn’t break down or grow any foreign contaminants.

Moisture

Too much moisture, either from the air around the marijuana or from the marijuana itself, is likely to lead to the growth of mold and mildew. This completely ruins the marijuana and makes it so that you are unable to smoke it. (If you do smoke it anyways, you run the risk of dealing with the negative side effects that come with inhaling the burnt mold. Vaping has its own dangers.) Even if only a little bit develops on some of the weed, most of the other weed will still be affected by the spores and once a small bit develops. It is likely to spread quickly as this means that your weed is very moist. Make sure to keep your weed fairly dry but not too dry to the point that it begins to degrade as well.

Temperature

Like air, heat and cold also have a massive impact on your marijuana. If the temperature around your cannabis is too hot, it can heat up and wear down the cannabis and terpenes and begin to dry them out. However, cold temperatures can also increase the chances of mold and mildew growing as well as causing your plants to become more brittle and breaking down the active ingredients. You want to keep your herbs cool but you don’t want to cool them off to the point of being useless. Keep this in mind when you are storing your herbs away.

Storing Weed

If you’re looking to do more than simply keep your weed in a couple of jars, here are some additional tips that will help to make sure that your weed is well-protected.

Use Vacuum Sealed Jars or Bags

As a general rule, you shouldn’t store your weed in bags. These types of containers can encourage sweating and the same applies to glass jars like mason jars. However, these types of conditions can be avoided if you are able to vacuum seal your plastic bags. You can also use glass jars or other containers that contain air-tight seals on their lids. These types of containers are abundant and you should have no problem finding these products for your marijuana. If you are looking to vacuum seal your bags instead, you can find machines that will handle this process as well.

While I don’t recommend this over the other options, it is still better than a plastic bag. Vacuum sealing your cannabis is a good solution for anyone who needs to store a high quantity of cannabis and don’t plan on touching it for a while.

Making sure there is little to no oxygen present, the vacuum will condense as much of the product together as possible. This allows the trichomes to stay in place and the oils to remain flavorful and potent.

Plastic Warning

A word of warning, plastic will undeniably alter the genetic makeup of at least the outer layer of your cannabis. However, with everything packed tightly, the middle of the brick should be of optimal freshness, flavor, and potency.

If you care about maintaining the quality of your cannabis over any period of time, you need to take how you are going to store it seriously. Remember, just because something looks the coolest, doesn’t mean that it will be the best storage container. Go with something airtight and blocks the UV rays from degrading the THC.

Make Sure It’s Tinted and Not Transparent

If you receive any weed in a container, you will notice that if you can see into the container, it is most likely tinted rather than clear. Why is this? Well, tinted containers help to protect your weed from light if it is left out in the sun at any point in time and will help to provide some extra protection whereas completely clear containers will simply let the light right in. As we noted above, light exposure can degrade your weed. Make sure that any container, whether it is made of glass or plastic, is tinted to keep your herbs protected.

Cannabis Humidor

A cannabis humidor is a device that keeps your herbs fresh and prevents the moisture. This stops the air around the substance from becoming a major problem. These types of long-term storage are great for those who plan on storing their marijuana for a few weeks to months . In addition, these types of wooden box offerings are a bit more stylish than the traditional jar or container and are great for those who interested in a product that looks good as well.

The only thing that may taste worse than stale cannabis is an old stogie. So, maybe you can learn a thing or two about how cigars are kept fresh and apply it to cannabis. That’s why a cannabis humidor might be the best way to store your cannabis.

There are many types of humidors out there. Most of them will do a sufficient job in providing shade, retaining moisture, and keeping in scents. You want a material that will stand the test of time. Therefore, popular humidor choices include glass and wood. However, the best cannabis humidors are made out of solid wood.

Types of Wood

Woods like cherry and mahogany are the most common choices for cannabis humidors. Not only do they maintain the smell of your cannabis, but add to the fragrance when you open the humidor up for business. Not to mention, wood won’t add any unfavorable flavor to your bud as metal could.

If you are getting a humidor, make sure it is not one labeled for tobacco use. Those types of humidors are typically lined with cedar. While it won’t do much harm to the medicinal profile of your cannabis, cedar will change the taste of cannabis. Whereas cedar does compliment the smoky taste of tobacco, it’s not the best flavor profile for puffing on some pot.

Boveda Packs

Beyond simple storage methods, there are also more advanced technologies on the market that serve to cater to your bud’s every need. Known as Boveda Packs, these small items contain salts and beads capable of absorbing water. These ingredients help to maintain humidity levels and either absorb moisture if it is too high or provide moisture when it is too low. When combined with certain storage methods, these products make for great additions to help your weed thrive in the long run.

As cannabis continues to grow across the country, the technology surrounding the medicine is evolving as well. Boveda Bags are newer to the world of cannabis and are doing wonders for maintaining the integrity of bud.

Similar to Silica Packets

Boveda bags work a lot like how silica packets work in shoe boxes. These little packets contain tiny beads made of purified water and natural salts. Using its breakthrough technology, these packs regulate the relative humidity by gobbling up loose water vapors in the storage container. This stops mold and bacteria from growing on your plant and destroying its chemical profile.

Different strains of maryjane thrive in different environments. Some buds can withstand a wider range of relative humidity than others. Relative humidity depends on so many environmental factors including your elevation, distance from water, and where you live.

With these differences in mind, Boveda bags come formulated in different varieties to combat a range of relative humidity levels. They even have a testing system for hardcore pot pack rats. Therefore, you can tailor your storage to fit the needs of the specific environment you live in.

Invest on a CVault to Store Cannabis

Really serious about keeping your cannabis fresh? Look into a CVault Weed Storage Container. A CVault is an amped up version of a humidor. Made out of stainless steel, it is completely impenetrable by light or oxygen. With its clasps on top, the CVault creates an airtight seal that far rivals any mason jar or humidor out there.

This product was created to compliment Boveda packs. Therefore, this cannabis storage container comes with a stainless steel grate to put the pack on that fits snugly underneath the top of the CVault. Having this grate allows the Boveda Bags to absorb any moisture without coming into direct contact with your bud.

The Importance of Proper Cannabis Storage

First opening your cannabis is much like when you open a brand-new bag of potato chips. No matter how tightly you roll up the bag and clip it, the first chip is going to taste so much better than the last one you eat a few weeks later. Once you open up the bag, oxygen gets inside, causing volatile oils in the chips to start oxidizing.

Mostly, volatile oils are what give these snacks flavor. However, these oils are also responsible for whatever minimal nutritional value potato chips actually have. On a farther, healthier side of the spectrum, the same can be said for cannabis oils.

When you light up cannabis, it breaks up the trichomes on the bud. As a result, oil secretes out. Cannabis oil is comprised of many beneficial compounds. Most notably they are cannabinoids and terpenes.

Cannabinoids are the compounds responsible for the positive medicinal effects of marijuana. By interacting with receptors in our endocannabinoid system, cannabinoids such as THC and CBD can help with everything from alleviating stress to regulating your sleep cycle to destroying cancerous cells.

Cannabinoids and Terpenes

Marijuana has a very distinct scent. While powerful to the nostrils, it is also powerful for the whole body. The cannabis plant’s terpenes create this scent. Terpenes are also responsible for the healing properties behind aromatherapy and the use of essential oils.

What makes cannabis such a viable form of therapy for people is that the cannabinoids work in unison with the terpenes. Their complementary chemical profiles cause cannabinoids and terpenes to have an entourage effect on one another. These two types of chemicals magnify the positive effects each compound has on the body, making them stronger than they would have been entering the bloodstream on their own.

When you first start breaking up your bud for use, these precious chemicals become prone to oxygen. Every time you pull off a little nug, trichomes within the bud become exposed. Furthermore, they bring that oxidative damage into the storage container with it. Whenever you store your cannabis, you want to maintain the potency of your bud by keeping out as much oxygen as possible.

What You Shouldn’t Do

We will always aim to take the right actions that help our weed succeed. Sometimes, however, these actions can have unintentional, damaging consequences that ruin our marijuana. To better prepare yourself, here are some of the unhelpful things that you shouldn’t do to try to keep your weed fresh.

You may get your cannabis in a seemingly airtight Ziploc bag. Why not just keep your cannabis in there? While a plastic baggy is convenient, it is harmful to the chemical profile of marijuana.

For one, plastic is a completely man-made substance. Studies have found that most plastic products release estrogen-like chemicals. The overproduction and consumption of plastic by-products have led to many disruptions of the endocrine system throughout the human race.

That’s because, like potato chips and cannabis, plastic oxidizes as well. This causes unwanted chemical reactions to everything plastic comes in contact with, including medical marijuana. Synthetic compounds can damage the terpenes and cannabinoids in your buds. Therefore, if you store your cannabis in a plastic bag, you may be negating the medicinal or psychoactive effects you are looking for.

On top of that, plastic bags don’t help preserve the integrity of your cannabis. Seeing as it’s such an open space inside a plastic bag, the bud can easily shake about in transit. This naturally causes buds to loosen up and break apart. As a result, trichomes will split open, and some oils will die off before you even get to use them.

Lastly, plastic bags offer little to no discretion. No matter how times you run your thumb over the sealing track of the bag, they do not seal off odors very well. This can blow up your hiding spot. Not to mention, if you are smelling the cannabis, that means terpenes are escaping your cannabis into thin air. Now that you know the importance of storing your cannabis properly let’s take a look at the top 5 ways how.

Don’t Freeze It or Put It in the Refrigerator

Because all sources state to keep your weed in a cool place, it is logical to take it to the next step and to assume that the refrigerator would be a suitable storage place or even the freezer. After all, both locations will remain cool all of the time and there is no light shining on your bud unless you open the fridge or freezer for a midnight snack. Unfortunately, storing your weed in the fridge or freezer is actually bad for it. Your fridge is too cool for your bud and can create higher moisture levels that promote mold and mildew growth over time. The freezer itself has temperatures that are too low and will make the plant matter brittle and lessen the efficacy of the THC and other cannabinoids and terpenes. The only time you should put your weed in the freezer is if you plan on making some of your own bubble hash.

Don’t Store in Paper or Foil

In a pinch, you may think that paper or foil would work as a temporary container, right? Actually, no. Both paper and foil are not protective enough to keep your weed from drying out or becoming moister and may instead add to the problem rather than keeping it protected. While you may be able to add some foil or paper to the bottom of a container to keep your weed in one place, you should never store it directly in paper or foil.

Don’t Store in Plastic or Ziploc Bags

The reason we recommended a machine when it came to vacuum-sealed bags is that many people will assume that they can use Ziploc bags or other plastic bags with seals for these purposes. While these bags do help to keep air out, they are not foolproof and can still make it so that your weed is open to contamination. Specifically, these types of bags can make for extremely humid environments that will cause mold to spread. If you do choose a bag, make sure it is one that can be vacuum sealed properly so that you don’t run the risk of ruining your cannabis stash.

Don’t Store Near Heat

As we stated earlier, direct heat is a big problem. However, indirect heat that still creates higher temperatures around your bud is nearly just as dangerous. When in contact with direct heat, you can still slowly wear down all the qualities that make your marijuana great. If there is enough air and moisture present, you could potentially promote mold growth. Things happen but always make sure to double-check that your chosen storage location is cool and away from any heat sources.

Don’t Use a Tobacco Humidor

The cannabis humidor borrows its functions and design from the tobacco humidor. Make no mistake, however, these two devices are not interchangeable and using a tobacco humidor for your weed can do more harm than good. This is due to the fact that the wood used in a tobacco humidor is designed to keep tobacco at a higher humidity level and to allow the wood to intermingle with the leaves to provide a more flavorful taste and provide it with essential oils that enhance the experience. These are all qualities that work well for tobacco but do not work for cannabis. Reserve your buds for the cannabis humidor only.

Conclusion

Weed storage is one of the most important aspects of the marijuana experience as it will decide how future weed sessions are carried out after you have purchased a new batch of cannabis. If you want to better store your weed but don’t know where to start, use the comprehensive guide above as a reference when you begin shopping around for better materials. Take your time to hunt for the right storage location in your home.