Watercuring for stronger, tasteless and odorless ABV buds

this was originally shared on another forum, but it was, in my opinion, a little too "Orwellian" for a marijuana-related forum there so i moved here to share my information instead.

anyway, this is the result of an experiment to raise the quality of ABV buds by watercuring - it was successful.

the ABV buds were ground up from the start, placed in a coffee filter, sealed and immersed in distilled water for 5 days. water was changed on average once a day, occasionally twice a day.

the first few water changes stank - they smelled exactly like the ABV buds (burnt popcorn-ish) and each day it smells less. the last change of water smelled only very faintly of some kind of grass, but all burnt popcorn smell is gone.

after they are taken out, they are dried out - you can put them in a food dehydrator or what I did was modify my computer's power supply, hooked it up to computer fans and makeshift my own dehydrator with a mason jar and an exhaust fan placed on top. this works simply by pointing the fan outwards, creating an exhaust for the jar with the wet ABV inside. this exhaust will keep sucking out the evaporated water and thus dry it out. it took mine approximately 12 hours to completely dry, but you can cut down on drying time if you dry it off a little bit in the oven or microwave.

once dry, i examined them under a microscope under 100x magnification. i compared my ABV buds with my watercured ABV buds and there was certainly a difference. the watercured buds had very minimal material under the microscope, and what can be seen is mostly straight-headed trichomes. "straight-headed trichomes" because usually THC looks like mushrooms with the heads and the stems, but the watercured ABV had trichomes without heads, and the entire trichome looked more like transparent/white 'hairs', rather than mushrooms. they were just straight, and much shorter than the original trichomes.

but this is likely a result of vaping, not watercuring - the non watercured trichomes were also somewhat similar, except the hairs seem fatter and under the microscope there were certainly a lot more 'noise' from other plant material.

i smoked a bowl of the dried material, and it was certainly a lot stronger than un-watercured, although it is certainly still nowhere near the strength of fresh herb.

strictly mathematically speaking, the watercured herb should be about 45% stronger. this is derived from the fact that 17g of dry ABV yielded about 11g dry watercured material. i'm assuming all weight loss due to THC loss is negligible since THC is not water soluble, but because i was dealing with ground material, it was inevitable that i lost maybe 1-2g of ground up material somewhere during transferring containers. with that in mind, i'd say that watercuring increases the potency of ABV by at least 30%.

keep in mind though, the chemical profile of these are very different than fresh herb, so the high was very different - certainly more of a couchlock than a headhigh. but yeah, it was without a doubt more potent than before watercuring.

lastly, the odor and taste: i did not watercure it as thoroughly as i could have. the last change of water still smelled a little, and i could have gone one more day of soaking to get rid of everything but i was a little too impatient so it smelled very very faintly. once it was dried out, the smell became so faint that it was in fact quite pleasant personally, but for those so inclined, i am certain the odor can be completely eliminated.

then, i put 0.5g unto a slice of cheese pizza, re-heated the pizza so the cheese started bubbling and then i ate the pizza. i got a good couchlock effect about an hour after eating, which lasted one hour before i went to bed so i don't know if it lasts longer but i expect it should. i also vaped 2 bowls but the effects from the pizza was distinguishable since i usually vape more bowls but i stopped at 2 in order to tell if the pizza had any effect. oh and the pizza tasted ONLY like pizza, nothing else.

in conclusion: water curing ABV buds was successful and i strongly recommend it.

picture of dried watercured abv buds

I'm curious how you feel you are "increasing potency" of something that has Already Been Vaped? I suppose I just don't understand the concept. How can you add potency that isn't there already? I'm certainly familiar with degrading potency, I see lovely examples of that on the regular around here. However adding potency to a dead organism (especially one that's been vaporized) does not compute so to speak.

as i have explained above, it is a simple matter of math. first, a lesson on algebra:

let's say you have a fraction x/y. this means x divided by y. x is what we call a numerator, while y is what we call a denominator.

potency of anything is often in reference to the concentration of something, let's call it x, within something 'bigger', let's call it y.

in this context, the potency of marijuana will be concentration of THC (x) within the plant material (y).

hence, when we say 25% THC, it's assumed to mean 25g out of every 100g of plant material will contain THC.

in this scenario of watercuring, no magic is performed. water soluble material is leeched out through osmosis (you will need to google this if you're not familiar with biology either). hence, the denominator (y) is decreased.

since THC is not water soluble, significantly most of it will remain stuck to the remaining plant material. hence, the numerator (x) will remain relatively constant.

when the denominator of a fraction is decreased while the numerator remains constant, the resulting number is bigger. hence, potency increases.

voila!

just baked a pan of betty crocker brownies*, split into 8 pieces, making each piece 1g of watercured ABV buds. just gave a piece to a friend, who ate it immediately and said it tasted nothing like pot brownies. effects are pending.

on another note, i just experimented with something: i mixed 0.5g of watercured abv with a thick slab of nutella, microwaved the mixture for about 90 seconds, upon which it became a thick dry chocolate paste. i dipped mango slices with the chocolate and ate the whole thing. it's now 2 hours after, but the effects are only now starting to become more noticeable. it's odd though - last night i tried 0.5g with pizza and didn't notice any effects until i woke up this morning and realized how couchlocked i was last night. there's something about the way it creeps up on you, much more so than usual. my guess is, something to do with less THC and more CBD/CBN content.

*publix is having them 2-for-1 promotion. was gonna get ghirardeli but this was a 100% better deal (as in, get 100% more brownies for the same price)

So by your definition and algebra you are making it stronger because it has less plant material after water curing, thus giving it a larger ratio of THC to plant material?

In my world that's not an increase in potency of any kind, it's an increase in concentration. That's some verbage I can get behind.

In the future, try to see a little beyond your own ego before you lay out your condescending responses. I didn't need a lesson in algebra, nor your remark about biology, however I think you could use one in experiment design. There appears to be quite a bit of assumption and not much quantitative data to support you.

Maybe the next guy will kneel before your awesome brainpower, but most around here are skeptical and believe it or not fairly well educated. You come out of left field with this idea and bark at the first person to question it? Maybe better leave the "groundbreaking" (lmfao) research to someone with a little more PR experience and a stiffer backbone:thumbsup:

so your water curing the vape duff? correct? how hard are you cooking it? is it still green is it complete brown and specks of green scattered, good toasting? and at that point why smoke or eat it, cannot you extract with alcohol if you powderize, and set up a mini still and boil alcohol through the burnt material, the oils will come out, and they will be of lesser quality containing probably ash, but hey, its hash ash.

IMAGINATION. it's a wonderful thing.

do you guys really not have heard anything about watercuring? seriously, it's not a 'groundbreaking' experiment - it's been done before with success by others.

potency and concentration - semantics. think whatever you want. i'm amused that you find the algebra lesson condescending, yet you still are unable to understand how TECHNICALLY the pot is now stronger - not due to magic that more THC is produce, rather that base plant material is decreased through osmosis and thus through math, we get the final product which is stronger - thus more potent (which some would say more concentrated - but hey apparently still some others think potency and concentration are 2 completely different concepts)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jimmy8778

so your water curing the vape duff? correct? how hard are you cooking it? is it still green is it complete brown and specks of green scattered, good toasting? and at that point why smoke or eat it, cannot you extract with alcohol if you powderize, and set up a mini still and boil alcohol through the burnt material, the oils will come out, and they will be of lesser quality containing probably ash, but hey, its hash ash.

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i'm not exactly clear on what you're saying, but yes i water cure vape duff. i cook it at 320 F until toothpick goes in and comes out smooth. after watercuring, the end product is completely brown.

yes, it can be extracted with isopropanol, but i don't know if it will be of higher quality than non watercured but i am inclined to believe so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by irydyum

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look, i was indeed being condescending and you didn't deserve it and for that i apologize. i was frustrated with another forum and i confused the 2 environments. i was being treated with hostility over there and responded as such, and thus when i came here i responded with the same animosity.

nonetheless, it does get frustrating when you try to explain something such as watercuring when no one else has done it. the number one usual response "PSH! it's impossible to make dead weed stronger, this is some bullshit!'

often, the problem (obviously not in your case) is that people are simply not scientifically inclined - thus simple logic such as the mathematical one in watercuring does not seem to register for those people. however, for those who see it, it's fairly obvious how this occurs. this is a horse that's been beaten multiple times, please google for 'watercuring cannabis' and you will see.

watercuring cannabis - Google Search

in fact, for convenience, i've included the search link. you'll see the very first thread is in fact cannabis.com, and the second one will be the one that most people have been - the 'compendium' from the hip forums.

yes, there are many assumptions - but assumptions that were already made and proven by other watercuring experiments. i'm not trying anything radically new - i'm only doing it to duff instead of fresh herb. i'm not proposing a new science, i'm just trying out on vaped herb what has already been tried on fresh herb.

in the words of the author of the compendium -

How potency is increased through the water cure

I should explain this so that the conspiracy theory kooks don't land on me like a ton of bricks.

Here's the "magic" behind the increased potency you get by water curing.

For the sake of making it simple, I'll use an example of 100 grams of bud going into the pot.

Now, you had this bud assayed and know that 15% of it is pure THC.

15% of 100 grams is 15 grams. So in our example the 100 grams of fresh bud has 15 grams of THC in it.

You water cure it and dry it. Now you have only 70 grams of bud left. WTF?

But you are deceived because the 15 grams of THC is part of the remaining 70 grams of bud. 15 divided by 70 equals 21.42%.

Sooo....

The mass didn't change, just some of the things that were there - aren't there anymore, so what is left becomes a bigger proportion of the entirety.

You go assay your water cured bud and find out it has 21.42% THC content - a 50% increase in potency.

Not bad, eh?

update on brownies: they worked out quite nicely. 1g watercured ABV buds baked into each serving delivered a comfortable couchlock type effect, although noticeably more subdued compared to using fresh bud.

currently watercuring another batch of ABV buds. for those who don't cook, you CAN smoke the watercured ABV buds. they will get you high, and they are not as bad as you may think. watercured buds - ABV or not - burn to a pure white ash because most of the contaminants are water soluble and thus leeched out from the cure. try it yourself - all my friends are amazed at just how amazingly white the ash is. this can be attested by pretty much every single person who has every smoked WC buds.