Harvest Right freeze dried biomass?

[Dankman420]

Hi guys, I've been freeze drying my personal product here and there. The results are great aside from it being so light and not dense and the terps on it are not sticky. Wondering if any of you have any experience in freeze drying flower?

Thanks!

 

[DonJohnson]

First time grower and freeze dry user. I have Pineapple Express and a purple strain (Autoflowers). I cut just the top cola off of the Pineapple Express to test it. The trichomes weren't super cloudy or 50% amber but I was worried that they were going to go bad because I am well over 75 days for an Autoflower indoors.

Anyways..... I freeze dried it in a harvest right with a finish dry of 65 degrees F. It only took about 15 hours because it was just 1 cola. I also put some wet bread in there so that the freeze drier would have something to work with.

While it comes out weighing nothing, I put them in a jar with a 62% humidity pack and after about 30 hours, it is now at 62%.

My "dry" weight is now roughly 25% of the wet weight. My top cola was 28 grams wet and is now about 7 grams.

My understanding with Freeze Dried flower is that you aren't likely to get a super dense result unless you have some massive dense bud.

The terps are def. sticky when grinded or smashed in your fingers esp. after bring the hydration up. The high was quite nice.

 

[EhCndGrower]

I just did my summer/fall harvest all in my medium size drier. I found my dry weight work out better then my old paper bag method. I’ve just used the default setting and would take 17-20hrs to complete (depending if they were fresh or frozen buds) I found I was left with 26-28% of the wet weight in the end. Yeah it’s like styrofoam coming out and not sticky Really. a few hours in a paper bag seem to add a bit of weight back into them. Lovely to smoke though and can’t see myself ever going back to the old way. Looks great in the grinder with so much kief to be seen. My outdoor Blue Dream clone pictured below

 

[Weaselcracker]

25% weight when dried is normal. When you say the buds seem fluffy or light, do you guys mean that the buds just don’t shrink and compact as much when they dry? As compared to other drying methods I mean.

 

[EhCndGrower]

25% weight when dried is normal. When you say the buds seem fluffy or light, do you guys mean that the buds just don’t shrink and compact as much when they dry? As compared to other drying methods I mean.

they stay the same size going in and coming out. Here are some pics of before and after freeze drying of some Alaskan Purple

 

[Weaselcracker]

Whereas the air-dried ones shrink a lot. .

 

[DonJohnson]

I am excited to get more product in. I also freeze dried all plant matter (Fan Leaves) and also the trim sugar leaves.

 

[DonJohnson]

Whereas the air-dried ones shrink a lot. .

Yes so when hang drying, the sugar leaves etc will curve inward and everything will shrink the freeze dried bud stays the same as if it was just cut off the plant.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hence the fluffy styrofoam buds I guess. I suppose a person could dry the regular way for a day or two and then freeze dry them - if they wanted them to be a bit more compact

 

[DonJohnson]

Hence the fluffy styrofoam buds I guess. I suppose a person could dry the regular way for a day or two and then freeze dry them - if they wanted them to be a bit more compact

Well I think it's 2 parts:
1- It's styrofoam because there is ZERO moisture so it weighs nothing. Weight comes back as it is brough up to the proper humidity.
2- You could probably hang dry for 3 days and then do that OR you could trim closer to have the bud appear dense.

From what I have read, most people trim pretty to sell but not necessary. Seems a waste of good sugar leaves. Obviously trimmed to a respectable level to maintain trichomes.

 

[Weaselcracker]

From what you and EhCndGrower said above it sounded like you’re ending up with about 25% of the wet weight. ? Is that right? Which is the same as air dried.

 

[DonJohnson]

From what you and EhCndGrower said above it sounded like you’re ending up with about 25% of the wet weight. ? Which is the same as air dried.

Yeah it's the same but people might view it as "less than" because they aren't compact. You just get more benefits with the freeze dried stuff when it comes to terpenes and trichomes.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks. I think I will try it and put a couple buds in a tray in the freezer to test it out. You can freeze-dry stuff in a regular freezer, it just takes longer.

 

[DonJohnson]

Thanks. I think I will try it and put a couple buds in a tray in the freezer to test it out. You can freeze-dry stuff in a regular freezer, it just takes longer.

Keep in mind there is a difference between freezer drying and freeze drying. Freeze dried takes it down to almost -20 F and then sublimates the moisture in a vacuum chamber.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Any idea what difference it makes to the end product?

 

[EhCndGrower]

Well I did take notes on my last harvest, and so let us take a look at the overall weight loss. Sadly I did almost all my weights right after they got out of the machine, but add a few percentages upwards with rest in a paper bag for 3-5 hours
*weight after rest in paper bag

Fruity Pebbles x Unknown 918g(w) 217g(d) 23.6%
Rainbow Kush 399g(w) 93g(d) 23.3%
Blueberry 1357g(w) 311g(d) 22.9%
Black Domina 1766g(w) 432g(d) 23.9%
Glookies 1269g(w)/363g(w) 369g(d) 22.6%
Jack Herer 974g(w) 250g(d) *25.6%
Blue Dream 588g(w) 134g(d) 22.7%
Durban Poison 1341g(w) 329g(d) 24.5%
LSD 129g(w) 37g(d) *28.6%
Alaskan Purple 904g(w) 247g(d) *27.3%


I found the end product produced a Smoother and Tastier vape/bong session For myself. Plus it seems to impress friends and family

 

[DonJohnson]

Any idea what difference it makes to the end product?

Unfortunately it's comparing apples to oranges. You would have to compare to traditional dry vs drying in the freezer.
Freeze drying (in a freeze dryer / cryo cure) is it's own league. The only thing you can compare after that is smoking it vs smoking traditional.

 

[DonJohnson]

Well I did take notes on my last harvest, and so let us take a look at the overall weight loss. Sadly I did almost all my weights right after they got out of the machine, but add a few percentages upwards with rest in a paper bag for 3-5 hours
*weight after rest in paper bag

Fruity Pebbles x Unknown 918g(w) 217g(d) 23.6%
Rainbow Kush 399g(w) 93g(d) 23.3%
Blueberry 1357g(w) 311g(d) 22.9%
Black Domina 1766g(w) 432g(d) 23.9%
Glookies 1269g(w)/363g(w) 369g(d) 22.6%
Jack Herer 974g(w) 250g(d) *25.6%
Blue Dream 588g(w) 134g(d) 22.7%
Durban Poison 1341g(w) 329g(d) 24.5%
LSD 129g(w) 37g(d) *28.6%
Alaskan Purple 904g(w) 247g(d) *27.3%


I found the end product produced a Smoother and Tastier vape/bong session For myself. Plus it seems to impress friends and family

I would weight it 30 hours later after it's in the jar with humidity packs. It took almost 30 hours to get to 62%. Where I live, we are only at about 30-35% humidity.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I think I know someone with a freeze dryer so I’ll check it out. Since the processes are the same and the moisture is just freezing and subliming out of the bud in both cases, presumably leaving pretty much the same end result- a frozen dried bud, I wouldn't expect apples vs oranges. But I’ll test it out.

 

[EhCndGrower]

I had to jar mine just because of lack of room and the freeze dryer made my basement warm and sometimes a bit too humid. Unusual warm weather when these were freeze dried. I do have one more comparison pic to provide. I grew a Glookies plant in my tent last spring and paper bag dried, jarred with humidity pack (still sitting at 63%) I then took the plant outside and successfully revegged her for a 2nd harvest. Looking back, funny enough, had the exact same wet harvest weight of 363g. Looks like I was pretty much around 92-93g dried weight for both too. Still the bag appeal from the 2 methods is night and day, but high was pretty much the same.