When you have invested money into premium bud, you may look forward to having it on hand and enjoying it whenever you feel inclined. However, you need to take care with how long you store it to ensure it is always fresh enough for your health and safety.
If you have stored it for several weeks or longer, you might actually question whether or not it is still good to use.
You can safely answer that dilemma for yourself by knowing how long weed stays good for after you store it somewhere.
How Long Does Weed Stay Good For?
If you store weed properly, it can stay good for as long as eight months.
However, the length of time it actually stays good for will depend on in what kind of container you store it and what factors you pay close attention to in order to protect its freshness.
It is best that you store it in an airtight container, especially one that is designed just for storing weed. These types of containers can protect your stash from harmful elements like:
- Humidity
- Air
- Light
- High Temperatures
All of these factors can damage your weed and ruin its freshness.
The freshness of your weed will also depend on in what form you are storing it. For example, grounds typically spoil faster than joints or intact cannabis flower. Depending on in what form you are storing it, you may need to use it long before eight months passes.
Finally, you can take some precautions at home to ensure your weed stays fresh for as long as possible. To start, you should strive to vacuum seal it so no odors escape the container in which you store it. You can find airtight containers designed just for storing weed online.
You should also avoid storing it in the freezer or fridge. Both can invite in moisture and humidity that can ruin your weed and render it entirely useless.
Last, you should use dried or ground weed as soon as possible. This type of weed spoils faster than other forms simply due to the amount of surface area that is exposed to the air surround it. Rather than wait weeks or months to use it, you should ideally use it within days if possible.
What Happens if My Bud is Too Old?
When you come across a container or baggie of weed that you might have long forgotten about, you may wonder if it is still good to use. After all, it might have sat in the back of your closet or on a shelf for several months or longer. Is it still good enough to take out and use?
In fact, you can determine whether or not you want to give it a try by understanding the impact of time on it. The longer your weed sits stored in a container, the less THC it will have. It can lose up to 17 percent of its THC after just a year of being stored. It can lose 27 percent and 35 percent after being stored for two to three years, respectively.
Still, you can ensure your weed can last for as long as possible and retain its freshness by storing it properly. You want to keep it in an airtight container and away from elements like heat, humidity and bright light.
You also need to evaluate it for freshness when you take it out of its container and before you use it. You should not automatically assume it is spoiled and not good enough to use if it is dried out, for example. As long as it is not excessively dried out, you may be able to rehydrate your weed and use it.
However, if it crumbles when you touch it, you can assume it is too dried out and not good enough to use. Likewise, if your weed has mold on it, feels spongy to the touch or has a funny smell to it, it may be better to throw it away rather than attempt to use it.
How to Tell If It is No Good
Several tell-tale signs can indicate that your weed is no good and you should not attempt to use it. For example, the way your weed feels to the touch can signal its freshness and quality and whether or not you can use it safely.
If it feels spongy, you can assume your weed as gone bad. Likewise, if it is so dry that it crumbles when you touch it, you should toss it out because it is no longer good.
Further, you should inspect your weed for signs of mold or fungal growth before you buy and use it. Mold on weed can appear as white or brown patches. Fungal growth can also appear as white dust. You should not use moldy weed because it can cause lung infections. It is better to assume it is no good and throw it away.
Finally, the way your weed smells can indicate whether or not it is still good enough to use. If your weed has an unusual smell or simply smells funny to you, you may not want to take the chance of smoking it. Rather you should throw it away and assume it has gone bad than smoke it and risk making yourself sick.
Tips for Storing Weed
By following several simple tips, you can safely store your weed and make sure it it remains fresh enough to use for weeks or months. The foremost tip you should use involves storing your weed in an airtight container.
You can use containers, such as glass jars, that you have around your home. You can also find easy-to-use and affordable DIY airtight containers for storing weed online.
Likewise, you should keep your stored weed in a cool and dark place. A closet, pantry or cupboard can be the ideal place to keep it. These areas keep heat, humidity and light, elements that can ruin weed, away from it.
In fact, sunlight can be an especially damaging element when you want to store weed safely. Sunlight turns the THC in weed into an element called CBN.
CBN results in you losing the feeling of high when you take your stored weed out to smoke it.
Further, when you are storing weed, it is important you avoid opening and closing the containers repeatedly. Rather, you should keep the weed stored in an airtight container until you are ready to use it. Frequently opening and closing the container can let in air, heat, moisture and other elements that can ruin it.
Finally, you should keep your stored weed away from humidity. Humidity can ruin your weed’s freshness. It can also cause your weed to mold and grow fungus. To keep your weed as fresh as possible while you are storing it, you need to keep it in as dry a location. That is not to say it should be as dry as a desert as there is an optimum humidity window to keep it ideal. There are even special containers that measure the humidty.
Should I Store it in the Freezer?
In your bid to keep your weed fresh and safe to use, you might wonder if you should store it in the freezer. After all, you assume freezing is the best way to keep things safely preserved. You wonder if you can store it in the freezer and simply take it out to thaw and use whenever you are ready for it.
In fact, while your freezer is the ideal place for storing meat, ice cream and other foods, it is not a good place for storing your weed.
Freezing your weed can result in the trichomes, which are tiny hairs on the weed’s flowers that produce canniboids, drying and breaking off.
Broken and dried out trichomes essentially render your weed useless.
Further, your freezer harbors a certain amount of humidity and moisture in it. These elements can get into the container that you have your weed stored in and ruin it. When you take your weed out to use it, you may find it is spongy, dank and rotted. You cannot safely or effectively use it in that condition.
With that, as much as you may be tempted to keep your weed in the freezer, you should look for other places to store it. You can keep it safely stored when you place it in a dark cupboard or cabinet, for example, particularly one that is away from any source of humidity or heat. Check the place you plan to store it at various times during the day, any cupboard near an applicance is a bad idea as the heat will transfer through whenever it is running. So to any cupboard near a heater or even where a heater is located on the other side of the wall. You’ll want a place where the temp is steady and not affected by normal elements of a running household.
Conclusion
When you know how, where and for how long to store your weed, you no longer have to wonder if it is still good enough to use. Elements like heat, light, humidity and air can negatively impact it when you store it.
You need to find places in your home or elsewhere to avoid these factors and keep your weed from molding, rotting, drying out and otherwise getting ruined. Your best solution can be to invest in quality airtight containers to ensure your weed stays fresh and safe to use.
