Rehydrating Your Buds

Moisturize: How to Rehydrate Dry Cannabis Buds

• What to do when your cannabis buds have gotten too dry for pleasurable consumption.

Your stash of cannabis dried out and you want to know if you can rehydrate it?

You’ve come to the right place.

There’s an ancient Chinese principle that suggests that suppleness is associated with life and dryness is associated with death. There’s no better way to kill your cannabis than you let your buds all dry out.

The dryness changes the flavor and, upon smoking it, you’ll feel an unfamiliar burning sensation in the back of your throat. The taste of dead buds.

So, what should you do if you’ve discovered that your marijuana buds have gone dry?

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you rehydrate your buds, even though you won’t be able to return them to their original quality.

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The Key Is Prevention

Letting your cannabis buds dry out destroys consumer experience. As compared to well-kept cannabis, dry buds have three main downsides, they:

1. Burn hotter and faster

2. Contain a lower THC and CBD concentration

3. Have fewer terpenes

The first point is fairly intuitive; dry plant material scorches more easily.

A paper from 1976 documents our understanding of how drying out cannabis reduces THC concentration.

The report, which was published in The Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, looked at cannabis preparations and how their cannabinoid concentrations responded to oxidation. The results of the study showed that upon exposure to air, concentrations of THC suffered “significant losses.”

Unfortunately, even if you rehydrate your buds, they will never recover their former cannabinoid levels.

More bad news: the more terpenes are exposed to the air, the more they escape into the environment. Along with the decreased cannabinoid levels comes a lower quality of taste.

However, not all is lost. You at least have the chance to rectify the first problem: a potentially dry and harsh smoke.

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Three Ways to Rehydrate Your Dry Cannabis Buds

1. Steam it.

Immersing your dry buds in steam is the fastest way to resupply a bit of moisture.

After bringing a pot of water to a boil, remove it from the heat, secure a cheesecloth over the top, and place your buds in the residual steam. Rotate them frequently to ensure even absorption. After 30 minutes, check your buds for moisture retainment. Continue for longer, if necessary.

2. Soak it.

A slower and more simple method is a form of osmosis.

Place your dry buds into an airtight bag with a few pieces of lettuce and let them passively absorb its moisture over an hour or two. Once your buds are ready to be smoked, remove the lettuce to prevent the formation of mold in your stash.

3. Flavor it.

Instead of a piece of lettuce for a few hours, try using a fruit peel of your choice for half the day.

Not only will fruit peels transfer their moisture to your dried-out buds, but they’ll also transfer a bit of their flavor.

If you’ve found yourself stuck with dry buds and this article saved your day, then please share this post with your friends!