By Jasper Shotts and Donald Wilson
You have grown the cannabis plant through its entire lifecycle. It started as a seed or clone, growing tall through the vegetative stage. Next, the cannabis plant went flowered producing amazing buds. You’ve harvested it and are going to start the curing process but first you want to trim the nugs, also known as manicuring. Am I going to trim while wet or dry? We prefer to trim once the cannabis is dry, but each method comes with benefits.
Wet trimming allows you to start trimming sooner, within a day or three of harvesting. If you are using an auto trimmer you may have to trim wet; although, now there are decent auto trimmers for already dried cannabis. We prefer hand trimming but with large harvests it can be problematic to find enough qualified trimmers and doing it all yourself would take many hours. Wet trimming lands you scissor hash that you have to clean off your scissors to keep trimming. That green and brownish ball that often tops a bowl during the trimming season comes from wet trimming. This method allows you to get the trimmed buds into a jar quickly, and with the right moisture control pack (we love boveda) puts the curing at a set humidity.
When dry trimming one typically waits a week or longer of the cannabis plant hang drying. The buds are very dry by now and easy to handle. The amount of scissor hash created is very low compared to the wet method. It is much easier to manipulate the bud to achieve a great manicure. That perfectly manicured bud you saw at your local dispensary was likely trimmed by hand while dry. The extra time hanging with all the leaves attached results in a slower initial cure as the plant will pull the moisture from those leaves. Chlorophyll is transported out of the plant by water as it dries. The result is a smoother smoke. A quick how to video on how to dry trim can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKEuzbguug.
No matter which method you choose, make sure to save your trim. The trim has many uses.
1. Butter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEmLUyB_VyY&t=107s)
2. Tinctures
3. Hash
4. Yummy desserts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TwUu0KBziI&t=117s)
5. Linaments
Choose the method that is right for your situation, have fun and enjoy the whole plant.
Produced by Green Magi Labs https://greenmagilabs.com/