Freezing cannabis might seem like a good way to extend its shelf life, but that’s not why people do it. Instead, growers are freezing their weed to help preserve the potency and flavour in order to create the highest quality cannabis extracts. While not an ideal choice for everyone, fresh frozen weed is a great idea for some growers.
Can you freeze cannabis?
In short, yes, it is possible to freeze cannabis. However, the process is a bit more nuanced than simply shoving your buds into a freezer and waiting. Fresh frozen weed certainly has advantages, but it’s not for everyone. Namely, if you’re not interested in creating extracts, then freezing cannabis isn’t what you’re looking for. Nevertheless, if high-quality concentrates are your goal, then freezing weed after harvest is absolutely worth considering.
Fresh frozen vs flash frozen vs freeze-dried weed
Fresh frozen weed isn’t the same as flash frozen and that distinction can be confusing. Unlike much of what’s discussed in this article, flash-freezing and freeze-drying cannabis requires some rather unique equipment:
- In the case of flash freezing, you’ll need some dry ice and a good cooler. Flash freezing is effectively the same as fresh freezing, just done much faster which limits damage to the trichomes.
- For freeze-drying, you’ll need some highly specialised equipment; most importantly a freeze-dryer. These are machines about the size of a washing machine and come with a price tag in the thousands of euros. The biggest advantage of freeze-drying compared to flash freezing is that it yields smokable buds, as the moisture is removed from the plant material. If you defrost flash-frozen or fresh-frozen buds, they become soggy again, but with freeze-dried weed, that’s not the case.
Why freeze cannabis?
While many growers believe that freezing cannabis is a great way to extend its shelf life, this simply isn’t true. If properly dried, cured, and stored, cannabis can last for several years, although the potency drops considerably after about 12 months. On the other hand, freezing weed can negatively impact your harvest by causing the cannabinoid-containing trichomes to become brittle, damaged, and fall off. Freezing cannabis is not a viable storage solution.
Benefits for growers
Perhaps the biggest reason that some growers opt to freeze their weed is the speed. Traditionally, curing cannabis correctly can take as long as six weeks and this waiting is always the hardest part. If your goal is to make some live resin (discussed below) then you can go from harvest to finished product in just a few days. These savings on time and space are potentially massive and worth considering.
Benefits for users
For cannabis consumers, the benefits of fresh frozen weed are mostly about the taste. Cannabis terpenes are the main source of tastes and aromas and the curing process causes many of these delicate compounds to break down. By freezing cannabis immediately, it’s possible to prevent this from happening resulting in extracts with unparalleled flavour.
It’s worth mentioning again that storing cannabis in a freezer for later smoking is not a good idea. Even dried and cured flowers still contain a great deal of moisture which, when frozen and thawed, can damage the trichomes and cause them to fall off, which results in less potent flowers.
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What to do with fresh frozen cannabis?
As mentioned above, the main reason for freezing cannabis is to aid in the creation of high-quality cannabis extracts such as live resin and live rosin. Both of these can be smoked, dabbed, vaped, or added to edibles and both are considered “live” since they are created from fresh, undried cannabis.
Resin vs rosin
Despite only being one letter apart, live resin and live rosin are fairly different forms of cannabis extracts.
Live rosin is created using a combination of low heat and pressure. In its most basic form, live rosin can be produced with nothing more than a hair straightener and some parchment paper in a fairly straightforward process. However, it’s worth noting that buds (frozen or not) cannot be pressed as they are. Instead, you’ll first need to create bubble hash to remove all of the trichomes from your fresh frozen weed and then press that into live rosin, resulting in a solventless product.
Live resin, on the other hand, is a far more complicated process that requires hydrocarbon solvents like propane or butane. This requires some fairly expensive, specialised equipment such as a high-rate solvent recovery system, a flash freezer, and a vacuum oven. This means that it isn’t something that most people can simply do at home.
For this article, I’m going to assume that you (like me) are a small-scale home grower and not an industrial producer. For us, (safe) production of live resin isn’t much of an option, so I’ll focus more on how to prepare for making live rosin.
What equipment is needed to freeze cannabis?
Assuming that you’re not going for live resin (the difficult and potentially dangerous-to-create extract) there’s very little special equipment that you’ll need. Aside from harvesting basics such as good sharp scissors, rubber gloves, and time, the only new things you’ll need are some food-safe freezer bags, a vacuum sealer (not necessary but a very good idea), some bubble bags, and plenty of space in your freezer.
How do you harvest weed before freezing?
Harvesting cannabis for freezing is largely the same as a regular harvest, though there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, you’ll need to do all of your trimming as soon as you cut the plant down. Many growers (myself included) will only remove the fan leaves at this point and save the rest of the work for after the plant has dried. This practice, called “dry trimming”, simply won’t cut it here.
Instead, you’ll need to do some “wet trimming” to make sure that you get all of the leaves (fan and sugar) off before freezing. Be sure to save those sugar leaves, though, as they can be turned into all manner of goodies.
While harvesting your cannabis plants for freezing, it’s extra important to avoid handling the buds themselves as much as possible. Try to only hold anything by the stem to preserve as many of the precious trichomes as you can.
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How to freeze cannabis
1: Harvest quickly
Once you chop down your plant, you’ve only got a matter of hours for optimal results. The entire point of fresh frozen weed is, well, to freeze the weed while it’s still fresh. Trimming plants can be a time-consuming chore—especially if you’re wet trimming—and time is of the essence here.
Only cut off one part of your plant at a time, trim it, and pack it up before moving on to the next part. If you have more than you can trim in a day, leave the plant for harvest the next day. DO NOT leave plants untrimmed as the terpenes will start to break down in a matter of hours.
2: Trim carefully
As mentioned above, carefully handling your buds is key for maximising the amount of trichomes that you’ll extract later. Since live rosin is little more than pressed trichomes, the more delicate you are at this stage, the more rosin you’ll be able to create later.
Avoid touching your buds directly, don’t pinch or crush them, and don’t leave them sitting out any longer than necessary.
3: Bag it up
Fill your food-grade freezer bags about 75% with buds being careful not to pack them in too tightly. Normal plastic bags like shopping bags or standard zipper bags won’t cut it here as they can still leak air and moisture. Instead, you’ll need specialised freezer bags (turkey oven bags are also a great choice) and a way to properly seal them.
The ideal choice here is a vacuum sealer. These are fairly cheap, small, easy to use, and provide the best results. However, if this isn’t an option, then you’ll need to get as much air out of the bag as possible without squishing your buds. To seal them, use several clips, rubber bands, or whatever else you’ve got and wrap it up a few times.
4: Freeze it
Once you’ve filled a bag, there’s no time to waste; all that’s left to do is throw it in your freezer. Note that your freezer should be -18°C (0°F) or below for best results. If your freezer isn’t this cold, then it may have a problem as this is considered the “optimal” food-safe storage temperature.
5: Chill out
All that’s left to do now is wait. Resist the urge to check on things and trust that you did it all correctly and just give it some time. After about 24 hours, everything should be frozen solid and your fresh frozen cannabis should be ready to go.
How to use fresh frozen weed
I touched on this a bit earlier, but it’s worth going into a bit more detail here as using fresh frozen cannabis isn’t just as easy as rolling one up and chilling. Again, I’m assuming that you’re not looking to get into the crazy world of live resin or BHO extraction.
First off, don’t try smoking this stuff straight away. While it’s certainly possible to smoke it and doing so creates no additional health risks (beyond the risks associated with smoking in general), you’re doing yourself a disservice. As cannabis flowers freeze, the trichomes become extremely brittle and are prone to falling off. If you’re using fresh frozen cannabis for extracts, this isn’t an issue, but if you’re grinding it, rolling a joint, or in any other way handling it, you’re causing it to lose potency at every step.
For most at-home growers, the best reason to freeze your weed is to create live rosin but, as mentioned above, there’s a key intermediate step; making bubble hash. Making bubble hash is a simple (if time-consuming) process and the only special equipment needed (bubble bags) is cheap and reusable. Oh, and this bubble hash can also be used to make Piattella hash!
Once you’ve made your bubble hash, all that’s left is to apply moderate pressure and low heat. There are commercially available rosin presses out there that can make the entire process easier but it can be done with nothing more than a hair straightener (or a clothes iron) and some parchment paper. The entire process is a bit more complicated than I have time to get into here, but it’s certainly the kind of thing that an ambitious home grower can pull off in an afternoon.
Tips & tricks for freezing cannabis
Overall, the entire process of freezing cannabis isn’t too difficult but there a few final notes worth repeating.
- Don’t shake or jostle your frozen buds.
- Only remove fresh frozen cannabis from the freezer when you’re ready to use it.
- Don’t try to make rosin out of the flowers themselves.
- Make sure your freezer bags are completely airtight.
Keep a cool head
Fresh frozen cannabis might not be an ideal choice for everyone. While it has several advantages, these are only useful for those growers looking to create the highest-quality extracts. If you’ve ever been curious about making your own cannabis extracts, then freezing your harvest might just be worth your time.
- Disclaimer:Laws and regulations regarding cannabis cultivation differ from country to country. Sensi Seeds therefore strongly advises you to check your local laws and regulations. Do not act in conflict with the law.
