As a cannabis producer, there are various methods available to you for preserving the benefits of your product. You could dry and cure your plants to create high-quality product that lasts weeks or months; however, this requires lots of time and may damage plants as well as potentially using ineffective materials or conditions, leading to degradation in just days or hours.
Growers have begun turning to freeze drying as an efficient alternative to traditional drying and curing processes, as it removes moisture without harming or degrading potency or the plant itself. Freeze drying results in an end product that is reliable enough to be stored for years without degradation.
First step of freeze drying involves freezing material. Next, using a vacuum pump, pressure is reduced around it which causes frozen water to sublimate directly into gas (sublimate), effectively eliminating all moisture in the product.
After your product has been completely dried, it can be stored in an airtight bag or container for storage. With proper packaging, it should remain solid over an extended period of time, unlike other products which degrade quickly when exposed to elements such as sunlight. Freeze dried products have the power to preserve their potency and cannabinoids well into the future.
Lyophilization ensures that the final product retains its color, shape, and aroma while its terpenes and cannabinoids remain in their natural states, giving producers more potency and flavorful product than with traditionally dried and cured flowers of similar strain.
Freeze drying provides another advantage, in that it can be completed much more rapidly than using other methods to dry and cure cannabis, making it an attractive choice for large-scale producers looking to maximize yield. Furthermore, frozen dried products can easily be transformed into concentrates or edibles to create even more consistent and quality-controlled products for their customers.
Freeze drying offers producers another advantage when harvesting crops – it ensures no shrinkage during processing, helping produce high-quality finished products that closely resemble their original size and shape.
Freeze drying has quickly become an attractive solution for growers of all sizes, offering multiple advantages over traditional harvesting and curing techniques. Freeze drying can increase potency of buds by preserving more cannabinoids and terpenes; furthermore, producers can produce larger harvests more rapidly that will reach market faster.
For optimal results, we advise trimming your weed prior to freeze drying. This will prevent any of its trichomes from breaking off during the freeze-drying process and ensure your buds are prepared for the process. We suggest our DigiVac StrataVac vacuum bleed controller and Crop-to-Cure SOP package for this purpose.