Freezing isn’t all equal. At some point there is water in cells and when it freezes these cells rupture.
I would say this contributes to some of that green taste.
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This is my biggest worry, I tried smoking some hemp that was freeze dried straight from the field and it felt very spongy and showed signs that much of the cells were burst. It smoked like a trim joint and was very rough tasting. The flower itself smelled amazing but none of that stayed through the smoking process
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The buds look and feel like post processed flower. Also it’s like $70 an 1/8th.
I would like to see a side by side with properly dried and cured flower vs freeze dried from the same plant, i’m sure there’s a place for this but i’m not sure it’s on the top shelf
package says 32.5% total cannabinoids, harvested mid November last year picture took last week
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Was it spongy?
Comparable to a veggie chip, every jar i try buds disintegrate as soon as you touch them. got a buddy who reps it, everything has a positive spin turned sales pitch “easy to grind” etc
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Its probably because most of the structural components of the plant were destroyed or majorly weakened by the freeze drying process. A good comparison is looking at ice heaving on road ways, up in CT during the winter we would get 3 foot high mounds of asphalt thay would may roads impassable from ice heaving. If ice expandes with that much force just think of what it does to the cells of the plant when they are flash frozen. It shouldnt effect the cannabinoids though so the reduced structural integrety of the buds may have a specifc use case
FWIW, freeze dried cannabis did not raise THC. For Oregon, the moisture portion of an accredited sampling accounted for this with a formula:
P total THC(dry) = P total THC(wet) / [1-(P moisture/100)]
This is for Oregon testing, maybe other states don’t run testing in this manner.
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In the beginning, we weren’t jumping for joy either. We just knew we had tapped into something special.
It took a bit, but after extensive R&D countless attempts, we zeroed in on what absolutely proved to be genuine premium if not preferable product to traditional dried & cured.
It’s got to be done right for sure. But game changer in my book.
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There are larger commercial FD units available, but if you need more than 25 dried and cured pounds daily, it is recommended to stack multiple commercial units in succession much the same way that multiple servers are stacked in Silicon Valley. It is also advantageous because if there is any need for repair due to downtime the entire operation doesn’t come to a standstill. Add to that, the benefits of maintaining small batch temperatures when maintaining the cold chain is a vital consideration while processing live material.
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where can I buy some to verify the BOLD claims you just made?
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When you consider the cost per square foot of dry and cure space associated with climate control requirements as well as added labor costs, those expenses can definitely take a bite out of your profits.
That’s not to say that there are not cost associated with freeze drying. The equipment costs is the initial barrier, and of course there is a consideration with this process that does include the need for cold storage with deep freezers or a walk-in freezer for example. much like any popular product or sku, there’s generally the appropriate equipment associated in order to achieve that result.
If you are finding that you are having to rehydrate the product after pulling out of a freeze dryer, then you are already in a recovery state which would be an indicator that it was pulled out too late. The idea is to pull it out while it is at the ideal RH% target. With the right parameters and recipe the product can come out almost perfect. Definitely don’t want it to fall apart like dust. That is no Bueno. Pull out game is a big part of the equation for success.
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If your buds are spongy when pulling them out of the freeze dryer, that it a sign that it is being pulled out too early. You would have two choices in this scenario, either put the buds back into the freeze dryer for a vacuum dehydration, or to let them normalize in a climate controlled environment with the proper relative humidity and temperature in order to draw the moisture down. That is definitely a technique that works, but we have also found that if there’s too much moisture when pulling out of the freezer you are exposed to not only potential mold development but the terpene profile and the nose of the product tends not to be as strong. When you can get the product to come out of the FD at about 8 to 10% relative humidity that is when you know you got it proper.
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Freeze drying isn’t increasing the potency of the cannabinoid’s and terpenes, that is not practical obviously. It’s not like the process activates those compounds, rather it is simply preserving in it’s premier state before it has a chance to degrade, which is something that naturally occurs with a traditional dry and cure.The COAs reflect as much as a 3 to 4% increase in cannabinoid when doing a side-by-side on a traditionally dried and cured vs. lyophilized inflorescence.
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Innovation requires education. It is natural to be scrutinized when breaking new ground, and marketing is difficult when you’re just trying to tell a story about something that has not achieved mass adoptions. What’s incredible is that this is not a gimmick or a bunch of hype. This methodology comes from authentic and genuine cannabis advocates, not a bunch of corporate interest. It is only due to the nature of freeze dried buds relationship to The Original Resinators Cryo-Trim process that we have found ourselves pioneering this amazing process.
We look at ourselves as early adopters. If you think about back in 2015 and 16 when Rosin first hit the scene, if you would had told somebody to take a big beautiful bug and press it between two hot plates they might have told you that you were crazy. Now look at it, if you don’t have a solventless SKU on your shelf some might not even consider you a premium brand. Rozen stood the test of time and we feel that live dried will too.
We genuinely believe that live Dried is the future.
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Would definitely be curious to see a side-by-side COA of your traditionally dried and cured material versus a true live’dried product. Without actually having those side-by-side results it would be difficult to say what type of degrading would have occurred on that dried. That is one of the benefits and also the nature of preserving the live plant which allows us to have this experience and understand.
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I’m down to do this side by side. I have a licensed grow in Oregon.
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We are seeing terpenes preserved and thus not degraded through this process. But generally a slight increase when compared side to side of a traditional dried vs. live dried COA with the same batch.
Freeze drying, aka lyophilization process, preserves more cannabinoids then any-other dry & cure method. Buds are perfectly preserved with ZERO shrinkage. In order to achieve this desired result we must understand that there are 3 key components to the freeze dry process which are necessary to optimize the process… 1.) The time that we hold the freeze dryer at each stage of its multi step recipe. 2.) The temperature controlled at each stage of the recipe for desired length at each stage. 3,) The vacuum pressure or militor rating controlled throughout the entire process, (On something like a Harvest Right model this will require a programmable scientific model with a retrofit bleeder valve attachment added to your freeze dryer, whereas industrial/commercial unit would have this functionality built in at factory.) The third point is extremely important to understand when it comes to how we are able to preserve terpenes without them volatilizing. Under deep vacuum below 500 militor, terpenes become volatile. This is why it is not possible to freeze dry cannabis or hemp buds/flowers with a Pharmaceutical or a Home unit with brands we utilize and distribute like Harvest Right. As well because set points 1., 2. and 3. are not able to be managed. That’s why a programmable Scientific model is essential for the crop-to-cure process. (Home & Pharmaceutical models are great for Live’ Kief & Bubble hash applications but not for buds/flowers.)
Regarding moisture content we like to target 8-12% because if you go lower it can turn into cardboard.
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Buds are perfectly preserved with ZERO shrinkage. Maintain their same shape, size, color and flavor as the day we initially frozen in time after being chopped and Cold stored. By removing the water via sublimation (Via freeze drying a.k.a. lyophilization) instead of evaporation (as done in a traditional hang dry and cure application), this allows the water which is a liquid to turn into a vapor without passing through the liquid phase.
When water evaporates the bud will contract, through sublimation it does not, so it is not necessarily more dense through sublimation.
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If what you smoked still had a green taste it was either not done correctly or likely smoked too soon out of the FD. When you hang dry a product for 5-10+ days to dry, the enzymes that cause plant senescence deteriorate as they act on the chlorophyll . That is why it takes so long to get rid of the grassy taste. In freeze drying all the cell walls are cracked open, so it is easy for the product to absorb moisture from the air. When a botanical is freeze dried chances are the cell walls will be cracked. If the plant is fresh, and turgid, all the cells will be filled with water. When water freezes it expands, and the cell walls are cracked. If it is frozen slowly the ice crystals will be larger, and they will create larger vapor pathways as they sublimate. Those larger pathways allow for the sublimated moisture to escape the product faster, and may speed up the drying process. When the freeze dried cannabis comes out of the freeze dryer, it begins to absorb water. When water freezes It expands, and the cell walls are cracked. If it is frozen slowly the ice crystals will be larger, and they will create larger vapor pathways as they sublimate. Those larger pathways allow for the sublimated moisture to escape the product faster, and may speed up the drying process. When the freeze dried cannabis comes out of the freeze dryer, it begins to absorb moisture from the air from localized environment, and it is now in an oxygen rich atmosphere. These two things, plus enzymes that are still 100 percent potent will cause the degradation of the chlorophyl in first few hours depending on humidity. Allowing to breath overnight with a occasional burping over initial day or two out of the freeze dryer keaves you a product that is dried & cured as if it was hanging for 10-20 days