So it got me thinking, obviously terps over everything for flower, but what would this do for drying fungi, I mean we’re not necessarily after terpenes or flavonoids at that point to an extent right? Would this be a much better way of going about that or would the fragility of the bio being the fruit not withstand the process of a freeze dryer & degrade the precious compounds, or would it dry nicely & make a more sustainable & efficient method to dry fungi?
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There is data posted around here suggesting freeze drying drying is not ideal for preserving the actives.
I would need to replicate it before I believe it.
I certainly did not observe any loss in activity upon lyophilization…I also didn’t have anything but bioassays to go on, so 
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This is the Mother Of All Answers.
Time lapse of harvest to smoke in 24 hours
Quick note on Freeze Dryer Pricing:
The HarvestRIght bundle we sell with accessories is just under $12,000 and can produce 1lb/day of live dried (flash frozen + freeze dried).
20 of these units could produce 20lb/day and would cost roughly 240k. That makes the HarvestRight the best bang for your buck in terms of throughput compared to pretty much any other freeze dryer on the market. Keep this in mind when you are looking at commercial grade freeze dry systems. Often times with those larger systems you actually end up paying much more than 12k per lb of daily throughput.
Harvest right freeze drier is at the top of the list of not at the very top for shittiest piece of equipment in cannabis industry.
Horrible company, no product support, they lost a whole fucking unit I returned for repair.
Holland green sciences just came out with a good one and the lab Conco is good.
You suggesting this piece of equipment harms your credibility. Do some research before you start making claims to a group of professionals.
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Actually @holland_green_science is (on instagram). A unit that can do 15kg in a single run for less than the bundle you sell. 
Shoutout to @Sidco_Cat link to them!
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Thanks Catherine for the recommendation of HollandGreenSceince.
Their larger unit is actually about 90k and has a daily capacity of 7.5lb of dried output. Their unit is certainly better designed than HarvestRight’s, but comes at a larger entry point. The price point/lb of daily output is similar to the harvestright 90/7.5=12k. So their units are certainly not half the price of our bundle.
We have dug into them and found that their mikro unit is roughly 9.3k which is certainly more expensive that the harvestright pharma unit, which we only would suggest for hash, not live bud. It is a similar capacity. Their shelf height is currently not conducive to bud though. They agreed as well, that this unit is designed for hash.
That said, through our discussions with Holland, they are a far superior company and certainly provide better support. We are looking into offering their larger units as an intermediary solution in between the HarvestRight scientific bundle (12k, 1lb dry output/day) and our larger commercial units which start around 300k for 25lb/day of dry output and go all the way up to million dollar Freeze Dryers (designed for cannabis by cannabis professionals) capable of outputting 100lb/day.
We find these price points to be much more realistic compared to some of the other cannabis freeze dryers which are around 25k or more per lb of daily output and start at 200k+ price points.
We look forward to continuing to drive innovation of lyophilization in the cannabis space.
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Heh, this topic reminds me of RealTerpsMatter.
There’s nothing really special or proprietary here, just the suggestion to freeze dry bud instead of hang dry it.
@TheOriginalResinator there are several people here who have directly tried this method and sampled the outcome with subpar results. Do you think they’re just doing it wrong? Or do they just need to buy the freeze driers from you, and then it will work?
Or maybe do you think you know better than them and they just don’t know what they’re talking about?
Is the problem that they just don’t understand that YOU have it all figured out and they just need to experience the freeze dried bud that YOU produce?
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I think historically the issue with freeze dried bud has been vacuum control. And what specific vacuum pressures to apply in conjunction with temperature. For instance most HarvestRight units other than the scientific model, only allow for one temperature setting. These units also have limited to no vacuum control. The bundle we sell uses a digital vacuum controller to correct for that issue. We have dialed in a precise method that requires multiple cycles to achieve the results we have been attaining.
I hope this answers your question.
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I’m looking forward to trying a joint at the Good Life Gang meet up in Vegas in a couple of weeks!
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I agree that is low for terp- this was outdoor for the record.
The main takeaway for us was that the terpenes were not lost and the appearance was radically approved. (This lab also only tested for 20 terpenes, but thats another conversation I am sure we are all well aware of- some labs will test for 40 or more and we know there are far more than that.)
Since we are not experiencing the same degradation as traditional drying we have been seeing a higher concentration of mono-terpenes.
Here is a video timelapse of the process to aid in the verification that the live dried bud shown are in fact representative samples.
If there’s a difference to the point where you have to state that it’s freeze dried to customers I think you already lose.
Unless it’s a better user experience they will just associate it with instant coffee or something of lower quality and it won’t sell, basically negating the savings you may gain in production.
Unless you can charge much lower prices and still make the profit you need, I don’t really see how it will be a thing. Improved bag appeal and minor potency benefits are negated by bad texture and smoking experience imo.
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We find it to be a better user experience with a smoother smoke and higher monoterpene content. We smoke live dried every day and look forward to the folks at the GLG Vegas event to try our stuff!
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Bring More Papers!! No matter how many you are planning to bring . . . bring more! Looking forward to sharing one with you and the team. We have been going to these events together for a long time and I’m thinking this is the first time we get to sesh. Can’t wait!
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Edit: 9.8k for Mikro freeze dryer with oilless pump designed for hash.
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So what did everyone think? We handed out over 400 samples of our live dried in Vegas. The nug was harvested Friday night, cryo trimmed and went right into a freeze dryer on saturday.
We were smoking it Sunday night and handed it out a few days later.
Scissors never touched these buds. All trimming was done with the Resinator. Cannabinoid loss during trimming was measured under 0.1% TAC.
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The results indicated that more total chlorophyll was obtained from the freeze-dried leaves. The major difference was in the amount of chlorophyll a. Freeze-drying facilitated total chlorophyll extraction.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095955315333023
freeze drying seems like a bad idea for flower intended for smoking , but great for extracting chlorophyll
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