Picture this; you’ve got your favorite flower right from the mail or dispensary. You enjoy some of it, and one day when opening your good old Zip-Lock bag, you find some mold has made your precious weed their home. Yuck, right?

One of the most important things to know when consuming dry herb is storage. Whether you are trying CBD, CBG, or Delta 8 flower, storing cannabis in all of its forms is similar in most cases. Even though the cannabinoids might be different, the way of storing your buds is not that different.

The big three factors to consider when storing are temperature, light, and humidity. As they go hand in hand, you might want to consider getting a proper container to store your green gold as well. 

Sometimes the plastic container or sealed bag that your buds come in might work for the first time, but as a regular consumer, you might want to look at options that let you keep your buds fresh for longer.

For this, we’ve prepared a guide in collaboration with hemp flower masters at Botany Farms on how to store your hemp bud properly, not only to prevent it from bacteria, mold, and other uninvited guests, but to extend its shelf life, potency, and flavors.

Without further ado, let’s check everything you need to know to store your hemp flower.

Remember storing your hemp should be easy once you’ve got the main 3 big factors ready, humidity, light, and temperature. 

Last but not least, skip the fridge, look for dry and dark places and make sure your preferred method of storage has an airtight seal. Once you’ve got this mastered and chosen your preferred container, you should be good to go and enjoy your herb for a long and sweet time.

Also if you wish to try some of the best CBD, CBG, and Delta-8 flowers around, try some of the Botany Farm’s buds here. Not only do they have incredible strains and flavor, but all of their cannabinoids are also pretty potent with each puff. 

There are plenty of reasons to store your flower: to make it last longer, keep the potency high, or maintain the flavor and terpenes intact.

Hemp flower works best when it’s fresh, so you’ll want to store your nugs properly to extend their shelf life and experience the potency and flavors at their best stage.

When storing hemp flowers, it is important to consider the type of container you are using, the taste and smell of your herb, and the external conditions that might alter how your weed works.

These external conditions might be the number one enemy for dried flowers. One of the most important factors to keep your cannabis fresh for longer is to keep it from different factors, such as temperature, light, humidity conditions, and even exposure to air. 

Although some outdoor strains like to be outside with the sunlight, once your bud is cured and dried, you might want to keep it away from these external factors to prevent it from getting moldy or losing its properties.

For the best potency and freshness on dry herb, you might want to take a look at Botany Farms’ array. They have one of the finest CBD, CBG, and now Delta 8 flower around. Their buds are grown and cured with the utmost care to ensure the best quality with each puff.

Not only that, they have a vast catalog of strains to choose from that is beginner and veteran-friendly alike that share high potency matched with great flavors.

So whether you are trying CBD flower for the first time or want to try their CBG line for sleep, you might find yourself surprised by their premium quality herb.

Now that you know why you should care about storage on your hemp products, let’s talk about the actual external factors that affect your hemp or cannabis flower. 

Just like other household and food products we use, cannabis should be stored in a cool, dry place. Heat can interact with the air or humidity inside your container to create a happy place for mold and mildew growth.

Controlled environments are essential to prevent this, so I’d be extremely cautious about intense temperature changes from hot and cold.

So, either intense heatwaves or excessive cold might make your flower go stale faster, lose potency or flavor, or grow many sorts of not-so-inviting fungi.

Most high-quality CBD flower is dried up and cured to prevent excess moisture from compromising the flower’s quality. This is usually the case for hemp-derived flowers, Delta 8, CBD, and even CBN, so humidity is a factor that could mess up your favorite strain pretty quickly.

Just be aware, as humidity and moisture can be a problem no matter the climate around you. You don’t necessarily need to live in a rainy or full of moisture place to beware of humidity problems. 

Some containers might have an imbalance in the moisture inside the container. Even adding a little sun to a moist container might open the possibility of bacteria, contaminants, or mold to your precious nugs.

By this, we don’t mean to make you paranoid. Just be aware of how moist is the place you store your buds. One of the best ways to keep them safe is to properly dry your containers before putting your green gold and check them every once in a while to check for the naturally occurring moisture.

So, remember what we said that a bit of sun could make your hemp a fun place for mold to live? Well, it’s both artificial and natural light. UV light can damage the flower, drop the potency over time, and even kill the chlorophyll in the buds.

This makes your buds taste more like grass and might accentuate an acrid taste that sometimes is present in baked cannabis goods. 

That doesn’t mean that exposing your weed to the light, artificial or not, will make your weed container a fungi fun time all of a sudden. Just try to keep it from overheating or getting too humid by keeping it in a drawer or cupboard and by using an airtight container instead of a bag.

So, once we’ve got the big three factors, now you’ve got to choose your preferred storing method. Here we gathered a list of the most common storage options and their pros and cons with each container.

Okay, no judgment here if you’ve ever used a Zip-Lock or similar plastic bags to put your herb. It’s easy to grab, compact, and helpful at first glance. The thing is, though, is I’d say it’s more of temporal storage rather than an excellent long-term solution.

Although you might have air and temperature leakage, it works for temporal storage, as plastic is not that good to keep your flower safe from external factors.

And we have to talk about how all plastic bags are not sustainable, and you might get incentivized to keep using and buying them over time.

Pros:

• Affordable. You can buy a pack at any store or online and just have a bunch of them laying around.
• Easy to use. No big brain systems, you use them, and it’s good to go.
• Disposable. If you are a casual stoner or cannabis user, it is a good way to stay discreet and avoid maintenance at all.

Cons:

• Not sustainable at all. All of those bags will end up in a landfill or the ocean, so if being sustainable is important (and it should), I don’t recommend this as a long-term solution.
• This type of plastic won’t keep external factors out. The plastic and airtight seal from this type of bag won’t keep your hemp fresh for long, and it can deteriorate easily, as they are made for single use.

Stash bags are a great way to keep your flower in small spaces. Most are not bulky, will fit in most drawers, and are the ecologic option to plastic bags. 

However, these stash bags tend not to be as airtight as, say a jar or humidor. So depending on the bag you choose, I’d only recommend checking if they have some sort of temperature or humidity control before going with this method.

Pros:

• Easy to use. These bags are made just to zip them open and use them as you need to, so pretty straightforward in general.
• Sustainable and reusable. Most smell-proof stash bags will have the option to clean them out and use them over and over.
• Smell proof! If the smell is an issue when storing weed, this type of bag is a great way to keep your room or place of storage odorless.
• Easy to store. You can keep this bag in small spaces, so if you don’t have the space for a jar, a bag might fit better in your drawer or cupboard.

Cons:

• Not as airtight as other options. Although they are better than a plastic container, these bags are not airtight as a jar or humidor.

Glass Jars are a classic to store your cannabis or hemp-derived flowers. Most of them contain a way to keep an airtight seal, keeping most external factors away from your weed.

The only real downside to jars is the maintenance and keeping. Before storing your flower, you might want to give them a good clean and dry to prevent forming small ecosystems inside your container.

Besides that and being careful about them slipping and breaking, this might be one of the best options that are also reusable, sustainable, and protected.

Pros:

• One of the best airtight seals. This will keep away external factors and keep your buds fresh for longer.
• Sustainable and Reusable. Once you buy a jar, you might not need one unless you break it, which depends significantly on the type of glass used. For borosilicate glass jars, it might take a while to damage them.
• Easy to use. No complicated systems. Just get it clean and dry and store your favorite herb inside.

Cons:

• Needs maintenance. As with the bags and humidors, you’ll have to clean and keep this type of container dry to prevent fungi from making a party in your weed.
• Breakable (ish). Some jars are a little more fragile than others, so be careful to choose one thick enough and try to be cautious around it. As a tip, always check the materials before ordering one online or at a store.

Humidors or wooden boxes are the classy and stylish options of this list. Not only do they look sleek, and you have a place where to stash your rolling tools or pipe, but they can also help keep your weed stay away from the sun.

However, most of the time, humidors are made from wood, which weather elements like humidity or air can permeate. Unfortunately, your flower will lose potency and flavor unless you get a humidor with temperature control or an airtight seal.

I’d recommend getting either an airtight humidor or mixing the humidor with a jar or stash bag to prevent sunlight. This might be the best combination to keep them away from the sun and other environmental factors.

Pros:

• Classy and stylish look. Humidors have that classy feeling where you can pull them up and feel like you are smoking premium, just by the looks.
• Hefty and useful to store other tools. While jars and bags can keep weed and maybe a small pipe around, you can stash all of your tools in a humidor. Pipes, paper, poker tools, dabbers, everything it can fit inside depending on the size you get it.

Cons:

• Not airtight. This means that even though it might protect your weed from the sun, it won’t protect you from other factors.
• Hassle to clean. As most humidors are made from wood, you might have some trouble cleaning them, as you can’t just rinse a giant wooden box, or it might get damp. So you might want to get one that has a catching or rolling tray or just try to be careful while smoking.

The storing part is pretty easy. You might be tempted to leave your flower in the package it arrived in, which is fine if it comes in a vacuum-sealed bag, plastic container, or even glass jars. 

However, to minimize the damage to your flower due to external factors, I’d recommend changing to your preferred container method. Darker or opaque glass is better than transparent, and airtight lids are your best friends while choosing.

We also recommend screw-on tight lids or getting some humidity packs like the ones that come in medicine jars or candy. They help humidity control and prevent the buds from losing their potency or flavors.

Now that you have some of our tips, you need to check the place to stash it. Dark, cool places are the best to prevent too much exposure from light, moisture, or changes in temperature. 

You might be tempted to freeze or keep your bud in the fridge. Simply, don’t. Besides that it might get contaminated from other food or a rotting yogurt in the back of your fridge that you might’ve missed, hemp and cannabis in general don’t like temperature changes.

So by keeping in the freezer or fridge you might be exposing your buds to different temperatures and terpenes leave the buds every time you open the jar or container. Unless you live in a place that is really hot during the summer or you have no other place to store it, I’d skip the fridge entirely.