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Curing method poll: jars, grove bags, what else
been curing in mason jars for as long as i can remember. burp twice a day for two weeks, done. works every time. but ive been hearing a lot about grove bags lately and i want to know if anyone here has actually run both and can compare them straight up.
my main thing is terpene retention. ive pulled some incredible smelling og kush out of jars but i also know i've lost a few batches over the years to mold when i got lazy with burping. grove bags are supposed to self-regulate humidity but i dont know if thats marketing talk or real.
so what are you actually using right now and why. grove bags, mason jars, some other container, curing in the bag straight from dry. give me something specific, not just "both work great." tell me which strain, how long, what you ended up with.
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17 Comments
Experienced7d ago
Grove bags work, i won't pretend otherwise, but the one thing i keep coming back to is that jars give you more feedback. Every time you pop that lid you're actually smelling what's happening in there. You catch a batch going wrong, you catch when it's peaking, you're involved. Grove bags kinda just... sit there and do their thing, which is great until it isn't.
Run a Blue Dream pheno last season that i was really high on terp-wise, real blueberry muffin thing going on at chop. Did half in jars, half in grove bags out of curiosity. Six weeks in, the jar half was noticeably more complex, that creamy bakery note had developed into something with a little funk underneath it. Grove bag half was still good, still smelled like BD, but it felt kind of flat by comparison, like the terpene profile just stopped evolving at week three.
My read is grove bags are excellent for preservation and if you're storing past the 60 day mark they might actually pull ahead. But for the active cure, the development phase where the magic happens, jars win if you're actually paying attention. The burping ritual is annoying but that gas exchange is doing something real.
The mold risk is just a trim/dry discipline issue honestly. Get your bud to 10-11% moisture before it hits glass and you barely need to babysit it.
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Grower7d ago
the "flat at week three" thing is real but i think it's more about starting moisture than the bag itself. i've had grove bags keep developing past week four when i went in at 62-63% instead of rushing it. too dry going in and yeah, it just stalls.
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Experienced7d ago
the jars-for-development take is interesting but i want to push back a little on one thing. that terpene evolution you're describing in jars might have as much to do with oxygen exposure during burping as anything magical about glass. grove bags are semi-permeable so there IS some gas exchange happening, just passively. it's not the sealed tomb people think it is.
my actual experience: i run autos back to back in a 3x3 so i'm harvesting roughly every 3-4 weeks and i don't have time for the twice-daily babysitting routine. switched to grove bags about a year ago for anything i'm going to smoke within 90 days. terp retention has been fine, not worse than jars in any way i can measure or smell. i keep jars now mostly for anything i'm putting away longer term, 4 months plus, because i feel like i can monitor those better over time.
the mold thing though, yeah, previous poster is right, that's a drydown problem not a container problem. if you're hitting grove bags or jars at the right moisture you're not stressing about it either way.
where i'd actually say jars still win is smaller batches where you want that sniff-check feedback. pulling 2 oz off a single auto plant and you're excited about the terp profile, yeah pop that lid every day and enjoy the process. grove bags kind of remove you from it.
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Expert Grower7d ago
grove bags for anything under 90 days is reasonable but i'd push that window shorter. past 60 days i've noticed the passive exchange just isn't doing enough and you start losing the top notes. jars let you actually intervene when something smells off, grove bags don't really give you that.
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Experienced7d ago
The passive exchange point is real, but i'd argue the bigger variable is your initial moisture content going in, not the bag itself. I've had grove bags hold terpene profile past 90 days with no issues when i dried down to 10-11% before sealing. If you're sealing wet and hoping the bag compensates, yeah, you'll hit a wall around that 60 day mark.
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Expert Grower7d ago
The 10-11% entry point is interesting -- I've been landing closer to 12-12.5% on stems that snap clean and haven't had terpene degradation past 90 days in grove bags. Curious whether that extra dryness is helping the bags or if you're just running drier strains in general, because I've noticed heavier resin producers hold moisture differently and can read bone dry on the outside while the interior of dense buds is still closer to 13%.
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Seedling7d ago
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https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/curing-storage-smart-jar-4pcs-humidity-packs/
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https://stashlogix.co/
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Experienced7d ago
Those smart jars are fine but they're a band-aid on the real problem, which is pulling wet flower too early. If your cure is going sideways in a jar, a humidity-regulating lid isn't going to save you, proper dry time will.
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Expert Grower7d ago
Pulling early is definitely part of it, but I've watched plenty of properly dried flower go sideways in a jar just from inconsistent burping in the first week. The jar itself isn't the problem but it does require attention. Grove bags have bailed me out more than once when life got in the way.
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Experienced7d ago
The "life got in the way" argument is real, I won't pretend otherwise. But I've noticed grove bags do something weird to the smell on longer cures, like past 60 days it starts going a little flat to me. Jars still win for anything I'm aging out past two months, grove bags I treat more like a lazy man's finishing tool for stuff I'm moving through faster.
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Seedling7d ago
I agree with you, if your cure is going sideways, the flower wasn't trimmed and dried properly, Cannabis 101
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If you scroll halfway down the Spider Farmer page, it says in Red (at least twice) "Completely dry the herb before using" with complete detailed instructions on how to use the jars correctly.
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Experienced7d ago
Right, and that's kind of my point. If you're drying properly the smart jar is just a nice-to-have, not a necessity. Nothing wrong with the product, just don't want people thinking gear solves a process problem.
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Seedling7d ago
Totally. I could see that, how people would think fancy jars or gear could solve a process problem.
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Experienced7d ago
Thread's full of people nodding along at this point. Worth saying that grove bags actually are a legitimate option and not just gear for gear's sake, which is what the original post was asking about. I've used them for shorter-term storage after cure and they do hold moisture pretty consistently once flower is dialed in. Not magic, but not nothing either.
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Seedling7d ago
complete link:
https://stashlogix.co/collections/bundles/products/smartjar-bundles
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Seedling7d ago
With mason jars I get better terpene retention long-term, especially with gassy/strains like OG Kush. I did a run of The Seed Pharm Zkittlez Auto last year, after 6 weeks in jars (burped properly for the first 3 weeks) the terps were still loud and fruity when I opened the jar months later
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Seedling6d ago
This year outdoors I’m running a couple The Seed Pharm autos alongside one photoperiod I’ve grown before. The autos are mainly because they finish fast and I don’t have to worry as much about the weather turning on me in the fall. The photo is a proven one in my spot that finishes before the heavy rain usually hits
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