bill1clinton wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:00 am
Hey Guys, can you share some pictures/insights/advice of what is good quality bud vs bad quality? bigger the nug the better?
I read up on it and watched some youtube videos but they didn't exactly show a comparison.
Some of the basics I have gathered is that good quality bud is:
- greener rather than brown
- coated with trichromes
- absence of seeds and stem
- sticky but not wet => really confused on this one.
- free from insects and mold
The color can vary a lot from one strain to the other. Some weed is naturally purple, or has very dark almost black leaves, some are even a bit brown/purple, so going by color isn't exactly the best. Weed that is very old will turn brown, kind of like dried plants/leaves, etc. Just go by the humidity content.
Trichomes obviously you want as much as possible but more importantly, you want them to be mature and intact as much as possible. It will be hard to judge without a loupe/microscope. Trichomes have a stalk and a bulb as a head. Some growers/MOMs will purposely tumble/shake/sift the weed in order to remove as much heads as possible to make kief, resulting in lesser quality weed, only a microscope will let you see that clearly. You want the trichomes to be leaning towards amber in color for maximum potency, but most of the time they'll appear translucent, leaning on white. If the trichomes are dark and flat and scraggy, this usually indicates the weed went through a dryness that was very excessive.
Seeds obviously you don't want. One or two here and there isn't dramatic, but an abundance of seeds shows the plant was either pollinated or stressed out. In either case, seed production greatly reduces THC production, so not only your joints are gonna blow up if you don't remove them, you end up with weaker weed. Every weed has stems, but a proper trim job will remove all that sticks out, leaving visible stems to a minimum. Stems weight almost nothing, so big stems aren't really that much of an issue, despite what some might say. A lot of dealers make the joke of "bring me back your stems, I'll weight them out and refund you". Nobody got rich doing that, lol.
Sticky/wet/dry/proper humidity is harder to judge. In my experience, sticky is strain-dependent, a lot of very good strains aren't ever sticky and some pretty shit strains can be sticky. I would not worry about that too much, but sticky is good generally. Now as far as humidity goes, there are two very important things... First, weed that is too dry is bad. Just like a flower, if it goes to dry, nothing will bring it back to fresh. Sure you can rehumidify it, but a lot of terpenes dry out and go airborne , reducing potency and the "skew" effect of terpenes. Bottom line is you want weed that is still fresh and never went too dry. A bud should bounce back when you press it between your finger and not crumble/loose material. When you break it, the ideal consistency is still a bit damp inside, but not wet. When you grind it in a grinder, it should not muddle up. If you make a little conic pile of the ground weed, it should stand up a bit and not fall flat.. But, once rolled in a joint it should still burn well and have no issue keeping lit. Honestly though, this is rarely even a thing with MOM weed, 99% of the time it's too dry (or too wet) so it's hard to get proper buds.
Last point is common sense. There are 3 types of mold to check for:
1. Powdery mildew: This will appear as white opaque specs all over the bud, mostly external, on the leaves and everywhere. They can be few or a lot. Easily confused with trichomes if you don't know what to look for. Google it and see what it looks like.
2. Standard food-grade mold, will start as a white fuzz, looks like spiderwebs a bit and eventually will puddle up and turn light green and stink pretty hardcore. This is usually pretty obvious unless it's in the very early stages. Again, easily confused with trichomes if you don't have proper loupe/microscope.
3. Bud rot. This is cause my excessive humidity in the center of the bud. The bud will rot from the inside and eventually poke through the outside, showing as brown spots. When you open the bud, it will be obvious something is wrong, the insides will be fragile/smooshy even gooey. Most of the time it's easy to spot since it shows as brown or even almost black spots outside the buds in the later stages.
Hope that helps!
