I smoke flowers and rosin these days. Used to do BHO but since rosin came along I'm all about solventless extraction.
I added a freeze dry technique to my rosin routine for a live resin type of extraction. Very solid results with a dewaxed blonde crumble
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That's about as fresh I'll go but I'll squish flowers into rosin anywhere from when it's dry and ready to cure to months after harvest.
Be it Grove or Boveda, I've never had an issue with getting too dry so I'm not sure why aging dries out weed for so many. Like for the buds above, there's no way I could dry sift them right now since they're like dry sponge. I'd have to let them sit out and get brittle before I rubbed or tumbled them. Even if I put them in a grinder they'll gum up the grinder with too much sticky residue so I have to hand grind.
I quit burping a long time ago when I was into another type of container using a dialed in dry, Boveda packs, and vacuum sealing. That was a pretty good cure but tedious compared to just dropping the buds in a bag.
The only real major difference for me extracting cured compared to fresh is the terp profiles. Fresh tends to be pungent and hashy while cured tends to be floral or fruity incense but potency of the high between the two is not much of a difference.
The flower smoke is similar in terp profile difference but the high from the cure is much heavier, longer lasting, and I can usually only get thru half a joint before I'm too baked to continue but can smoke a whole joint of fresh dried weed ez.
They don't need to be heat sealed but they do need to be closed up tight with minimal head space and dead air in the bag.
I tend to stuff mine, zip up to almost closed, press a little to push air out, then zip up all the way and don't open for at least 3 weeks. A small tester bag is a nice option for peek a boo while waiting and it will tell you what's going on with the other bags too.
I think what I like most about Grove or Boveda is their ability to correct the dryness. It's better to overdry a little then let the bag or pack work to bring it up slowly IME. There's been many times where I cure buds that are very brittle and fragile going in but after at least 3 weeks in locked up RH control they have that nice slow burn and dry sponge texture where you squeeze and they give a little but will not crumble apart.
I'm also fairly certain my cure fridge plays a huge roll working with the gas exchange of RH controllers. It maintains a 63% RH so for these bags to exchange gas at 55%-62%, the RH of the fridge is as close to ideal as it gets and the bags don't have to work too hard on the adjustment.
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