The Flavored Cannabis Project

[ResinSaurusRex]

ResinSaurusRex thanks for jumping in and please keep us posted on the results of your mesquite and pecan flavor experiments.

I had high hopes of playing with flavored and unflavored clones long before now but due to unplanned dankruptcy brought on by the Great Fungus Gnat & Spider Mite Orgy of 2020. Then after that nightmare was solved the next anticipated crop failed with what was thought to be hemp russet mites…..

I’ve had to put any experimentation on hold as I work to secure a real harvest….and the new test plant was finally flipped over to 12/12 last week.…. fingers crossed for the next 8 to 10 weeks !

I dried my herbs on a traeger with mesquite and pecan @225 for about an hour. There is still some moisture left over and I tossed in some clementine peel for some aromatics and more humidity in the jar.

The color did change from the lime green to a sandy beach green color. The hairs are still orange in appearance like autumn leaves on a maple tree.

I did sample a small uncured bud and it tasted of earthy dirt with a slight skunky diesel after note. The distinct wood flavors of mesquite and pecan were unnoticed as there was just a smokey undertone with the earthy aspect.

In all its not something I'd do normally, just when the outside Temps are 40F

 

[013]

Spin that wheel….!

 

[013]

Brrrr freeze warnings - it’s getting cold out there….

 

[ResinSaurusRex]

Brrrr freeze warnings - it’s getting cold out there….

I know. I had a wild ruderalis I found in my yard that smells of Jack herer that I pollinated with a regular step child indica. I got one small seed before the 20 degree temps got it.

 

[MAK1]

I dried my herbs on a traeger with mesquite and pecan @225 for about an hour. There is still some moisture left over and I tossed in some clementine peel for some aromatics and more humidity in the jar.

The color did change from the lime green to a sandy beach green color. The hairs are still orange in appearance like autumn leaves on a maple tree.

I did sample a small uncured bud and it tasted of earthy dirt with a slight skunky diesel after note. The distinct wood flavors of mesquite and pecan were unnoticed as there was just a smokey undertone with the earthy aspect.

In all its not something I'd do normally, just when the outside Temps are 40F

About the left over moisture. I don't know how much moisture you are talking about here but, did you know...FYI for some...When THC-a is decarboxylated to THC the chemical reaction creates water and CO2. Cured bud placed in an oven @ 225 for 25 minutes is the time needed to convert buds into edible weed. Snap! You went to the Traeger with wet weed. An hour @ temp. might be decomposing your THC and other goodness. An hour seems like too much time. Check out it out . decarboxylation chart .

 

[West Hippie]

@013 have you seen this flavoring Here

 

[013]

@013 have you seen this flavoring Here

Hmm, I have not. I knew companies were extracting isolates and flavor components specific to our favorite plant to be added back in but don‘t think I’ve heard of Peak Supply before…..

Thanks for sharing @West Hippie, I really appreciate your keen eye and sharp mind!

 

[MAK1]

Any data point I could have added is a bust. The MTF that got pine pitch added is such a funkified smell is so strong. The BB3 were not clones but seeds that express radically different traits that they are not not this test. The other is a GSC already prone to express dramatic flavors.
I am in your court that we can and do impact the flavors by so many methods. Where I am at right now is understanding more about trichome development, little flavor pouches.

 

[013]

No worries, forget data points for now. Let me ask this… Are you convinced or still skeptical the pine pitch or any of your flavor modifications carried over into your buds?

Yes, totally agree. Any experiment must start with clones, only way to level the pheno playing field.

True that - little flavor pouches! It’s too bad we can’t order 5 gallon buckets from Zon or flea bay. I guess in some ways trichs are like a bus, terps and cannabinoids the passengers.

I’m on the road 9 months but off during winter so my little garden has been to insect hell and back. Right now I’m 2 to 4 weeks out from my first harvest in a long freaking time. Anyway I’m gonna cut Amnesia clones for an upcoming flavor modification test. Hopefully I can get some take root and do the monster crop thing

 

[MAK1]

No worries, forget data points for now. Let me ask this… Are you convinced or still skeptical the pine pitch or any of your flavor modifications carried over into your buds?

Yes, totally agree. Any experiment must start with clones, only way to level the pheno playing field.

True that - little flavor pouches! It’s too bad we can’t order 5 gallon buckets from Zon or flea bay. I guess in some ways trichs are like a bus, terps and cannabinoids the passengers.

I’m on the road 9 months but off during winter so my little garden has been to insect hell and back. Right now I’m 2 to 4 weeks out from my first harvest in a long freaking time. Anyway I’m gonna cut Amnesia clones for an upcoming flavor modification test. Hopefully I can get some take root and do the monster crop thing

Skeptical about flavors added into weed? Absolutely this is real. My pine pitch, I have serious doubts it changed anything but, if I had a larger supply of pitch, maybe pine needles have enough pine essence. One plant got cinnamon, this could be strong enough to come through, I added a handful into the dirt B/4 the roots.
Adding a lite molasses (325 mg K/tbls) a scant 1/4 cup alternating on/off. I also add lemon and or lime juice to pH down to 6.1. Comes out to about 1/2 lemon per 2.5-3 gallons of water for 4 plants.
Hippies have been using molasses as long as there have been hippies. They are not adding it just for the organic minerals. Microbes eating the sugars makes no sense either, table sugar or honey could do that a lot cheaper. We seam to all use molasses. Why molasses? Because we like the taste in the smoke.
Organic growers use molasses, even commercially available synthetic nutrient programs add cane molasses to their products to "sweeten". Some claim "unsulphured" is the answer without understanding why it could matter. One might even argue to use the sulphured molasses yo get the extra sulphur.
As I understand it (not my opinion) trichomes is where the flavor is going to "land". My plants make so many trichomes. It must be more than the light. I heard Bruce Bugbee say silica is HUGE for trichome development and then add vermiculite. Lots of vermiculite in my soil... and lemon juice. Lots of lemon/lime juice that should flavor the end produce.

 

[013]

We are on the same page on flavor then, cool.

Great idea, my flowering Amnesia thanks you and so do I…. haven’t brewed up a molasses tea in long time. She will be sipping on molasses & worm shit soon

sulfur is very plant friendly and essential for budding, I was just reading that brassica doesn‘t flower nearly as well unless sulfur is in abundance

that’s right trichs are ground zero for everything, Yes sir, you gotta have silica squared away. I’m doing rice hulls out the wazoo both in soil mix plus 2 inch layer as ground cover. If you go with agriculture version as opposed to Amazon or grow shop version rice hulls are cheap. Scored a 50 pound bag locally for $30 - can you say ka-ching! Bought that sucker

 

[MAK1]

We are on the same page on flavor then, cool.

Great idea, my flowering Amnesia thanks you and so do I…. haven’t brewed up a molasses tea in long time. She will be sipping on molasses & worm shit soon

sulfur is very plant friendly and essential for budding, I was just reading that brassica doesn‘t flower nearly as well unless sulfur is in abundance

that’s right trichs are ground zero for everything, Yes sir, you gotta have silica squared away. I’m doing rice hulls out the wazoo both in soil mix plus 2 inch layer as ground cover. If you go with agriculture version as opposed to Amazon or grow shop version rice hulls are cheap. Scored a 50 pound bag locally for $30 - can you say ka-ching! Bought that sucker

Rice hulls are for silica?
I have been watching some utube videos from Mark ??? @ perfectgardens. He has so much information. It's a rough ride getting there but in the end I always find something that makes it worth the time.
Of course plants pickup far more than we might imagine. It gets complicated.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Shaskspear

 

[013]

yes rice hulls are for aeration and contain about 20% silica

 

[013]

Finally squared away a decent harvest and ready to play with flavor concepts on a few clones, however my Amnesia clones bit the bullet…. FFS… I can’t win here.

The White Widow was vegging then flipped to flower, but I didn’t have a great spot for WW under the lights due to Amnesias largess… err scratch that…. due to Ammesias large ass…not that I mind.

Reverted the WW back to veg on Dec 10th still no sign of new reveg growth.

what’s up with you @MAK1. Looked around for a minute but - do you have a journal up?

 

[MAK1]

Finally squared away a decent harvest and ready to play with flavor concepts on a few clones, however my Amnesia clones bit the bullet…. FFS… I can’t win here.

The White Widow was vegging then flipped to flower, but I didn’t have a great spot for WW under the lights due to Amnesias largess… err scratch that…. due to Ammesias large ass…not that I mind.

Reverted the WW back to veg on Dec 10th still no sign of new reveg growth.

what’s up with you @MAK1. Looked around for a minute but - do you have a journal up?

This was my first large harvest, things got messy as I scrambled to find enough jars to hold it all. Now a trip to the store for another case of mason jars. The flavors got interesting even without the benefit of clones. Flavoring concepts wont ever stop.


I am starting to think there are some flavors that work well with all marijuana like molasses and citrus oils. Oils is where my thoughts lead. Other things not so much, I swear there is one that taste a little too much like smoking a pine board.


I had 2 Bruce Baner seeds that were very different phenotypes. One grew without any pistils and looked like the parent plant Strawberry Cough. ??? This is the plant that got 2 TBLS of fresh lime zest added into 3 gallons of soil. The taste of lemon from these buds is outrageous. I mean like never in 40 plus years have it tasted lemon/citrus like this. The flavor hangs for at least 30 seconds. From the moment you hold you hit to beyond the exhale. Almost mouth waveringly delicious. Will it hold as it cures?


If I am able to pull it off on my next grow: Clones, of course. Citrus zest will be added to different pots. Lemon, Meyer lemon, lime, grapefruit, pumelilo, etc. The oils contained within these zests can more accurately be measured in quantity and very close in quality of taste as well. Lemons, limes, ...taste recognizably the same everywhere I buy them. The reason I say it like this is because you used cinnamon, I assume ground cinnamon. I have at least 8 different cinnamons in my cupboard. Each tastes different and have different amounts of oils and terpenes in each bottle. Someone might try a little bit of some weak cinnamon powder and end up with negative results. Your concept will be shot-down after to leaves the ground. Set growers up for success by finding a more "standardized" ingredient. It will be very difficult for me to repeat what you did with cinnamon because I don't have the same one you used. Nothing wrong with the cinnamon, it might confound the issue. There is are ready enough of that in growing plants. Misinformation, disinformation, wrong concepts and misunderstanding basic science is rampant in this industry.
I was joking about "Terpenes Direct", someone is already doing this. Smoke and mirrors, RIGHT?

 

[013]

Wow congrats on that harvest, same here! I’ve been mostly dankrupt for ’bout 7 months

I’m confident lemon citrus will hold for you, if it’s potent enough to identify then it should remain intact. I think my cinnamon bud started out with cinnamon opener note as in you smelled the cinnamon first, but then later after cure I couldnt smell or detect the cinnamon….only on exhale so the note had moved in the lineup….. if that makes sense.

I hammered down with cinnamon, I was crop dusting soil with fine ground stuff & had whole cinnamon sticks pressed down into soil.

not limited to spices…. I’m all on board with any flavor modification under the sun.…the world is your oyster - go make a pearl.

I thought cinnamon was kinda cool since its cheap and in every spice rack from here to Timbuktu…. but yeah there’s a rainbow of flavors to choose from.

yeah, I’m mean science can take the plant apart, create flavors, distill out components then add them right back in via isolates & bottled terps…..

like I said my weed tastes just fine au natural… and I’m sure same can be said of your produce

but I do think manipulated flavor is cool concept

 

[013]

cloning a Super Silver Haze….. hopefully it will take cuz the rh is low, low, low

 

[JiggiLotus]

Yes, you read it correctly, the flavored cannabis project. Sure, it’s a controversial subject and no, this will not appeal to everyone. But I invite you to read along and if you are interested further please contribute.

CAUTION: This is not for new growers or someone depending on a harvest for their meds. This is geared for growers who have full jars on the shelf or those iwiling to experiment with part of their harvest or with a few clones on the side. Hopefully we get some takers.

To the skeptics I say - no I don’t expect this to be mainstream, for me it’s more of a novelty since I love the flavor of freshies or well cured bud as much as anyone here. I’m not interested in making a name, nor do I think this has the potential to earn money. I’m doing this to explore the possibilities and to learn. It’s all about Flavoring Cannabis and Can The Flavor of a Growing Cannabis Plant Be Manipulated? sorry for the caps there!

If all you have to contribute is negativity then please hit the back button now. Apologies in advance for use of the word weed, I’m not going to type cannabis every spanking time

We know that flavor can be added after a crop has been harvested, it’s done with staples like cereals or tobacco every day. The flavor of cannabis can be enhanced with additives during the cure by using lemon peels, mint, banana skins, rosemary or a plethora of ingredients. But little is known about flavor being added while the plant is growing. In this journal the hope is to explore both options.

Flavoring after the harvest

Manipulating the flavor of a cannabis plant while its growing

With regard to menthol cigarettes, to the best of my understanding - mint plants are processed to extract oils which are converted to crystalline form by a supplier. The supplier ships menthol crystals to the tobacco manufacturer where they are rendered back into a liquid. The liquid is mixed with other ingredients (mostly glycerin & perhaps sweetener like corn syrup) sprayed on the cured tobacco, then rolled into cigarettes and packaged for sale.

That is a snapshot of flavor being added after the crop has been harvested. What piques my interest is flavor being introduced while the crop is growing. Your interest may vary from mine. I maintain that a growing plant can be enhanced by ingredients to manipulate the smell and taste by using 3 routes - by soil additives, by environmental exposure thru air or by additives in the feed water solution. That’s it soil, air or water. For you hydro folks - sure be my guest and try it with coco, dwc or whatever. Some additives may work well in hydro while others may crash and burn. But to keep it simple for taste testing purposes it’s best to stick with only one flavor at a time.

The back story.... During my first and second grows I harvested a Pakistan Valley plant and had it curing in jars. My second plant was a clone taken from the first Paki Valley plant. On the second plant I had an outbreak of fungus gnats and as a temporary measure I tried cinnamon as a pest deterrent. I began misting with water and crop dusting the soil with ground cinnamon. The gnats hated it but it didn’t deter them well so I kept after it for weeks. At that time I was too cash strapped for better IPM gear.

Fast forward to right before harvest. The scent of the growing bud was exactly like the first Paki Valley mother plant with the addition of a really clean, almost antiseptic like scent of cinnamon. Apologies if my palate descriptions leave something to be desired. But the growing bud carried the cinnamon scent in a delicate manner. After the chop I could no longer detect cinnamon but later after the cure I could absolutely detect cinnamon notes while hoovering open jars but the scent was unmistakable every time I exhaled the smoke. The first plant was harvested without use of cinnamon, nor did it have any scent notes I could detect that came close to cinnamon.

We know weed plants are an accumulator, among other things it’s used to clean up haz-mat sites. Terpenes deliver flavor based on the genetic profile of a particular phenotype of a given strain. So in a sense terpenes are merely carriers that express the encoded scent directions they are handed. After my cinnamon bud mistake... err discovery it seems reasonable that terpenes can be manipulated to express different scents.

If you search 420 Magazine for Ona gel there are a numerous reports of growers that have used Ona gel to mask the scent of their grow from neighbors or law enforcement. Turns out a few of those growers reported their finished bud carried the scent and taste of the Ona gel. Now truly Ona gel is a great product but ona gel flavored buds makes me want to hurl. No offense intended to Ona Gel, again it’s great for the purpose it was intended.

First let me assure you this - if you try this via soil, your weed will not smell exactly like vanilla extract or clove you added. Whatever you add will be faint, very subtle. In my experience weed will embrace that added scent but put its own spin on it. Let’s face it - most of us don’t want to override wonderful natural flavors any way, maybe just steer it a little bit in a certain direction. Pretty sure foodie type people will dig this.

Go easy on your plants, most of the flavors you select will be naturally derived and should be fairly well tolerated by the plant. However it’s possible that plants don’t adapt well to a crap-ton of turmeric being added to the soil when it filters down to the root zone. One of 420 Mag’s current sponsors SNS uses rosemeric acid in there IPM solutions, rosemeric acid is derived from rosemary plant. So yes naturally derived ingredients in low doses are fairly well tolerated by this crop.

Now to the techie growers out there.... so if your soil is enhanced with garlic and microbes are munching garlic every day and the plant is growing fine - don’t you think those microbes are going to pass the garlic on to every part of the plant? Ever tasted real moo cow milk after she wondered into the wild onions? Yup been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Affirmative you get wild onion flavored milk if you’ve never owned a milk cow.

CAUTION 2 Use some freaking common sense here. Don’t come bitching that your weed is ruined if you cured it in a tent with an open pan of 5 gallons diesel fuel coz you like gas flavors. If you grow a plant right beside a 4 acre hog waste lagoon then let’s assume either you love the smell of hog shit in your produce or if you do this but can’t figure out why it tastes like hog crap then you are automatically disqualified.

So 420 member Dafatboi asked about adding menthol flavor to his weed, here are some ideas we came up with on that

before the chop,
mint crystals in the canopy
mint essential oils in your feed water (prolly get a boost on pest deterrence)
mint as companion plants
mint crystals laying on top of soil - even tho mint crystals are naturally derived I’m not sure how well roots will tolerate direct contact with mint crystals whether finely ground or not. Go easy to see how she responds.
mint foliar spray

after the chop
mint essential oil in your bud washing routine but might help to be added to last rinse bucket
mint crystals attached to plant while it’s hanging to dry
mint crystals cooked down into an extract and that flavor essence sprayed on buds
mint plants along with colas as they dry hang
mint plants or crystals placed in jars

To flavor a growing plant
Cut a series of clones from one host mother so all the clones will be of the exact same phenotype. It’s not an equal comparison if you test a flavor enhanced Jack Herer against a flavor enhanced Grape Ape. Once your clones are stabilized and growing well then begin to experiment.

plant #1 needs to remain untouched as the control plant
plant #2 can be flavored with the spice or flavoring of your choice
plant #3 gets a different flavor than #2 above.

Track which flavor is given to which plant all the way thru growth, harvest, curing and sampling phases. I might suggest that whatever spice or flavor you select needs to be fairly pungent. After the cure try it yourself or better yet have a friend take a blind smell and taste test challenge to see if they can detect the difference or determine what flavor was added.

You can always let them smell of the control plant or give it up and let them smell your spice shaker of clove or whatever and then compare it to the buds.

Part of why I’m dogmatic is several have commented this can’t be done, or that it’s stupid. Yup, I’m stubborn like that, if it doesn’t pan out then I’m down with that too. I’m from the back woods with no formal education, I recognize this is very far from scientific, however all of science stands firm on hypothesis.

This is not my journal - this is for everyone. If you have better ideas, if you are a scientist, if you like to tinker, if you want to run this show- then please jump in. I have no desire to be in control but I’m happy to jump start this.

Here’s what I bet ya, one day down the road someone will do lab testing of clones to compare terpene profiles of flavor enhanced buds versus unflavored bud. There will be a difference - how much and what is possible is anyone’s guess. Lets make some history. One day science will catch up....

You gotta break eggs to make a custard. It’s an experiment - have fun with it.

Cheers,
013

This is an awesome article, I enjoyed it. There is a place I can't think of the name where they actually have created/extract(?) flavored terpines to add to your stuff. Idk much about it as I'm extremely new to growing. However I love research and learning. Thank you for the read. If I can find the website I'll come back and add it for your study.

 

[013]

Thanks very much! Haven’t been very active on this journal but working on an update. Yes please link up anything that you discover, glad to have you here!!

Cool so peaked at yours and wow you hit the ground running! I’ll be scrolling thru to see more but yeah please jump in with anything you find or experiments you want to share.

 

[JiggiLotus]

TrueTerpines