The Flavored Cannabis Project

[Dubya Kush]

Around here, mint grows wild. It likes nutrient-rich soil, lots of fresh water and some shade. The better those 3 conditions are met, the more potent and aromatic they are. I have never tried growing mint with cannabis as a cover crop because mint can be difficult to grow but more importantly, maintain. (At least for me) But it's worth trying to marry the two and it sounds amazing. I have some Green Crack clones that I might try and test this with IF I can get the mint to behave.
I also posted about a guy who grew his cannabis in a cucumber patch and he did it for years. The smoke was...awesome to say the least. It added a very sweet flavor that was perfect.
I can't knock people who add flavoring and spray to their buds but it's a turn off for me because it tastes "fake" if that makes sense. I would rather enjoy hints of natural flavors than smoking a Sour Diesel that smells like bananas. And I know some indiscriminate growers just want to add any amount of weight they can to sell more product.
Like anything else I guess, it has to be done right, paired correctly and in moderation.

 

[013]

Squiggle likes licorice

blueberry would be the bomb Bill284

Carcass with peppermint via Altoids in the hang / cure phase and during bud wash - give it a whirl

Theres Bluter dropping the old skool head shops, yes on sugared up bud sweeteners. So I get that low dose / slow dose in the rez during the grow might not work but we will figure something out for hydro

Stoned Ape -very nice, some plants will have to get offered up as guinea pigs but hey let’s go for it - see if plant will co-operate with that. This is why I suggest clones & not your prime beans, plus a way to have 1 control plant to compare against but to everyone that wants to tinker - its your garden go for it

No shit Buds, that so cool. Boom there it is, and that kicks the naysayers to the curb. Freaking thanks Royal Queen. If they did it a few days before harvest that confirms exactly my cinnamon bud experience which I already knew cuz that shite is real… err was real since I slowly torched it into oblivion one bowl at a time. I did low dose / slow dose all during flower.

and for those who said placebo effect….. suck it!

as you surf dig up ingredient list from the labels…. plenty of npk tweaks sugars & carbs but look specifically for flavor additives

I’ve always maintained there are at least 3 routes - soil, air & water

so prolly add direct injection to that along with via bud washing

ok this might work for hydro some kind of reverse flushing, flush for a few weeks before harvest then add flavor to the rez the whole week before harvest, yup the plant might go tits up but you could crash land that plant with flavor in the reservoir. How about it Bluter?

Dubya Kush - yes run with it, either in same container as ground cover / nitrogen fixer or in seperate container as close proximity companion plant

anything is possible…. put it on the roots or shoots and smell it in the fruits

forgive me missed a bunch of heavy hitters I admire…. @Light Addict, @The Celt, @multiVortex, @Maritimer, @Tokin Roll, @Ganjagrandaddy, @Stunger, @Billpopy79,

 

[MrSauga]

Dang @MrSauga , where you at ? I want to hear what this might do to NPK, pH, etc. I'm pretty sure he'll know. I'd hate to buy extracts & find out they throw things way out of whack. I'd like to take my Cherry on Top & add both Cherry & Cotton Candy extracts to it to see what happens. Possibly create a "Jolly Rancher Flavored Bud".

Sorry Buds, been busy the last few months and its hit and miss with me.

I haven't read the whole thread. I had friends who would add food flavorings such as blueberry. You could notice the taste, but more the smell
Too much and its overpowering.

Anyhow, in a buffered medium there would be no problems using them if they were acidic or basic. In hydro it could be a problem but I wouldn't know for sure.
The only way to throw off the NPK would be to change it, and as far as I know flavorings contain none of those elements.

 

[Buds Buddy]

OK then, I'll be ordering a couple extracts to try out. Let the fun begin !

 

[MrSauga]

Thanks for the tag 013. Great project, and great idea getting everyone involved. Unfortunately, I'll just be watching for now, but I'm looking forward to hearing the opinions down the road.

 

[Darade]

I am unintentionally involved in your experiment, as I am using cinnamon in my grow rn, to stave off any ant, flys, or fungus. I might try different flavors in different grows, if my end result does have cinnamon notes lol.

 

[013]

Hey Darade,

Welcome aboard the 420 train. Also very glad to have you in the Flavored Cannabis thread, pull up a chair and hang out. Yeah cinnamon is a deterrent but not a very effective ipm solution.

I just flashed back to my adventures since last year with spider mites & fungus gnats and it’s been a long long battle. neem oil, spinosad, BTi, sulfur dust, SNS, diatomaceous earth, oil dormant spray, Safers soap - but I’ve got a few more species of predator mites coming this week so hopefully I can get back to growing instead of pest control crap.

How far along are your plants?

 

[Darade]

1 week tomorrow, I only had a few Phorid Flies, and a couple big house flys, I put a raid indoor fly trap in the tent for a few days, and cinnamon, and they're 100% gone, only like 3-5 bugs in total were in the tent. I just got some of these huge sheets of yellow fly paper and cut them up into squares and strips, to just have around, in case another little guy decides to show face. lol

 

[013]

Nice, yeah not too many good pests find our gardens. Hope you beat them & get some good flavored bud out of this one

 

[013]

I had friends who would add food flavorings such as blueberry. You could notice the taste, but more the smell
Too much and its overpowering.

Thank you MrSauga!!! most excellent, all I hear is confirmation - we are barking up the right tree!

appreciate your perspective that it’s not likely to throw a wrench into well buffered media…. we will figure something out for hydro too.

whether the flavor exposure occurs thru soil, air or water; I have faith - I’m confident this will fly…. somehow! the point is some methods will be more effective and others less effective

you rock!

 

[013]

want to reiterate - tinker as you see fit. obviously there will be failure, even casualty. learn the lesson move on, crank up plans B thru Z. I’m excited at the prospect of you all saying - here is my experience with added flavor.

what happens if I do _____ next time? grab that mentality and we might figure something out.


I’m sure I don’t know….. maybe the added flavor is not riding the trichomes maybe it is expressed in the buds or the whole biomass.

you tell me whatcha think. is it trichs, biomass, buds, or all 3?

 

[MAK1]

I'll prolly be pulling clones in a couple weeks (trying to...don't want to jinx it). I could play. I 100% believe environment affects a plant. If this weren't so, wine wouldn't be wine...hams wouldn't have so many regional varieties.

How would oils get into the roots? Can plants digest fats? *goes to google* I guess if they can suck up microplastics they can suck up just about anything. Foliar would be an option up until flower. Not sure smoking essential oils would be great for one's lungs. Lipopneumonia sucks.

The best farm flavors I've found are in sheep's cheese. Oh, and there's a ciderhouse near here that does a natural yeast hard cider that tastes like the air there smells...orchard in the fall hay type smell.

Wonder if I could make whiskey weed using oak and vanilla

Weed grown in a charred whiskey barrel or a wine barrel. There must be someone in the Valley doing this.

 

[oldmanjj]

I'm in, not ready to experiment yet but its very interesting.

 

[MAK1]

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

You really had me laughing, thanks for adding your sense of humor.

OMG Thank You for talking about this issue. I am currently restricting my query about additives to the feed water or soil mix. It seems absurd that one thing added (such as molasses) could improve flavor but other judiciously added nutrients for the purpose of taste modifiers are a NO-NO.
Most of what I have read has people thinking that it is the sugar in molasses that is the magic. Some are aware of the differences in molasses but don't talk about why the difference matters. Plantation Black Strap Molasses is a potassium BOMB with other minerals following ensuite. So,this is why I am looking at the mineral content as I am considering what I might add that has lots of minerals but not needing sugar directly for the plants. Microbes will be addressed separately.
It is not uncommon for compost fruits and then add these components back in later. Maybe watering plants with cantaloupe juice. Or pH balance with pineapple juice. Perhaps you have a preference for watering with Riesling wine vs. Zinfandel or even use those grapes before complete fermentation. Some add LAB and might be looking for that special San Fransisco Sour strain.
This one sounds nasty to me but, maybe tomato juice will be the next thing we all add in late flowering.
I should expect there is some magic in this concept. Is there a difference in mineral profile/ micro minerals that changes results. Is it a combination with all the magic molecules nature has to offer.
I'm intrigued. To close to harvest for me this round, next time. I am a player for sure. Do I need to sign a disclaimer or anything?

 

[MAK1]

I might take a couple clones and give it a try, would watering with like strawberry juice or something kill the plant? lol obviously I’ll spring for the organic juice lol

I am very interested in this watering with fruit juices. Even a second harvest of sorts. My first thought is to monitor pH carefully or make a lightly buffered solution when using acidic fruits. My water is rather basic so adding some fruit juice might be the trick I am needing.

 

[West Hippie]

Just found this thread , interesting idea . The reason I’ve never thought about adding anything other than bud candy . I’ll be looking forward to this experiment. Have always been commented for great tasting weed in hydro. Always room to make it better.

 

[013]

Hey West Hippie,

Glad to have your input - pull up a chair. Let this flavor deal soak in and see what you can dream up.

This subject has traversed ole grey matter for a while now. Pretty confident there is merit here, but I‘m also coming off the heels of the great Fungus Gnat and Spider Mite Orgy of 2020 and then ReMix Extended version we think was Hemp Russet Mites so I don’t have anything ready to clone just yet. Plus spring, summer and fall are just busy AF….. am I right?

not sure what to expect for hydro but it could be as simple as adding an essential oil to your water each week but I still maintain let’s experiment but be willing to lose a clone or two in the effort

 

[West Hippie]

Just found this thread , interesting idea . The reason I’ve never thought about adding anything other than bud candy . I’ll be looking forward to this experiment. Have always been commented for great tasting weed in hydro. Always room to make it better.

Someone I haven’t seen in a great while , I know he can help. Grower makes his own nutrients. @Skybound

 

[013]

that’s perfect - the more the merrier

 

[Skybound]

In my limited experience, Sulfur, and magnesium to a lesser degree are the most influential elements that enhance flavors. I don't believe we can alter the scents and flavors outside of what is written in the DNA of a given strain, but I could be wrong about that. All I know is if you get your sulfur content nearing the 100ppm region, your smoke will taste retardedly sweet! Not even joking in the slightest, citrus flavors, fruity flavors are the best, but adding sweetness to the piney, earthy and fuely strains also adds a very weird, but extremely pleasing taste when there's a very noticeable sweet note in the flavor that makes strains stand way out. I have an Incredible Bulk growing now that I've kept alive for maybe 6 months now, and she's not the greatest yielder, but has a decent stone and thee most intriguing taste about her. Think Witch Hazel, but oh so sweet. It makes me think of barbershop comb disinfectant, but because it's also sweet, it's all of a sudden a sought after profile and my down stream patients speak highly of this strain that's not much more than your basic strain, but because I kill my crop with Sulfur, it makes all my strains that much more desirable.