Drying and Curing Flower, and What Smalls, Shake and Grind Mean

Freshly harvested cannabis isn't ready to sell. It's wet, it smells green and grassy, and it won't keep. The weeks between harvest and the shelf, drying and curing, shape how the finished flower looks, smells and holds up.

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Step 1: Harvest

When the trichomes on the flowers have ripened (see how the cannabis plant works), the plants are cut down. The big fan leaves come off, and the branches are hung or laid out to dry.

Step 2: Drying

Drying removes most of the water from the flower, slowly and evenly. Slow matters: flower dried too fast can turn harsh and lose its aroma. Flower dried too slowly, in damp air, can grow mold.

Many growers aim for:

• cool temperatures, often around 60°F;
• moderate humidity, often around 60 percent;
• darkness, because light breaks down cannabinoids and terpenes;
• gentle air movement, never a fan blowing straight on the flower.

In those conditions drying usually takes about one to two weeks. A common test: when the smaller stems snap rather than bend, the flower is ready for the next step.

Step 3: Trimming

The buds are taken off the stems and trimmed: the sugar leaves around each bud are cut back to show its shape. Some growers trim right after harvest ("wet trim") and some after drying ("dry trim"). The trimmings are covered in trichomes, so they're often saved to make kief, hash or other concentrates.

Step 4: Curing

Curing is the slow finish. Trimmed buds go into airtight containers, often glass jars or bins, and are opened regularly at first ("burping") to let out moisture and fresh air in. Over two weeks or more:

• leftover moisture evens out from the center of each bud to the surface;
• the grassy, "green" smell fades;
• the aroma from the plant's terpenes comes forward.

Properly cured flower should feel dry on the outside but not crumbly, and the stems should snap.

Smalls, shake and grind: what they mean

After curing, flower is sorted. These words describe size and form, not a different plant:

On the menu	What it is
Flower (whole buds)	Full-size buds, trimmed and cured
Smalls	Smaller buds from the lower branches. Same plant, same cure, just smaller pieces
Shake	Small loose pieces that break off buds in handling
Grind	Flower that's been ground, ready to roll or pack
Pre-rolls	Ground flower rolled in a paper

Smalls and grind are often the better value: you're buying the same flower in smaller pieces.

How we do it at New Mill

We grow, trim and cure every plant ourselves at the mill in Bethel. Browse our flower, including smalls and grind, and our pre-rolls, or see the plants on our grow room page.

Keeping flower fresh at home

The same things that matter in curing matter at home: keep flower in an airtight container, away from light and heat, and out of reach of children and pets.

New Mill is a medical cannabis dispensary in Bethel, Maine, serving qualifying patients 18 and older from Maine or another state, with a valid medical cannabis certification and photo ID from the same state. This article is general information about how flower is prepared, not medical advice.