When you grind your marijuana, you’ll probably ask yourself how to store kief. You can do this in several ways, including using an airtight glass container, a double boiler, a sifter box, or a grinder. The following steps will help you store your kief safely. Once it’s ready, you can wrap it in parchment paper and refrigerate it for up to a year.
What is Kief?
A product made from cannabis flowers and leaves is called kief. So if you have marijuana, you also have kief. You can see tiny translucent crystals on the outside of the flower when you look inside a potent nug of marijuana. These sparkling particles carry the necessary cannabis chemicals that give the plant euphoric effects and potential health benefits.
The most crucial component of cannabis plants, trichomes, includes these fantastic crystals. The glands in female plants’ reproductive blooms create resin, and the tiny growths that protrude from the cannabis flower are called trichomes. The cannabinoids and terpenes found in each trichome’s head are crucial for the plant’s survival and use in recreational and therapeutic applications.
How to Store Kief?
If you don’t intend to smoke your kief for a while, making dry sift hash is an excellent way to store it. Most of the surface is shielded from oxygen by compressing the kief. However, we advise keeping the soup in a glass jar or sealed plastic bag.
Uncompressed keeps should be stored with greater caution. To keep the kief as potent as possible over time, store it in a glass jar, a plastic bag, and a refrigerator.
Airtight Glass Container
It would help if you stored your kief in an airtight glass container for several reasons. For starters, you can quickly see how much the contents of your container weigh. Kief is a complex mixture of fat-based molecules called trichomes. While they retain most of their traction when warm, they lose most of their grip when frozen. After storing your kief for a long time, you should use a simple trick to loosen any kief stuck to the sides of your box or screen.
For a simple and effective method, consider purchasing an of the box. Many kief boxes have several compartments that help you organize your cannabis. There is a sifter inside for easy pollen removal. Another option is a wooden pollen sifter box. These contain multiple dividers and have magnetic closures. These kief boxes can double as humidors; some even come with a black lucite tray for collecting the kief.
Double Boiler
A double boiler is an excellent tool for storing kool-aid and flavored vape juice when making kief ice cream. A double boiler allows you to keep the kief ice cream at the right temperature to keep it fresh. The double boiler has a large bottom part filled with water that you can bring to a simmer and a smaller top section that is not at boiling point. Once you’ve found a temperature you like, stir in a small amount of flavoring and let it sit overnight.
If you’re using a double boiler to store kief ice cream, you’ll need to set the bottom pan to medium heat and insert the top pan on top of the bottom pan. When using a double boiler, ensure the bottom pan doesn’t touch the water, and the top section should contain the ingredients. While the full pan is heating, whisk the elements constantly so that the keef ice cream doesn’t scorch.
Safer Box
Buddies Sifter box is designed for marijuana enthusiasts. Made from pinewood with hardwood edging, it features sections that slide out easily. Each team has a brown-tinted glass bottom and a fine-mesh screen. The fine mesh screen helps separate the pollen from the kief, while the pinewood edging prevents pollen from sticking to the bottom. Buddies Sifter box also makes kief storage easy with its resealable lid.
This Sifter box comes with a rolling tray that is 5.5 inches in diameter. It is made of durable material, so it will not break easily under normal usage. It is also easy to clean, with a thin scraping card included. For better results, purchase a larger sifter box from the same manufacturer. It is not difficult to use, and the manufacturer’s customer service team is accommodating.
How to Spot a Bad Kief?
Although kief has an endless shelf life, eating one that is too old or tainted with bacteria and mold might be dangerous to your health.
How can you, therefore, determine when something has gone wrong or when it should be thrown away? Let’s talk about the indicators that suggest you should probably discard the item rather than try to salvage it.
- Inhale it. Your ability to predict how delicious and fresh your kief will be depends entirely on its fragrance. You can anticipate it won’t be nice once the scent has faded.
- Taste it next. The taste of cannabis is bitter when it has been sitting for too long.
- Kief that has lost its flavor and aroma is likely to have lost all of its potent compounds.
- Feel the surface. If your marijuana is too brittle or spongy, it’s either too dry or too wet.
- A change in texture may indicate that Kief is no longer beneficial or safe to consume.
- Inspect for mold. Small molds could be too small and difficult to see.
- Therefore, it’s crucial that you thoroughly inspect for any powdery or fuzzy patches that might be invisible but endanger your health.
- Moldy kief will also have a hay-like musty odor.
What are the Adverse Effects of Consuming Kief?
Your Mental Health Could be Affected
Not everyone has a positive marijuana experience. You may experience frequent feelings of anxiety, fear, panic, or paranoia. The use of marijuana may increase your risk of developing clinical depression or exacerbate the signs of any existing mental problems. Yet, scientists are unsure about the precise cause. In excess, it might cause paranoia or a loss of reality, causing you to hear or see things that aren’t there.
Your Thoughts Could be Warped
Your judgment and senses may be distorted by marijuana. The effects may vary depending on factors, including how potent your marijuana was, how you smoked it, and how much marijuana you’ve previously taken. It could:
- Become more aware (colors might seem brighter, and sounds might seem louder)
- Alter your perception of time
- Harm your motor skills and increase the danger of driving
It Might Harm Your Brain
You may find it more difficult to concentrate, study, and recall after using marijuana. This appears to be a transient impact that persists for at least 24 hours after quitting smoking.
However, heavy marijuana use may have longer-lasting impacts, particularly during the teen years. Cannabis may physically alter the brains of some adolescents, but not all, according to imaging examinations. In particular, they have fewer connections in the brain’s attention, learning, and memory-related regions, and tests reveal lower IQ scores in some individuals.
Your Lungs Can Ache
Your lungs may get inflamed and itchy from marijuana use. If you use it frequently, you can get respiratory issues similar to those experienced by cigarette smokers. That can indicate a persistent cough with colored mucous. Infections may spread more quickly to your lungs. That’s partial because THC appears to impair the immune systems of some users.
How to Use Kief?
Bake to Create Food
If you’re cooking with kief, one of its benefits is that it makes for a great way to disseminate cannabis in whatever meal you’re making. Being more muscular than its floral counterpart, kief requires extra caution while using. When it comes to edibles, this is especially true.
As there is less plant material in kief, the taste of cannabis isn’t nearly as strong (although the terpenes and flavonoids in the cannabis plant still add plenty of flavors). This is another benefit of utilizing kief for edibles. Because of this, kief is a great ingredient to use when creating edibles like cannabis brownies.
To activate the cannabinoids, you will still need to decarb (remove the carbon dioxide) your kief precisely as you would flower. You only need to:
- On a dish that can be baked, spread the kief.
- Set the oven temperature to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (approx. 120 degrees Celsius).
- Bake the plate for around 20 minutes in the oven.
- That’s it—remove from the oven. You have decarboxylated your kief to produce THC and CBD from the acidic cannabinoids THCA and CBDA.
To Your Tea or Coffee, Add Kief
Once your kief has been decarbed, you can add it to your tea or coffee by heating it with some milk or cream to create an infusion.
To Create Canna Oil, Add Kief to Coconut Or Olive Oil
Canna oil can be made in a variety of methods. Decarbing the kief (see above) and letting it steep for two to three weeks out of direct sunlight in some olive or coconut oil (olive oil is more straightforward to work with at room temperature, while coconut oil may be better for topicals) are probably the most straightforward methods. If you strain out any remaining plant material, you’ll have a canna oil that can last up to two years when stored in a relaxed, dry environment.
Conclusion
You can also use a grinder to store kief; you must empty the chamber first. You can use a brush, paintbrush, or a small pipe cleaner. Once the room is empty, place the grinder into a refrigerator, ensuring that the kief is cold and dry. Next, you will need to store the kief in a container, such as a glass jar.
A kief grinder typically has three chambers and multiple teeth. You will place the buds between the metal or plastic teeth to grind them. The plant matter and trichomes will fall through the holes and are crushed into small particles. The trichomes will fill up the bottom chamber. After that, you can store the kief in your fridge for future use. Then, you can use it to make joints or to add psychoactive seasoning.
