Favorite strains?

[Khampelf]

I have been hesitant to step up to vaping. I don't really understand it. Can you vape regular bud, or does it need to be a wax or oil?

[Chacoguy]

Mine takes regular bud, but it's a good idea to keep a grinder around.

[SmartAleq]

All can be vaped, it just requires different equipment. Flower vapes can be a bulkier desk unit like the venerable but awesomely effective Volcano or personal size, like the stylish Pax that @Chacoguy uses and I lust after. The idea here is to sublimate off only the resin using temperatures too low to ignite the plant matter.

The next step is BHO and propane and cold solventless extracted oils (which can be in various forms depending on the method used to extract them, such as glassy shatter or crumble [crumble has the plant lipids left in whereas shatter processes that out and produces a crystalized product] or a sticky oil) which have their own vape pens of various types and descriptions--I've been using knockoff MicroG pens for over a year now, usually purchased from these guys. These are a good basic intro to oil vaping, cheap and can handle all kinds of stuff--I sometimes drip a bit of the super refined CO2 oil into mine, it handles it fine but do it long enough and you'll need to clean it out.

Then we hit the really nice stuff, the CO2 extracted oil. This most commonly is an oil because the skill to make a shatter out of it is not easily acquired. This is being marketed in dispensaries in prefilled cartridges that screw right onto a standard e-cig battery, as cartridges already mated up to a battery unit, in syringes, etc. CO2 is the cleanest possible extraction method--the BHO and propane extraction methods are expected to be disallowed in medical and recreational stores within the next year or two as the people using these methods often blow themselves up, don't use high quality research grade gases and don't purge everything out and leave petroleum residues in the product. CO2 does not have these drawbacks--the problem here is that few backyard extractors can afford the 100K plus pricetag on the extraction rig.

If you can get hold of it, though, CO2 oil is the way to roll. The method is low heat all the way through so more of the terpene profile of the original strain is kept and the flavor profile can be absolutely wonderful--everything you like about the taste of weed but no burning carbon taste. Once you taste the difference, gas extracted oils seem flat and boring. Still gets the job done, but it's like boxed wine. CO2 oils are also super good used in cooking, the flavor is so mild and you need so little to kick the medibles into the stratosphere.

Anyway, a lot of people experiment with concentrates by sprinkling a bit of crumble on the bowl (like old school hash) or dripping a bit of oil onto flower. I like the clean taste and ease on my lungs of the concentrates--I still smoke flower sometimes but it tastes like burnt toast to me now.

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

I have been hesitant to step up to vaping. I don't really understand it. Can you vape regular bud, or does it need to be a wax or oil?

I've got the Atmos Boss. It takes regular weed but you want to use a grinder. The finer the grind the better. The biggest practical difference from smoking is a vape pen cooks the entire pack at once. So no couple of tokes and set it aside to toke later. So a light pack is better than a tight pack.

[Revs]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

Picked up a fat bag of Blue Dream yesterday. First impressions; smooooooooth and easy on the lungs with a faint berry aftertaste. In the bag it smells like old school kush. Two hits and I'm at cruising altitude. Very nice.

Originally Posted by Khampelf

What a coinkydink, I just bought a quarter of Blue Dream myself. It's the one I save for late evenings. Serious couchlock potential.

The last batch I picked up from my guy was Blue Dream as well. Its some niiiiiicceee stuff. The previous batch was called Green Crack. While it allowed me to sit still long enough to watch 2 seasons of Game of Thrones in 3 days, it was harsh and tasted almost like regs. After that the Blue Dream is going down smooth. I'm going to be sad when this runs out.

[JackieLikesVariety]

Agent Orange

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by JackieLikesVariety

Agent Orange

What's it like?

[SmartAleq]

Definitively citrusy, but not that yucky lemon terpene profile you get with a lot of strains, it's absolutely orange smelling. Has lovely red hair too, and as sticky as your mom's abandoned theater seat.

I found a source for feminized Agent Orange seed but they only go in 10 seed increments and they're spendy. Might go for it anyway if I can't find a sturdier, less played out clone to mother.

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by Revs

The last batch I picked up from my guy was Blue Dream as well. Its some niiiiiicceee stuff. The previous batch was called Green Crack. While it allowed me to sit still long enough to watch 2 seasons of Game of Thrones in 3 days, it was harsh and tasted almost like regs. After that the Blue Dream is going down smooth. I'm going to be sad when this runs out.

I can contentedly report that the Blue Dream is good for pain control, too. My getting stabbed a couple hundred times with a fine needle went very well, as stabbings go,

My dispensary carries the same 15-20 strains pretty regular. They text everybody when the Papa's OG is in. 24% THC and a nice smooth yet rapid come on. One hit wondershit.

Thanks for all the info on vaping, it helped a lot. Now I can start looking at stuff without the ignorance. "So what does it, you know, do?" A friend once brought over something called 'ear wax' and smoked it on top of some flower. I didn't notice any stratospheric effects that I remember, and it looked nasty.

[Nonny J. Nonnington III]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

I bought more Blueberry Skunk on the $85 / quarter Thursday special today.

Just a dumb question from someone who hasn't indulged for almost 40 years, but:

Is that $85 for a quarter ounce? Ouch! SmartAleq did a great job of explaining how much science has been applied, but come on! There's just as much science applied to different varieties of tomatoes, and those can be temperamental. This is something that literally grows like a weed. I could understand if there was some special variety that was rare or hard to cultivate, but this just sounds like gouging.

I'm gonna stick to Rhone wines and Tullamore Dew.

[Khampelf]

There are a lot of taxes and regulation involved, I don't mind paying extra to be legal.

[Glazer]

That's not extra. I pay ten dollars more a quarter and don't get to choose what strain. I gets what he gots.

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by Nonny J. Nonnington III

Is that $85 for a quarter ounce?

I pay $25 an eighth.

[SmartAleq]

Illegality plays a gigantic part in how much the stuff costs. You can get quarters as low as forty bucks on sale because getting busted is just not a big issue here. In Texas, they throw you under the jail for years for a joint, so the price is much higher to reflect the risk factors. A shit ton of our cheaper weed goes out into the illegal states and the markup is huge--a good pound can be had for about $1800 here, but take that pound to one of the stick up their ass states and it will go for more like $4000 or more.

And no, it does NOT "grow like a weed." High end smoking cannabis is to old school ditch weed as a Triple Crown candidate three year old thoroughbred is to that mutt quarter horse your neighbor keeps in his shitty muddy paddock. Yes, they are both horses, but there the resemblance ends. To grow really good weed, first off you're growing indoors. That means a very steep initial cost to set up and some fairly hefty ongoing costs as well. Knowledge of different strains is huge--if you have a bunch of 8 week to maturity Kush growing in a room with a bunch of tropical Haze varieties that require 10-12 weeks you're going to have a problem and will need to have separate nutes for each type and that will get spendy really fast, not to mention what it will do to your turnaround time. Electricity for 1000W HPS bulbs running 12 hours per day adds up, and the bulbs themselves need to be replaced about every three cycles to the tune of about $65 per bulb. You have to have air conditioners to offset the heat the lighting creates, and heavy duty ducting and ventilation to keep your air moving around and to keep the smell from overwhelming the immediate neighborhood. You need proper growth medium, usually coco coir blends and that ain't cheap, and then there are the nutrients required to support good bud growth--also in no way cheap. Labor costs for the trimming crew add up--going rate for an experienced trimmer is twenty bucks an hour cash and for a decent size grow you'll need to bring in 5-10 trimmers for at least 1-3 days of work. There are costs associated with buying seed, buying clones or maintaining your own mothers to clone from--they need nutes too, and lights, and labor, and cloning supplies, and growth medium and all that is separate from what's going on in the flowering room. Pest control, humidity control, disease control, irrigation systems, drainage systems, plant grooming and maintenance for optimum bud production--all this has to be taken into account when you're figuring out how much the real cost for weed actually is.

This is NOT a simple process that "anyone can do" and the sheer amount of "fuck it, I give up" second hand grow equipment available at any given moment on Craigslist reflects that. It takes time, money, expertise, a shitload of physical work and a pretty good understanding of basic chemistry, botany and environmental science to make anything worth selling at the end of the process. Yes, any fool can take a decent clone, plant it out in the garden and probably get some decent smoke out of it at the end of the summer. But it will be outdoors quality and will be more harsh, less stony, less stanky and less pretty than indoor grown product. Growing decent outdoor weed is a whole 'nother skill set as well and to do it right you need greenhouses that can be light deprived to get the plants to the 12 hour photoperiod they need to flower long before Mother Nature does it for you. Even so, the best quality outdoor weed goes for about half what a good indoor pound costs--you make it up on volume because outdoor plants can be let to get huge so you get a couple pounds off each plant, not feasible indoors unless you have a warehouse, and even so you won't do it that way because to make it financially feasible you need to have a quick turnaround and not spend months vegging plants up to tree size before you even let them start flowering.

Like most professions, cannabis farming is one that seems trivially simple to anyone who's never tried it!

[JackieLikesVariety]

[Khampelf]

They let us split the quarters today, and I had enough bonus points for a free eighth, so I have some Alaskan Thunderfuck, Golden Goat and more Blue Dream. I'm really liking that strain. It goes on special often, free gram with any purchase is likely to be Blue Dream.

ATF is a pretty spacey smoke, I can use it daytime but just barely. Golden Goat is another strong one, has a good quick 'kick'.

[SmartAleq]

Blue Dream is an underrated strain--it's a big producer and an easy keeper so a lot of growers grow a lot of it so it gluts the market and the variety seekers get tired of it fast. You keep running into the "Meat loaf? AGAIN?" problem trying to market the stuff.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

Illegality plays a gigantic part in how much the stuff costs.

In related news, the PA senate passed a medical marijuana bill. Our old governor, Tom Corbett , had vowed to veto anything that reached his desk. I worked pretty hard to see Corbett replaced, and it worked.

Pennsylvania may get added to the sane state list soon.

[Nonny J. Nonnington III]

Originally Posted by SmartAleq

And no, it does NOT "grow like a weed."

.....

Like most professions, cannabis farming is one that seems trivially simple to anyone who's never tried it!

Fair enough. Like I said, it's been quite awhile since I partook. But the summer before my senior year I grew a few plants in a vacant lot that produced a LOT for free. I'm sure it wasn't nearly as nice as what you buy, but it's tough to beat the price. It sounds like the amount of effort and resources required are akin to distilling a fine whiskey. And I loves me a good whiskey, but the idea of paying $85 for a bottle that will probably last me longer than your quarter is something I wouldn't consider. Perhaps one in the cabinet for special friends, but not for everyday consumption.

I just look at the way that every industry finds a way to maximize production and minimize costs, and don't see that applied here. Here in New England there is a company that grows tomatoes year round in greenhouses, doubtless with much of the same equipment and care needed for growing cannabis. You can find them locally in Hannaford's, and it doesn't break the bank to buy them. I'm guessing that it's more about your first comment about illegality and that if laws are reformed there will be a huge drop in prices.

[ETA]I think that these are the guys growing the tomatoes for comparison:

https://www.backyardfarms.com/how-we...our-greenhouse

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by Nonny J. Nonnington III

I'm guessing that it's more about your first comment about illegality and that if laws are reformed there will be a huge drop in prices.

If pot could be cultivated using large scale commercial methods, top shelf weed would cost about $50/lb.

[Chacoguy]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

If pot could be cultivated using large scale commercial methods

Based on Smartie's post upthread, I'm not sure that's possible. On top of that, there's a lot of market pressure for locally grown and organic.

[SmartAleq]

Yeah, the issue with large scale outdoor farming of smoking weed is the intense likelihood of some small scale competitor driving by and launching a shitload of nasty ass hermie seeds into your field. By the time you figure it out, it's all full of seeds and completely useless.

Large scale indoor is already happening, the aforementioned warehouse ops. Even with a lot of space there is still a labor bottleneck at trim time because mechanical spinner trimmers are still not up to the kind of job a person can do when it comes to properly grooming a top bud. They're great for when you have 500 pounds of outdoor that all needs to come down RIGHT NOW because the weather's turning shitty on you, but even so most outdoor growers will elect to dry trim rather than leave it all to the spinners--and a crew still needs to go over the mechanically trimmed stuff to make it look nice. Those bits of fan leaf left in a bud make it harsh as hell.

[Jaglavak]

Greenhouses. The modern four season designs from places like Minnesota and Wisconsin show the way. Even in winter the energy bill can be greatly reduced compared to a warehouse. Midwinter tomatoes from an outfit like that go for about $5/lb, so I added a zero to be conservative. Competition would drive the retail price down to cost plus 200% pretty fast.

[SmartAleq]

Then again, as legalization gains momentum nationwide the available pool of consumers goes up as well. I figure that even if you get BigCanna turning out the cannabis version of Bud Light there will always be a solid niche for artisanal growers who turn out the high end stuff. A solid commitment from the general populace to support a nascent and growing industry that's "ours" would go a long way to keeping the creepy uberfarming monopolization and homogenization model from gaining a foothold. Let's hope!

[Jaglavak]

The Cold Climate Greenhouse Resource - A Guidebook For Designing And Building A Cold Climate Greenhouse, by the University of Minnesota USDA Agricultural Extension.

[Khampelf]

I chased a couple of bowls of Alaskan Thuderfuck with three energy drinks. This leads to a state of mind I call hyper-goofy. It's how backyard junk art gets made.

[Jaglavak]

Nice fat bag of Permafrost this evening. Sparkly buds, clean smoke, light taste with a pleasant contemplative high. The stuff is so rank that I thought for a minute that the cat pissed in the living room. But after I didn't find any evidence I tracked it down to my stash box full of freshly ground ganj. It sure tastes a lot better than it smells.

[SmartAleq]

Ha, had some Permafrost recently and it wasn't overly well received--it was super pretty while growing, had killer frostiness on it and yeah, stunk like the wrath o'god but it's possible it was from played out genetics because more than a few people said they weren't overly impressed by it.

[Khampelf]

I barely smoked yesterday and only lightly whiffed on the Alaskan Thunderfuck today so that the Golden Goat could really kick my head after dinner.

I haven't run across that Permafrost strain, what disappointed about it?

[SmartAleq]

I think it's a little too mellow and nuanced--I like it, but I think people are too used to stuff that kicks like a Missouri mule to fully enjoy it. It kinda curls up in your head like a purring kitty and smiles at you. But yeah, the stank factor kinda misleads a bit--you're expecting a head kick but it doesn't do that.

[Chacoguy]

[SmartAleq]

Okay, you win ten internets for that one!

[Khampelf]

I had much better results with the vaporizer this morning. I looked up some tips and tricks, packed the chamber tighter and turned the temperature up. Now I need to know if I can stop halfway through a chamberfull, let it cool down and go back to it later.

The vape pen with the pre-filled cartridges is so smooth clean and easy I'm afraid of overindulging. It does seem to be CO2 extracted. The label cut off, but it looks like it says CO.

[SmartAleq]

Pre-filled cartridge is about 98% certain to be CO2 and they're awesome--it's possible they're manufactured here, too, look for "DL50 Labs" on the label.

[Glazer]

The vapes seem to cook the whole chamber at once. But mine takes three or four cooks to bake out all the THC. The second cook yielding best results. And a fourth cook only necessary if it was a tight pack.

[Khampelf]

I did give the chamber a stir before going for the second bout. That seemed to help.

I scored some Durban Poison, which clocks in at 25% TCH. Dense flowers and very sticky. The aroma is very chemical, evocative of a backwater service station. It doesn't come through on the nose, but nothing else does, either. Very little taste to it.

What does that measure, anyway? Twenty five percent of what?

[Jaglavak]

I think it means 25% of the dry weight. Keeping in mind that what you get is typically not dry.

[Khampelf]

I got some Skywalker OG today. It gave me head change even after finishing off the Alaskan Thunderfuck.

I also got some Platinum Wreck wax, but I haven't tried it yet. It's harder than I expected.

[JackieLikesVariety]

what does OG stand for?

*need caveman smilie!*

[Khampelf]

Ocean Grown, most stoners will tell you. Some think it stands for Old Gangster, though.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

Ocean Grown, most stoners will tell you. Some think it stands for Old Gangster, though.

OverGrow!!!

I was a member of OverGrow for a long time. The morning I logged on and saw the Justice Department screen I nearly shat my pants.

[Khampelf]

Justice Department? What was that about?


I just tried the wax for the first time. It's stickier than I imagined and came on a folded piece of brown paper, folded up into a piece of paper. I put about two paper match heads worth into the can. I got about five good deep slow inhales. At first I didn't think I was getting much of a head change. It's creeping up on me, though. I think I'll keep it awhile before hitting the Blueberry Skunk, that morning blend that comes on like coffee.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

Justice Department? What was that about?

OverGrow was an internet forum for growers/smokers to discuss growing/smoking. The website was shut down and the owners' assets siezed.

Background.

[Khampelf]

I was surprised to see that it was Canadian police that did that.

I'm trying to get sleepy smoking up some of the Blue Dream I keep for that purpose.

[JackieLikesVariety]

disturbing

I mean, what Kayaker posted. we tend to forget they are still coming for us!

[Khampelf]

I picked up two new numbers to try, Willie's Wonder and Blue Northern. There both about 16%. Willie's Wonder is nice buzzy high. You feel it right away. I got a nice new pipe, too. Only about 4" long, clear with aquamarine squigglies all through it.

[Glazer]

It won't be clear for long.

[Chacoguy]

I've heard that Polident works.

[Jaglavak]

I'm still cleaning glass with a bottle of really bad tekillya I bought a couple years ago.

[Khampelf]

I've got brushes and pipe cleaners and Orange Chronic glass cleaner. My water pipe is clear glass, I scrub it new a few times a week.