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What is Flash Frozen Cured?

Ice to vapour, never liquid.

Flash Frozen Curing is a patented scientific method whereby fresh cannabis is flash frozen and then dried under vacuum using temperature, time, and pressure. No solvents or chemicals are ever used.

For adults 21+.

The four stations

  1. Harvest

    The plant is harvested and the flower is taken off the stem.

  2. Freezer

    Frozen within an hour of harvest. It waits as ice until it is dried.

  3. Vacuum

    In the chamber the frozen water goes straight from ice to vapour and is pulled away. It never melts.

  4. Jar

    Over 80% of the water is gone. With the water’s weight out of it, a gram fills the jar like two, and the bud breaks up by hand.

Skip to the diagram

The method

Follow the water.

In a vacuum, ice skips melting and goes straight to vapour.

Below the triple point of water, 611.657 pascals, ice cannot melt. It can only leave as vapour, and that is how over 80% of the water leaves the flower.

Instrument: water’s phase diagram

Phase diagram of water with the path the flower takes Pressure on a logarithmic axis against temperature. Three regions: ice, liquid water and vapour, meeting at the triple point at 0.01 degrees Celsius and 611.657 pascals. The flower is cooled at atmospheric pressure into the ice region, the pressure is lowered below the triple point, and as it warms the path crosses from ice straight into vapour without passing through liquid. 1 atm 1 atm illustrative path illustrative path triple point, 0.01 °C and 611.657 Pa triple point ice liquid water vapour cooled at 1 atm pressure drops ice leaves as vapour ice leaves as vapour −40 °C 0 °C 40 °C 80 °C 1 Pa 100 Pa 10 kPa 1 MPa temperature pressure, log scale

Liquid water

At harvest the water in the flower is liquid.

Water’s phase diagram. The curves are drawn from published data (Murphy and Koop 2005; IAPWS 2011); the triple point is at 0.01 °C and 611.657 Pa, and 1 atm is 101,325 Pa. The path is a sketch of the method. The process’s own settings are not shown.
Comet 67P, photographed by ESA’s Rosetta on 10 September 2015, four weeks after its closest pass of the Sun. Sunlight warms the comet’s ice and the ice turns straight to vapour, carrying dust out in jets. The flower’s water makes the same jump in the chamber, with no liquid in between. Slowed, looped and tinted in processing.

The record

Four issued US patents.

All titled “Method of drying botanicals”, with Eric Young as the inventor, and all four trace back to one provisional application filed on 18 June 2018. The first was granted on 5 May 2020. They are public record at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

File · Method of drying botanicals · the four front pages, as printed

  1. Filed 5 April 2019 · Granted 5 May 2020The patent, PDF, 519 KB
  2. Filed 20 February 2020 · Granted 7 December 2021The patent, PDF, 482 KB
  3. Filed 9 April 2020 · Granted 7 June 2022The patent, PDF, 540 KB
  4. Filed 3 December 2021 · Granted 14 May 2024The patent, PDF, 418 KB
The front page of each patent as the US Patent and Trademark Office printed it, set in the ship’s colours; the dates under the file are at their true spacing. The later three carry a terminal disclaimer, which is the asterisk on their dates. Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Keeping it

Three things keep it right.

Keep it sealed. Air is the enemy of the texture. Keep it cool. A cupboard, not a windowsill. Keep it dark. Light works on flower the way it works on anything green.

That’s it. No humidity packs, no fussing. And it is meant to break up by hand: just pinch, break, and roll.

A hand holding an open jar of green Space Weed flower, seen from above.
Space Weed flower in the jar.

Space Weed flower, dried. The client’s photograph.

Engine room

Why a vacuum.

In a vacuum, ice does not melt. It leaves as vapour.

That is the whole method: cold first, then a vacuum, and the ice goes out as vapour without melting.

Where to find it See what we make