Moisture Content: Interview with Kyle Loucks and Harrison Bard

In this interview, Kyle Loucks, CEO of RollPros, and Harrison Bard, CEO and Co-Founder of Custom Cones USA and DaySavers, discuss cannabis pre-rolls and the preferred moisture content of cannabis flower.

Transcript:

Madeline Colli: What is the ideal moisture content for cannabis flower to ensure it doesn't become too dusty or clump during grinding?

Kyle Loucks: Yeah, so moisture content is like, kind of the easiest thing to measure. Water activity is another measurement that is a little bit more specific, I would say. So moisture content is between 10 and 12% is kind of where we like to see flower at, and that's both for preserving the freshness of the flower. If it gets too dry, you lose a lot of terpenes and it becomes harsh to smoke. And that's one of the things that you have to do to fill a cone, is you have to dry it out because it's so sticky and clumpy. So that was one of the the limits to physics that I saw in how most of the pre-rolls were being made. And being an avid smoker myself, I knew that the consumer was going to eventually not be okay with a harsh, hot, burning joint. And so that's when I started developing a method to run fresh sticky flower.

Colli: That's interesting to hear about. I didn't think that there was going to be that much of an intricacy to it.

Loucks: Yeah, yeah. Anybody that's smoked flower for a while, they know, like, okay, eventually your bag dries out and it's like, "Oh, no. Now it's all gonna be hot and doesn't taste as good as when you first get it." And that was what I saw people doing with the the cone filling machines, is you have to dry it out. You have to pulverize it just to get it to physically fill a cone. That was just not up to my standards for a joint.

Bard: Yeah, so moisture content is super important. After you spend all that time growing the cannabis, it all comes down to the cure. You could easily ruin a whole crop of cannabis if you get the cure wrong. And once you are drying out the cannabis, it is reversible in the sense that you could re-moisturize it, you could get it to be more humid again, or have more moisture content. But once you cure it and those terpenes are gone, the terpenes will never come back. So, you could dry it out and then re-moisturize it and get it to the ideal point, but at that point, all the Terps are gone, or all the good ones are gone. So, you really need to be careful. For moisture content, what we see in terms of like pre-roll manufacturing is between like eight and 14% which is a pretty big range. Then there's two variables that, if you could be really scientific, you want to look at moisture content, as well as water activity. They're similar but different. Water activity is easier to measure in a lab. They have a nice little machine where you could put in some ground cannabis, close the lid. It does all the work, and it measures the water activity, which I don't want to give you the wrong definition, but if you're a science cannabis operator, definitely look that up. But, eight to 14% moisture content is what we typically see most farms using eight percent is definitely on the drier end. 14 percent is going to be nicer and stickier, like what you're more used to, if you're like hand grinding fresh cured flower, like out of an eighth jar.