Harvest & Curing Heat sealing Grove Bags

[SHRED]

What's the difference between heat sealing the bag or sealing it using the built in ziplock? What does heat sealing give you that the ziplock doesn't?

My 4 oz bags just arrived.
I've transferred them from the jars where they've been for 2 weeks.

 

[BII]

I don't have a heat sealer. I presume the zip closure seals essentially just as good as heat sealing, but with heat sealed bags able to take more physical abuse (which shouldn't be a problem if avoided).

[Am I right or wrong?] What reason does Grove cite for heat sealing being recommended? Any actual data on the difference in functionality?

 

[SHRED]

I don't have a heat sealer. I presume the zip closure seals essentially just as good as heat sealing, but with heat sealed bags able to take more physical abuse (which shouldn't be a problem if avoided).

[Am I right or wrong?] What reason does Grove cite for heat sealing being recommended? Any actual data on the difference in functionality?

Exactly.
You've asked this better than me.

 

[Delps8]

What's the difference between heat sealing the bag or sealing it using the built in ziplock? What does heat sealing give you that the ziplock doesn't?

My 4 oz bags just arrived.
I've transferred them from the jars where they've been for 2 weeks.

View attachment 1562525

Great harvest! Congratulations!

I don't heat seal the bags because I don't see the cost/benefit of sealing them since I'm using the zip lock closure. It makes sense to seal them if you're going to move them but, otherwise, I don't see a reason to take the extra step. I put the name of the plant and the harvest date on the bag. That's small point but if you keep growing, you'll get to the enviable position of having "excess inventory" so you might find you've got lots of bags of weed and you won't be sure when you grew them.

"Hmm, nice smoke - what plant was this?" :smoking:

If Grove website lists a compelling reason to do so, I missed it or I just forgot about it.

One suggestion - calibrate your hygrometers. You can do "the salt test" (Google) (I use 9 gm salt to 1 gm water) but, before my current grow, I wasn't happy with the readings I was getting from the salt test so I paid the big bucks ($8) for a "Boveda One Step Hygrometer Mess Free Calibration Kit" to "remove all doubt", so to speak. The sensors needed corrections ranging from +1 to +5.

And, it took a while for me to catch on to this but vendors in the cannabis grower marked runs sales around Christmas, as does everyone else, but they also have a lot of sales as 4/20 approaches. That's a good time to stock up on Grove bags because shipping is $$ compared to the price of the bags but, IIRC, they reduce the shipping cost or perhaps waive it entirely for 4/20. That might save you some dinero.

 

[snerval]

Found this

 

[GreenBean]

I heat seal them for storage and smell, humidity retention. I have some lb bags that are sitting right at their cure RH since I sealed them up 18 months ago. I have a LOT of excess inventory.

When you just zip them, they work well enough. But you do get a little smell here and there. So obviously there can be, and usually is, some humidity loss over time.

YMMV and all that. Try it yourself and see make a decision. You don't need a heat sealer. I happen to have a vac sealer that I just heat seal with. Plenty of people here use an regular laundry iron, a ladies' curling iron, stuff like that.

 

[snerval]

@Mañ'O'Green Thanks for the rep