How Long Can You Store Different Weed Strains?

Do different weed strains have different shelf lives? You bet they do! Here’s all you need to know about how long you can store them for.

Like it or not, we can’t keep our weed forever. It has a shelf life, just like any other product. This means that no matter how long we store it for, it will eventually go off. It may or may not go moldy, but stale weed has no taste, no flavor, and does nothing to you in terms of high.

With all this in mind, we thought it high time (pun intended) to reflect on which strains can be stored longest, and which can’t.

Why Different Marijuana Strains have Different Shelf Lives?

It doesn’t matter where you buy your weed from, whether it is the best weed marketplace in Canada or some guy on the corner, it will only last for a limited time. When efficiently stored in a glass container that is airtight, your marijuana should last for six months to one year^[1]. When it is ‘done’, marijuana won’t cause any adverse health effects, it just loses its potency.

A fascinating study run in 2021 by the National Research Council in Canada sought to explore the shelf life of cannabis being stored in dispensaries and warehouses for the first time ever. They used liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to measure samples of weed stored for up to a year and at different temperatures. The results allowed them to create a calculator which will tell you how long your weed should last over time^[2].

Better yet, they made it free to use. You can find the cannabis stability calculator here. The downside of the study is that it wasn’t so much strain specific as it went by the lab results on each packet of weed.

Weed Strains you can Store for a Long Time

As a result of their research, we can now estimate how long your weed will stay potent for over time. However, this isn’t a strain specific model as it measures things like THC and THCA content rather than strain type.

To find out what strains last longest, we had to turn to the stoner community. Here are some of the strain’s experts believe can be stored for longest:

Blueberry
G-13 Haze^[3]
Blue Dream, which is a mix of haze and blueberry^[4]
We deduce haze strains from this information
Strains with high terpene potency to begin with. This would include strains like OG Kush, Girl Scout Cookies and Chem dog.

Weed Strains you can’t Store for a Long Time

Similarly, there are strains that don’t age well. Here are some of those, according to long term smokers:

Any weed that is wet must be dried before storage.
Any strains that are low in terpenes and THC content will only decrease when stored.

How to Spot When Weed is Stale?

When your smoke is no longer smokable, it will start to break down into sticks and dust. It will be brittle and dry. It won’t smell as it once did, and it may even smell of mold or must. Mold will grow over the trichomes of the flowers (that’s the points on the end of your bud) and will be white and powdery. If you are unsure, break a bud open and look for white mold on the inside. The biggest clue, however, will be the lack of smell.

Remember Proper Storage

Our final thoughts are that all of these strains assume that you have properly stored weed in an airtight container, in a temperature-controlled environment. If it is incorrectly stored, your weed could mold within a few short weeks.