The disaster may not be serious enough to put you through the five stages of grief. However, it鈥檚 still natural to experience a period of mourning 鈥� when you discover that your treasured weed stash is so dry that you鈥檙e sure you see a tiny tumbleweed or two rolling through it.
Hold off on the grieving, though, at least until you try to rehydrate your bud.
It鈥檚 not that difficult, and it usually works. Here are several different techniques to try.
Before Starting 鈥� Prevent Dry Cannabis
Do you keep your pot in an airtight glass jar? If not, you definitely should; that鈥檚 probably why it dried out in the first place. A zip-loc bag isn鈥檛 good enough; in fact, it can cause your stash to dry out even faster than usual.
Assuming you don鈥檛 have that airtight jar, get one (and be sure it鈥檚 completely clean) before continuing. You won鈥檛 just be using it to hold your weed once it鈥檚 been reborn, you鈥檒l be using it for the rehydration process. In effect, you鈥檒l be making a humidor, the same device used to keep fine cigars moist and fresh. It just won鈥檛 be made of expensive wood or be suitable for display in a millionaire鈥檚 study.
Using Your Humidor to Rehydrate Weed
Each of these techniques involves putting your bud into the glass jar, along with something else that contains moisture which can be absorbed by the pot.
Iceberg Lettuce
This is one of the best choices for rehydration, because this type of lettuce is about 95% water and it won鈥檛 affect the taste of your weed. Peel off one palm-sized lettuce leaf from the head and place it into the jar. Leave it there for two hours or so before taking it out, and your weed should be rehydrated. If not, mix the buds around a little and repeat the procedure once or twice more, each time with a different leaf.
Damp Paper Towel or White Bread
The paper towel method is similar to the lettuce one. Moisten (but don鈥檛 soak) a sheet of paper towel and put it into the jar with your pot for an hour or two, and repeat with a different moist towel if necessary. A third alternative is to moisten (again, don鈥檛 soak) a slice of white bread to be put into the glass jar. These are each preferable to the techniques that follow, simply because they don鈥檛 any 鈥渇oreign鈥� flavor to the weed.
Fruit
The suggestion you鈥檒l hear most often is to put a piece of orange peel (just a slice of the outer layer, not the entire peel) into the jar and let it rehydrate your stash for a few hours, replacing it with a new slice if necessary. Some people prefer using lemon peel, lime peel or banana peel instead. This will work just as well as the methods we鈥檝e already discussed, but may also transfer some of the fruit鈥檚 flavor to your pot. There are people who use fresh herbs like thyme or mint instead of fruit, but those will affect the flavor even more.
A better choice is apple peel (or even a small piece of the fruit) because less of the apple鈥檚 essence will be picked up by the bud. As a bonus, apple鈥檚 water content evaporates more slowly, leading to even rehydration.
Fresh Flower
Freshly-cut bud is quite damp, and a small amount is often enough to rehydrate the rest of your dried-out stash when putting into the sealed glass jar. Just be sure to remove the fresh herb when its job is done.
For each of these techniques, it鈥檚 crucial not to leave the moistening agent in the jar too long, and not to take it out and use it a second time after re-moistening it. If you do, mold could begin to form on your buds 鈥� and that鈥檚 a much more serious problem. For the same reason, be sure to take the weed out of the jar, and clean and dry the jar completely, before using it for storage.
Seriously dry weed may require repeating the procedure for as many as 24 hours before rehydration is complete, so be patient.
The Risky Approach
This method works quickly, but you have to be really, really careful to pull it off.
Boil a pot of water, then take it off the heat and cover it with a clean cloth, making sure the cloth is tightly attached to the rim. Then put the dry weed on top of the cloth; steam penetrating the cloth should rehydrate your plant in an hour or less, depending on much you have.
The key is to stay close to the process the entire time, so you can rotate the buds regularly to keep them evenly moistened and remove them as soon as they鈥檝e been sufficiently rehydrated. Otherwise, you鈥檒l end up either with roasted pot, or weed that鈥檚 too soggy to use.