Hey guys I've searched a fair bit (not just on here) and haven't really come up with a solid answer.
I got this bud the other day from my usual guy who's reliable and hasn't given me shit before, the bag it came in had two distinctly different strains.
Upon arrival home I opened the bag and had a big smell (as you do
) only to realize something may not be right with my buds..it had a moldy/damp/rotten smell but ALL the buds were nice and dry and had absolutely no visible signs of mold to my naked eyes.
The buds did look quite chronic though and had a heap of whitish trichomes so I got out my magnifying glass and had a closer look under lights, yes, very defined identically looking ball heads, definitely not mold as I have made the mistake of confusing the look of off bad buds for chron buds before only to find that smell once opened and clearly seen spores under a magnifier growing.
I had a single cone and felt no bad side effects like hot and cold rushes, sweats, coughing, or any other signs that my buds were bad, just the taste and smell were off putting.
SO what I did was put the two separate strains in separate bags and found one bag (the darker green, more "bushy" nugs) smelled normal after a few hours of separation, the other bag (I'll call white bud from here on out) still smelt bad.
I then put the white bud in a paper bag as I heard this would help dry it out (it was already bone dry and hard, but thought WTF anyway) but that hasn't done anything after 3 days of airing it every so often.
THE BUDS HAVE NOT CHANGED AT ALL, APPEARANCE, SMELL, TASTE.
I have spent ages with the mag and they're definitely not growing mold so to say, took them apart a little and inspected close to the stem, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
At first glance if you'd smelled them you'd think they were moldy just from the look, but under inspection IMHO I believe with 95+% certainty there is no mold and only tri's present.
Basically what I'm asking is;
Remember I cannot find any visible signs of mold/rot/whatever on my buds, so in summary I'm wondering why the hell this is?!!
...and if it's bad to smoke or possible to fix these buds, I had a feeling that if they were snap dried to take the moisture out to stop mold forming, would re-hyrdrating them potentially start the mold growing process again and make the buds worse? I'm thinking of adding some orange or lemon peel to try and mask the smell/taste...
Also the images are more of a reference, you can't really tell much from them and there looks like a few spores are there but that's just tri's reflecting the camera (shitty phone) flash...
I got this bud the other day from my usual guy who's reliable and hasn't given me shit before, the bag it came in had two distinctly different strains.
Upon arrival home I opened the bag and had a big smell (as you do

The buds did look quite chronic though and had a heap of whitish trichomes so I got out my magnifying glass and had a closer look under lights, yes, very defined identically looking ball heads, definitely not mold as I have made the mistake of confusing the look of off bad buds for chron buds before only to find that smell once opened and clearly seen spores under a magnifier growing.
I had a single cone and felt no bad side effects like hot and cold rushes, sweats, coughing, or any other signs that my buds were bad, just the taste and smell were off putting.
SO what I did was put the two separate strains in separate bags and found one bag (the darker green, more "bushy" nugs) smelled normal after a few hours of separation, the other bag (I'll call white bud from here on out) still smelt bad.
I then put the white bud in a paper bag as I heard this would help dry it out (it was already bone dry and hard, but thought WTF anyway) but that hasn't done anything after 3 days of airing it every so often.
THE BUDS HAVE NOT CHANGED AT ALL, APPEARANCE, SMELL, TASTE.
I have spent ages with the mag and they're definitely not growing mold so to say, took them apart a little and inspected close to the stem, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
At first glance if you'd smelled them you'd think they were moldy just from the look, but under inspection IMHO I believe with 95+% certainty there is no mold and only tri's present.
Basically what I'm asking is;
- could the grower/seller have found a spot of mould in the bag or the room and removed it but still had the buds smell/taste bad?
- if someone along the lines found their buds were damp and starting to smell but then dried them out (under heat, in the sun??) to the stage where they were dry as hell would they still smell and taste bad?
- in any case if there was mold starting because the buds weren't dried or cured right and then they were really quickly dried (in an oven or in front of heater) to remove all the moisture, would this stop the mold from visibly growing and leave the buds the way they are now? (hard, almost bone dry, and smells like mold)
- Is it possible to have a little bit of invisible mold or is there a type of mold that is hard to detect and can be easily confused with trichomes?
Remember I cannot find any visible signs of mold/rot/whatever on my buds, so in summary I'm wondering why the hell this is?!!
...and if it's bad to smoke or possible to fix these buds, I had a feeling that if they were snap dried to take the moisture out to stop mold forming, would re-hyrdrating them potentially start the mold growing process again and make the buds worse? I'm thinking of adding some orange or lemon peel to try and mask the smell/taste...
Also the images are more of a reference, you can't really tell much from them and there looks like a few spores are there but that's just tri's reflecting the camera (shitty phone) flash...