A trimming machine is the ultimate symbol of innovation in the cannabis industry. In fact, forward-thinking cultivation facilities understand that automation is more than an inevitability — it’s the path to a thriving business.
When you have spent so much time, energy, and care growing your buds, it is vital to ensure that they are harvested properly. The main part of this process or perhaps the trickiest is trimming.
You are going to need a bud trimmer which is basically a machine that makes the job easier and quicker.
The good thing is, there are many models and types available, but if you love your buds, you would want to go for the top bud trimming machine only.
What are the advantages of using a marijuana trimming machine?
The biggest advantage to using a marijuana trimming machine is efficiency and speed. Trimming by hand is a long and slow process. Some people find it relaxing to carefully trim their buds for hours, but we’d rather be smoking than trimming.
Using a Best Bud Trimmer Machines to trim will result in you losing a little more smokable bud as the outside of the buds are trimmed. However, we think it’s worth it for awesome smooth buds and you can easily recover the trimmings to smoke or even cook with!
There are a few considerations to explore before shelling out possibly tens of thousands of dollars on an automatic trimmer. A small-time grower with a few dozen plants isn’t going to need a conveyor belt system, as an example. A producer planning for a large expansion in the next few years may also want to plan accordingly regarding the trim machine they purchase. Here are a few questions to ask yourself, to guide you towards the perfect automatic bud trimmer.
What per hour capacity do you require? Do you only have a few pounds to trim per harvest or hundreds? Machines vary from handheld devices to conveyor belt fed systems, find a trimmer which fits your production capacity.
Do you plan on scaling up? While the future is always hard to predict, often you’ll already have a good idea if you plan on expanding your crop over the coming months or years. Plan accordingly as you purchase.
Are you planning on trimming wet or dry? Just as there are different techniques for hang-trimming wet and dry cured bud, there are also different machines for wet and dry. If you’ve already hammered out your dry trimming procedures, you’ll want to explore the dry trimmers. On the other hand, if you're going to leave your options option, there are machine bud trimmers on the market which cater to both.
How much labor will you dedicate to trimming? The ‘automatic’ label is a bit misleading, as there can be still quite a bit of labor required in automatic trimming. Of course, the required labor input versus the cannabis output is much better, but still, some machines are more labor intensive. Know how much cleaning, maintenance and babysitting your automatic trimmer will need before investing.
Pros
Durable product that comes with a warranty
Versatile thanks to the multiple blades
Easy to clean
Portable and easy to disassemble
Cons
Having to crank by hand grows tiring after a while
Pros
Useful for trimming and preparing components for essential oils, etc.
Suitable for wet and dry trims
Precise cuts thanks to adjustable cutters
Cons
Requires more effort than automatic models
Slightly less cutting power than other manual models
Trimming machines have evolved quite a bit since they first started appearing about 15 years ago.
The first generation of machines were all wet trimmers, which use a vacuum to pull the buds down into a tumbler that trims off the sugar leaf.
Dry trimmers are a more recent innovation, and they’re considered a gentler method of removing sugar leaf from marijuana buds.
In dry trimming, growers hang-dry their plants before using the machine, which causes the sugar leaf to curl around the bud flower.
With dry trimmers, buds are dried to about 8-10% moisture, then the stems are removed and the buds are packed into a machine that lightly tumbles them, breaking the dried sugar leaf off and funneling it out using an air current.
Every grower has an opinion on whether you should trim your buds when they’re wet or dry. Wet trimming simply means that you trim the buds straight after harvest and before you dry them. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods and we suggest you find what works for you.
You can learn more about drying your buds in our beginners guide to growing weed indoors.
Advantages of wet trimming
The leaves are more swollen when the branch is freshly cut which makes it easier to remove the sugar leaves
Wet trimmed buds take up less space when drying
The buds dry faster because there is less mass to dry (wet trimming can reduce drying time to as little as 3 days in the right conditions)
Disadvantages of wet trimming
Wet trimming can increase your chance of developing mould when drying
Even though your buds dry faster, if they dry too quickly the smoke can be harsh and your weed can taste bad and smell like cat piss. Expert growers avoid these issues by slowly and carefully drying and curing their buds after wet trimming.
Advantages of dry trimming
The smell and flavor of your weed is preserved because the leaves act as mini humidors while your buds dry
You can trim your buds ‘on demand’ as you want to smoke them for optimal smell and flavor
Disadvantages of try trimming
The curled up dry leaves can be harder to trim – but they do break off more easily
What to do with left over trim?
The best things to do with the leftover trim from a large producer to the home grower are the following.
Use screens and trim trays to collect the precious kief left over from all the trim leaves and material in the trimming bags or bins.
Make edibles out the sugar leaves and trim a growing trend in the market and a great way to get the most out of your cannabis plants.
Edible oil can also be made from the trim out of either olive oil or mct oil.
Rosin or concentrates can be used with the kief or left over trim ( kamy ways to make it safely out there)
Final thoughts
Trimming your buds from a fresh crop is a satisfying process, but it’s also time consuming and messy if you do it by hand. What’s the best bud trimming machine for weed? It depends on how much weed you have to trim and how much you money have to spend. There are many Bud Trimmer Machines for Sale, you can make a best decision by learn more.