If you’ve been in the cannabis community for a while, you probably know that turkey oven bags aren’t exclusively synonymous with Thanksgiving. In fact, legacy operators are less likely to call them Thanksgiving turkey bags and more likely to recognize them as turkey bags for weed.
While modern consumers are used to storing their cannabis products in polymer bags, jars, or even large Ziplocs, the OG community deferred to Reynolds Kitchens’ finest: a low-cost hack that has served as the foundation for today’s advanced cannabis storage options.
What’s a turkey bag?
Despite them commonly being used to store weed, an average American might look at a food-grade oven bag, grip a tablespoon of flour and a nylon tie, and think “time to cook turkey” – and that makes sense. Turkey oven bags have long been used to bring your grandma’s epic holiday recipe to life.
Image source: WikiHow – How to Cook a Turkey in a Bag
Oven-safe bags are BPA-free and easy to use, and almost guaranteed to result in a juicy bird. Using an oven bag also eliminates the need to baste or brine, significantly slashing your cook time with easier cleanup. Why does that matter for weed? For the cannabis industry, legacy growers tended to gravitate toward the bags for their format and moisture contention, which is why “cannabis turkey bags” grew in popularity.
Unlike traditional polymer or foil-based bags, turkey bags are puncture-resistant and able to withstand temperatures, two factors that made them an attractive solution for long-term storage. While turkey bags may have been a good solution, bags specifically designed for cannabis offer a far greater solution.
Using turkey bags for curing weed
A lot of operators have remained loyal to the turkey bag for weed for its simplicity. They’re considered especially helpful for the process of curing cannabis, which comes after your buds have been trimmed and before they’re ready to be consumed.
Proper curing demands an airtight environment for your bud to live in for about 2 to 8 weeks, and turkey bags have helped home and commercial growers get the job done. With 18 x 24 inch dimensions, they’re often used for storing large quantities of cannabis at a time. However, as the industry has matured, operators are discovering that while turkey bags have been one of the best curing and storage solutions thus far, better options have evolved.
The major downside of turkey bag storage is their unrefined transmission of air. While permeability is a hallmark of modern and older cannabis storage bags, preserving cannabis requires a carefully calculated air management system that allows far less seapage than a standard oven turkey bag.
Even with a proper vacuum sealing, turkey bags have a porous profile, which naturally allows oxygen and moisture to transition. That’s why operators who love oven bags are still likely to stack them in totes or humidity-controlled vaults to help control the, constantly having to create a perfect atmosphere for the flower because the bags—and the totes—just don’t have a great seal as they were built for the perfect turkey recipe.
You can test this yourself by vacuum-stealing your bag and putting it underwater. If moisture gets in, you know the environment isn’t 100 percent sealed from this type of saturation, and that can pose a problem for your curing and storage timeline.
At the end of the day, turkey bags aren’t really created for cannabis. They’re designed for butter and seasoning to make Thanksgiving juicy goodness.
Long-term storage with an oven bag
Operators have also relied on oven bags for long-term cannabis storage, as they help considerably in maintaining freshness and masking a high-quality bud’s overpowering smell. But even though oven bags are able to do the trick pretty effectively, they still aren’t the best option on the market anymore.
So, what does that mean for cannabis curing and storage? Well, it just turns out we’ve been pronouncing “turkey bags” incorrectly this whole time.
TerpLoc’s “Terpy” bags were designed with turkey bags in mind, coupled with the ultimate goal of making them far more effective. Terpy Bags are better at maintaining moisture content by pushing out excess oxygen while retaining the ideal amount of CO2 in the space, which in turn produces the perfect atmosphere for storing buds.
Unlike Reynolds Kitchens’ creations, Terpy Bags were produced with cannabis at top of mind—specifically for curing and storing flower. Intended for backend storage before your product is ready for point of sale, these small wicket bags can store 1 to 2 pounds of cannabis, while the larger size can fit 5 to 10 pounds of flower depending on bud density.
