I'll never in my life use a boveda or boost or any other kind of humidity pack. In fact, I can't even remember when I've used the old terracotta shard anymore.
There are several reasons to why this is, let's start with the first, being the product. I'm very well provided for in the product sense and I actually never get too dry product. Big plus.
Second reason is my product never gets older than 6 months, and rarely over 3 months. I'll have consumed it all before that time. In the meantime I stick it in glass jars, or the occasional plastic container if it's just a couple of nugs (the plastic containers are smaller), and I adjust jar size to nicely fit stash size. Moisture equilibrium in the jars is faster reached when there's less excess air. But nugs still need to be able to breathe, so no cramming.
At the end of summer, there's always a good amount of stash to cure. This is also done without boost packs. I simply burp and air out every day until humidity drops to around what it should be and then I slow down the burping by a lot.
Jars have air, I saw mentioned here. It's almost regarded like a problem that needs fixing it seems. But air in there, that's exactly how I like it. Not too much air of course, but still. Air. Air and cannabis communicate. They work together. They thrive together. Whoever is now thinking "HOLD YOUR HORSES JACK!", I invite to do the test I've been doing for years.
As long as you're not thinking of holding your stash for longer than 6 months, taking them off the drying line before smaller stems start snapping and treating it like a live product that has not stopped evolving is a great thing.
What we call "curing" could be considered a collection of reactions between 4 basic elements: cannabis, moisture, air, and time. It takes time. It takes a lot of time. And it won't be getting better all the way for every strain if you ask me.
The perfect cure, ime, is at a different point for each strain, and maybe it's at a different point for each person, because tastes vary.
The most clear cut example of this in my own experience, has been with a strain that's now lost to time, Misty. Misty kush was still sold several years ago but Misty itself has been gone and all but forgotten. I still had a single seed of it in my stock until 2 weeks ago but it seems it's dead. Makes sense as it was already old when I got the seed years ago. Anyway. The first time I came across that strain, I was about 16 years old. Had a really hard time scoring pot that day but eventually someone came through with a smallish 2g bag. By that time I had met up with 2 of my best friends because they were looking for pot too, so we go to this really small concrete bridge over a small stream nearby, and we roll a joint, smoke it up and sit there having a good time. But then as we got higher, we all started having the giggles. I'm the one who's got it worst, and I'm just laughing and laughing and I simply cannot get a hold of myself no matter how hard I try, which makes me laugh even harder. I'm hurting in my cheeks and in my abs because of all the laughing and it's still not over by far. So as I'm laughing I'm bending over and staring at my friends and I start banging this empty plastic sodabottle I was holding against the concrete ledge of the bridge. I smash it a few times and then I miss and I smash all my knuckles open, skin hanging from my hands. The blood is pouring on the floor and over my arm, and it's actually looking like I'm going to have a bad time with that hand for a couple of weeks to come, but still, I cannot stop laughing. I just simply keep laughing and laughing and eventually I drop to the floor exhausted from laughter. It was the biggest "laughing kick", as we called it, I ever had.
Fast forward about 14 years and I find a seed pack hidden in a headshop's stash from the original Nirvana breeder, Misty. Not Misty kush, the one that followed and did not live up, but Misty, the one and only that I remembered from that bridge all those years ago. So I buy the pack. I come home and I plant 2 seeds, wanting to save the other 3 for a later date. I grow it out and aside from some nanners everything goes right. Nanners was probably the downfall of this plant, as basically every plant grown had one or two sadly.
So I harvest and dry the herb, and when dry I try it. And it tastes just the same. It takes me back in time. But not one bit of euphoria. Not one giggle. I didn't understand. What was going on?
For 2 months onwards, I smoked this weed and other weed beside it (my stash is usally divided in several strains) and I never get a giggle. I'm not really prone to giggles either, certainly a lot less than I used to be. So the last nug, I decide to save for a bit. I keep it in a small glass jar with a cork in it, the jar only slighlty bigger than the crammed nug. And after a good month, I smoke it.
And I laugh. I laugh. I laugh without reason and for quite some time. Not as extremely as when I was 16, but with that same euphoria and joyous laughter nonetheless.
And it all makes sense now. It's not just the herb. It's the careful and diligent handling and respect for the relationship between the herb, the moisture in it, and the air surrounding it, and the time given. It can't be rushed. It can't be forced. It needs to be respected and cared for. It's like love, or a child. It only fully blossoms when it's listened to and cared for through and throughout.
Boveda packs, to me, remove my control. They take away the possibility for the cannabis to become whole. Although even without boveda packs, not all my buds will reach that fully blossomed stage. A lot of them will get vaped or smoked before that time, because my stash isn't large enough to provide that kind of leeway.
In my experience, autoflowers, with their fast lifestyle, are no different in death than they are in life. Their smells and tastes seem to fade away sooner than their photoperiod counterparts and therefore they require a shorter cure to reach "full blossom" stage. I usually try to not let autoflowers sit for longer than 2 months.
Photoperiods are the opposite, gaining their best qualities after 6 weeks at the very least, with most of them topping between 8 and 12 weeks.
Now when you've gotten it to that perfect blossom part. How do you store it then to keep it there? My best bet would be inside a thermos bottle inside a freezer, same as we do with pollen storage. Should keep for longer than the 2 months that pollen does though.