R&D Cannabis Flower Enhancement [Best Practices Guide]

What is NEU?

NEU is a simple system that utilizes a mesh bag filled with media saturated with cannabis terpenes. Once the NEU bag has been placed into a vessel with whole flower buds, the diffusion process gently migrates the oil from the bag to the flower. Over the course of the first 48 hours, substantially all of the terpenes will have left the bag and saturated into the buds.

Get NEU Samples here

Best Practices

• NEU is intended to improve the aroma, flavor, and effect of cannabis that is in need of enhancement.
• Some acceptable flower forms include single variety or multi-variety blends, single harvest batch or multi-harvest batch blends, and small, medium, or large flower buds as well as ground or milled flower.
• It’s best to select terpenes with a similar profile to your cannabis flower. This is complicated when multiple varieties are being blended together, but if you’re blending based on compatible profiles, selecting a compatible oil profile should be within your wheelhouse

Enhancement Steps 

Download the pdf for a better user experience

1. Determine the amount of whole flower to be infused: Use one pound of flower per one NEU bag, rounding up NEU bags for partial pounds. Do not open the package until you are ready for use.
2. Ensure the vessel to be used during the diffusion period is airtight: The best practice here is to use a bag that helps to eliminate the headspace.
3. Distribute NEU bags evenly throughout the flower: Adorn personal protective equipment, specifically protective gloves. Use one NEU bag for every pound of flower in your vessel.
4. Seal the vessel: After sealing, record the start time of the diffusion.
5. Turn the flower: Do this a minimum of once per day but not more than four times in a 24-hour period. When turning the flower, ensure the NEU bags are evenly redistributed before resealing the vessel. Continue for a minimum of 48 hours.
6. Remove material (if slated for immediate use): If the material is not slated for immediate use, leave NEU bags in the vessel for continued diffusion. If you’re not pressed up against production timelines, extending the infusion period improves absorption and retention. From there, we recommend the flower be ground and used immediately to fill the pre-roll.
7. Ground or mill the material per an internal SOP for use in pre-roll.
8. Sample final product: Sampling should be performed to ensure the infusion was successful and the distribution was homogenous.

Our Results

• 48 Hour Infused Flower using 1 NEU bag:
  • Average Starting weight: 454.0g
  • Average Ending weight: 459.1 g
  • Average Terpene Content Increase: 1.11%
• 48 Hour Infused Flower using 2 NEU bags:
  • Starting weight: 454.0 g
  • Ending weight: 462.6 g
  • Terpene Content Increase: 1.86%

After a rigorous R&D cycle, we feel confident that we are able to deliver on our goal of increasing terpene content by 1% in 48 hours. We also see that it’s possible to increase the terpene percentage by more than 1% per pound and that there is a diminishing yield curve when attempting to increase the terpene content by more than 1%. We understand that every result will differ slightly based on subject composition and environmental conditions. We believe the material needs to be ground, and homogenized for use in pre-rolled products to achieve homogeneous distribution equal to non-infused material.

For more detailed formulation steps and best practices in cannabis product development, download our full PDF guide.

———————————✧✧✧———————————

This structure provides a clear and concise guide for infusing cannabis flower with NEU bags for pre-roll production, catering to R&D, manufacturing, or product development teams.