Drying, Yield, and Consistency: Ed Wells of Cannatrol on Post-Harvest Cannabis

We sat down with Ed Wells from Cannatrol at Lucky Leaf for a conversation that started with life and quickly moved into one of the most overlooked parts of cannabis production.

Drying and curing.

Ed breaks down how small inefficiencies after harvest can lead to meaningful losses for operators, especially in emerging markets like Minnesota where pricing is still strong.

We also talk about consistency, and why it’s one of the most important factors in building a cannabis brand that people come back to.

In this episode:

•  What most growers get wrong after harvest 
•  How drying impacts yield, quality, and profitability 
•  Why consistency is what separates brands long term 
•  The role of process and standardization in scaling operations 
•  New Cannatrol products and what’s coming next 

This episode is part of our Live from Lucky Leaf series, where we’re documenting the people building Minnesota cannabis in real time.

Connect with Cannatrol: https://www.cannatrols.com

Follow Canna Connect for more conversations like this: https://cannaverse-newsletter.beehiiv.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The thoughts, views, and opinions expressed on the Canic Connect Show belong solely to the individuals and do not reflect those of Canaconnect and its affiliates, sponsors, or partners. Can a Connect does not promote or facilitate any activity that violates state or federal regulations. Everything you hear here is strictly for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not legal advice. It is not financial guidance, and it's definitely not medical direction. Seriously, don't take our word for it. Even if someone on the mic sounds like they know what they're talking about, and they're probably crazy smart too. Regardless of how legit our guests may be, you should always do your own homework, consult with your attorney, and understand the risk you're taking before you do anything when it comes to cannabis. Our intention is to keep it real. If you've got a problem with anything we've said, take us to court.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

That's part of the raffle going on tonight with the Frontline Bud Foundation. Shout out to David Luz, Canatrol, the whole team. We're gonna be doing it big with Canatrol all year long. Yep. Welcome back to the Can of Connect Show. I'm your host, Stephen Eigenman, and we are live from Lucky Leaf, day one, here with Canatrol, head of sales, Ed Wells, Vice President. Where'd you fly in from? Uh flew in from Miami, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Really? Yeah. Yeah, I relocated to Miami a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yeah, no longer in Vermont. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Uh, Vermont to Miami. What was what was the transition like?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Uh got married. Uh, and my my wonderful wife, she asmins, is from Miami. Sorry. Okay. Um, yeah, she's uh, you know, born and raised Miami native. Wow. Um it was easier for me to recolocate, I guess, than than her. She's got some businesses and stuff there. Um she's launching a vertical medical cannabis company in Florida. So yeah, it just made more sense for me to be the one to relocate. So uh nobody had to twist my arm to go to Miami from Vermont in December either. You know, I was like, okay, I can handle that.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So I may have gotten married as well since I've seen you.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Well, I knew last time I think I saw you, you guys were expecting, and you're getting married, I think. And yeah, I think that was what you had going on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I had the wedding. Well, we had the wedding in June. Uh, we had the baby in October, we had a courtroom ceremony, yeah, uh, and then we had a party at a traditional celebration this past summer. And I I don't know if I've were you guys at Canacon? Uh we were, yeah. So saw you there. That's right. That so I got married, then we have Canacon, now we're here. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Yeah. So we have twin twin boys on the way. So uh similarly, we actually got married in Vegas the end of the week of Biston. So yeah, I figured, you know, we're both in cannabis. Um really yeah, so we how are the photos? Ah, great. You know, it's uh walking down through Fremont in uh tux and a wedding gown on a Friday night at about 10 p.m. We'd not believe the amount of people like high-fiving you and congratulating you, fist bumps and everything. So it was really surreal experience.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Best MJ BizCon, contrary to the reports, best MJ BizCon. Yeah, for for us it was. It was great. So um how's Candetrol doing?

SPEAKER_02 3:11

We're doing great. Um, you know, we're we're expanding into a lot of more um you know international markets, international projects, but we're still seeing a lot of traction um in the U.S., uh, whether it's retrofits in you know, more mature markets that are still really healthy from a price per pound or price per gram aspect. Um, or it's you know, new markets like Minnesota, where um, you know, licenses are finally you know started coming out and yeah, the infrastructure didn't exist. Now we have a vibrant market launching, and all those facilities are gonna be built or are in the process of being built. So, you know, a lot of opportunities um spent a lot of time in Minnesota these last couple years.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah. And and and hopefully it's starting to come to fruition.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

It is, yeah. We've we've had some success here. We've um, you know, when when homegrow legalized here almost overnight, Minnesota became our number one selling market for homegrow products, uh, which is the cool here. Yes. Uh, we've launched the the next iteration of that. So now we have two new products we hit the market with. Okay. Um tell me about those. Yeah, so we've got um the uh the C and then the C2. And the C is basically$11.99 is the price point for it. It's uh you know, black exterior finish. Now we're integrated the screen into the door, no more glass on the door, so we got better thermal performance. Yep. So now it can be in a wider range of ambient temperatures where you can place the unit, which was, you know, uh sometimes a struggle in the past. Um, and now we also have the C2, which is um stainless steel, same size, same same technology. That gives you a little bit extra features, gives you like app capability and Wi-Fi and so forth. Um, and then for customers that don't care about having the stainless, but they want those extra Wi-Fi features in the app control, they can do an upgrade to the the black unit uh for$125. So it becomes$13.24. Yep. They can have the fully capable unit, not in stainless.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Okay. And the C2 retails at what?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

This so the C2 is$14.91.$14.99. Yeah, okay. And those are, you know, I believe a lot of the stores here in Minnesota have them in stock already. We started shipping them uh last last month in January. So you first started shipping them out.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Um, so yeah, those have been hitting the market. Great reception on them. Uh, we also have another exciting product we're gonna be launching in in Q3 this year, coming out with what we call the CXL. So yeah, for on the home grow segment, a lot of the feedback we always got was I need a bigger unit. You know, I'm I'm growing maybe I'm a little bit on the heavy side of the home grower. And so, you know, we've we've been able to finally um get through some challenges in engineering and and working around scaling that that up. Wow. So now the CXL is gonna target um about 10 pounds of wet weight capacity, so it's gonna be about four four times the capacity of our current cool gear models. Wow. You're you've built the Tahoe or the suburban. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, we don't know exactly where that's gonna end up on price point yet because we're still ironing out some feature options and and and things like that'll impact our manufacturing costs. So um, but again, we hope to be rolling that out in in the third quarter this year. Okay, and as soon as we have our final costing on that, we'll be able to kind of let people know where it's gonna be at price. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Wow, that's cool. So two and a half pounds on the the unit you've been familiar with. Below to two and a half, so 0.2 to 2.5 in that range. But to be able to go 5x larger, four to five X larger, that's that's a that's a different size, that's a whole different unit.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Exactly. And it's it's not gonna be four to four times the price either. That's the point. It's gonna be you know uh it's you know you're gonna get four times the capacity, um, but it's gonna be more economically, you know, with sizing is gonna make sense from a price point.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

And ultimately you're serving your customer.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

You've adapted feedback. We took that feedback, yeah. Um, same thing on the commercial side. So we uh you know our technology when it started being um when it was first developed, it was used for artisanal cheeses and charcuterie meats. So we were doing full room systems from the beginning. Yeah. Uh the only small units we've ever done was when we first launched into cannabis. Okay. Um so on our on our commercial sales, commercial scale systems on cannabis, we do entire rooms, you know, we can size it to whatever weight the facility needs. Um, but now we kind of are going to be launching a little bit smaller commercial system too. So, you know, we're gonna be able to hit like a 90 to 100 pound wet weight, whereas before the smallest of our commercial was about 180 pounds of wet weight. Um, and we can go all the way up from there. We we've done like 10,000 pound storage systems for you know large, large outdoor farm in in California.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Um, so we can really service pretty much every segment of grower at this point. And we're and with bringing out these new products, we're we're filling in that gap in between as well. Because we do know that again, there's it's the whole gray market area or whatever you want to call it. You know, there's caregiver growers in some states as well, still, yeah. Um, that you know, they're not on a big commercial scale, but they're growing more than what you're gonna through through this a single one of our smaller bulkier models.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

So what I'm and I'm sure it's probably similar between uh a homegrower and a large-scale cultivator, but what is the positive feedback that you hear from folks that utilize kinetrol rooms?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Um, so it's a little bit different dynamic, right? Everyone that uses the technology is gonna get a faster process, it's gonna be consistent every time. Doesn't matter the the part of the country you're in or the time of year it is, consistency year-round. And that's every scale grower. But the home grower isn't as concerned. Am I getting three or five percent more yield at the end of the dry because I'm not overdrying? But the commercial grower is very concerned about yield-driven, yes. Yeah. So, you know, if um we measure shelf stability based on water activity, and that's basically measuring bound and unbound water molecules. Unbound are the enemy because they're they're present, but they're not bound to the cell structures of the plant. So they're available for mold and microbes to feed on. You want to dry to the point where all those unbound mic uh water molecules are gone, you don't want to take away any of the bound ones because mold can't feed on them. So why do you want to take water weight off? It doesn't make you any more shelf stable, it just means there's less weight on the scale. So the reading that you want to target is a 0.6. And what that means is it's basically the measurement is the vapor pressure of the substance compared to the vapor pressure of water. When that ratio is at a 0.6, you're shelf stable. So if a producer is drying to a 0.55, they're losing 3% of their weight. So in a market like this right now, if I can tell you as a producer and you've gone through all these steps to get your license, you've spent all the capital to build out, and you're right now getting like what I've heard is$4,000 at house.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I've heard that new market. I've heard more.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

I've heard$4,500 is kind of the cap. I heard it were in 3750 to$4,500 is the numbers I've been hearing thrown around.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

And I think, I think, I think we're maybe some folks are willing to sell it a little lower than that, but we're not to interrupt you from from the jump,$4,000 was the was the rate.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, yeah. And so to that point, if you know every hundred pounds you're producing, if I can just give you a better way to dry and cure it, and you can get back three percent, even if you're if you're only just overdrying by a little bit and to a 0.55, you get three three pounds more on every hundred, that's twelve thousand dollars more on every hundred-pound harvest.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Okay. And then that's not a large harvest.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

No, that's I mean that's a hundred-pound harvest. That's you know, uh, you know, it's smaller scale commercial. It's a micro, a micro growth. Exactly. Okay. And then so you say, you know, just ball part depending on options and features. Your system for that harvest size is probably gonna be forty to fifty thousand dollars, you know, for the for the system to for that size of an operation. Okay. Well, if you can get back twelve thousand dollars more in every harvest, say you've got four flower rooms, so you're harvesting every two weeks. That system pays for itself in two months. It's easy. ROI. It's yeah, it the ROI is amazing in this market, which is why you've had some success. I mean some some really great success stories already. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Um, what what do folks need to know beyond that? If we're speaking truly to the operators, the cultivators, why shouldn't they buy a can of trawl unit?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Why shouldn't they? Yeah. There's no reason they shouldn't. I mean, the the you know, you're not you're not sacrificing quality at yield because you're getting more yield and more quality. You're not sacrificing process time. It's a faster process. People are typically drying for 10 to 14 days, and then if they are curing, you know, that's very controversial. Some people are like, oh, it cures in the package when it's going through the supply chain. If that's your mantra and right now, you can get away with that because anything you can grow and past testing is gonna sell right now. There's gonna be a huge demand. Yeah, there's the huge demand. That's a better way to put it. That's a better way to put it. But you know, there's there's no there's no sacrifice, you're not you're not losing anywhere. Like it's all benefit. Like it's you know, you're you're gonna reap benefits in everything. Yeah, quality, yield, process time, labor savings. Right now, people are doing a cure, you know, they're they're going in every day and they're checking that batch to see when it's dry enough. Right. And then they know that they've gotta then stop that drying process. So they're pulling it out of that space and they're sealing in a container, yeah. But they're not sure if maybe there's still too much moisture. And the last thing they want to do after all this time and growing and drying and you know, all of that, they don't want to lose it to mold in the curing process. So they open those bags or containers or bins, whatever they're using, to let moisture out, to burp them. Yeah. But if you're doing that in the summer or you're doing that in the really dry winter, there's not consistency.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And we've got a lot of different things going on here in Middle East.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Or I'm from in Vermont, similar, similar climate. You know, I've lived there up until recently my whole life. And you moved to Miami, Ed. Yeah, I know. It's a huge change, but um, you know, so you get you get that consistency, but also you save on that labor because that's time. People going in and doing that, checking those, rotating those bins, burping them, uh, people going in the drying room and taking those readings. Yeah. Is there a certain guy that's tapping the stem just telling the the organization when it's done and we're gonna pull it? What happens if he leaves? What happens if he's sick? What happens if he takes vacation or sheet, whichever?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Is ketroll more of a regimented process when it comes to drying and curing?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

It's just to set it and forget it. Like you to set it and forget it. When you set the parameters, you start the cycle, the system holds a stable flat line vapor pressure. There's no fluctuations like you get with HVAC and dehumidifiers because the physics of it are different. Okay. Okay. Um, what's it's what makes our patent technology so special. Yes. Um, the flour just naturally comes to equilibrium. You learned Boyle's law probably in in somewhere along in school in a science class. Yeah. This basically means opposing pressures come to equilibrium. A high pressure moves to a low pressure. So your flour goes in very wet at a high vapor pressure, yeah, surrounded by a lower vapor pressure. Okay. Set at where the flour is gonna be at that 0.6 ratio, yeah. The flour equalizes to it. It has no choice. It has to equalize to it because of the laws of physics. And then it holds there. Yeah. So you don't have to full it out because once it equalizes, it's like sous-vide. Once the steak in this in the water bath is cooked, it doesn't overcook like it does in an oven. It just folds there until you're ready to serve it at the huge banquet where you're gonna serve them exactly unless. So it's you know, it truly it's a it's a regimented process, but it gives you the process control to develop SOPs that are actually easy to follow. You can use it. I need some easy SOPs. Yeah, exactly. You know, you no longer need everyone to have dried and cured thousands of pounds of weed to get it right. They just need to know what parameters to set on the touch screen. If they can use a smartphone, they can use our system, right? And they can recreate perfectly dried and cured lead every time. And I'm sold. Exactly. Josh, should we get a can of traw? You know, and people have figured out at this point, you've, you know, we've run out of Michael, uh, our executive BPS Dales always like to say, we've run out of levers we can pull in the garden. You know, everyone's got the same nutrients, the same genetics available to them as growers, you know, all these same things. So to think that you're gonna be the one person that's gonna use the same genetics and all the same products as everyone else, yeah, but magically produce a better output than them, it's crazy. You've got to find a way to differentiate yourself. And the dry cure is where there's the most variability in the end product, so it's the easiest part of the process to differentiate your brands. Okay, create value by differentiation, consistency. You know, if someone goes and buys your gorilla glue number four three times, and every time you give them a different experience, and usually that's gonna be more to do with the post-harvest than it is what happened in the grow. Yeah, next time they're gorilla glue number four, they're probably gonna try someone else's because they want consistency. It's true. We s we crave consistency. Yeah, we buy Coca-Cola. We don't think that it's gonna be different whether I buy it from this store or that store, or if I buy it in Maine, or if I buy it in Arizona. Yeah, we want Coca-Cola to be the same every time, and you know, we can achieve that level of consistency in cannabis with the profit control.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

It's consistency, not regimentedness necessarily. It might be a little bit of both, but it's definitely consistency. That's what Canotroll offers.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah, and the the ability to, you know, we have people that use it for other things rather than just drying and tearing their premium flour. Say you're producing pre-rolls, and whatever pre-roll machine you have is has a certain consistency of ground material, it's gonna run the best with less jams, less downtime, you know, uh a more consistently packed pre-roll, it's gonna smoke smoother. Yeah. So whatever that consistency is, you can dial that in. And once you know what set points your pre-roll machine does the best with, you can do that every time. So now all of a sudden, the biggest growing product segment in this country is pre-rolls. If you can put out a better, smoother smoking, consistent pre-roll, again, you're still then you're gonna set yourself apart. Differentiate exactly. And it's yeah, it's simple. It's simple. Set it and forget it, and you know, amazing results every time. Cool. Can of troll.com, check it out. Can of trolls.com. That's right. There's an S. There's an S. There we yeah, Canatrols.com because we have a web spotter.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

You can buy multiple Canatrols at Canatrols.com. Or through a retailer in Minnesota. Yeah, any any you you'd like to shout out?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Uh I mean, I don't want to name of any because I don't want to forget any, but let's just say there's if you look on our website under the the home grow side, there's a section you can find to retail, or you can look it up, you can find retailers whether you're in Minnesota or other parts of the country, find a store and are you support your local growth shop. We always love to see that. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

We'll put it in the show notes, the location finder. Thank you for supporting Canada Cadetics. Yeah, thank you, Steve. Always always good to see you. Good to see you too. Thanks. We'll be right back.