HAND TRIMMING
WHAT IS HAND TRIMMING?
Hand trimming is the delicate practice of manicuring cannabis flower to accentuate its natural beauty and preserve its medicinal benefits. When a plant is harvested and dried, its trichomes (the glandular follicles containing the plant’s cannabinoids) become delicate and brittle. To maintain the flower’s natural structure, we carefully handle each one by its stem, avoiding direct contact with the flower and removing only what is necessary to reveal the delicate form behind the fan and sugar leaves (see more on flower anatomy below). Trimming by hand showcases the uniqueness of each cannabis plant – its diversity of shape, structure, and color.
THE PROCESS
When a Grow Room is mature for harvest, our Harvest Team breaks down live plants into branches and carefully arranges them on racks in our Dry Room to facilitate appropriate airflow. This room is kept pristinely clean, and the environment is closely controlled to keep the drying flower in optimal condition.
Following the drying process, our Trimmers begin their careful work. We trim from the bottom to the top of the flower, holding each by its stem and gently removing petioles (small stems connecting the leaves to the stalks ) with precise and minimal snips to avoid gouging or shaving. Depending on the strain’s sugar leaves (leaves with trichome coverage), the flower may get a tighter or looser cut. Some strains have sugar leaves with a high concentration of trichomes, giving the leaves a frosty appearance. Banana Puddintain is an example of a strain with very frosty sugar leaves. To protect potency, a strain like this will be trimmed more loosely, keeping more of those trichome-laden leaves attached. On the other hand, our Kush strains generally have less frosty sugar leaves, so we remove more of them, resulting in a more closely trimmed final product.
QUALITY CONTROL
High quality product requires a meticulously maintained production environment. In our Trim Rooms, we use stainless steel tables, bins, and scissors – these are resistant to wear and easy to clean. Each work station is cleaned daily with isopropyl alcohol. Additionally, the tables, bins, and scissors are cleaned in-between strains, and the room is reset with a ceiling-to-floor deep clean between harvests. Gloves, hair nets, beard nets, and coveralls are a daily necessity, and Trimmers always ensure that their tools are sharp and clean to help them with their work. Breakwater Trim Rooms are temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled, and HEPA-filtered to maintain the freshness and integrity of our flower.
Even prior to reaching the Trim Room, every plant in our facility has already been inspected by several team members. Trimmers continue this vigilance as they trim each flower, keeping an eye out for anything that might pose a quality issue. Once trimmed, flowers are assessed and graded to ensure the result meets Breakwater standards.
Our Flower Packagers perform the final inspection as they weigh the trimmed flower for packaging. We consider our blue glass jars to be another essential quality control measure. These jars prevent degradation from light and air exposure; they also prevent crushing and trichome loss, which can easily occur in flexible packaging.
WHY DON’T WE MACHINE TRIM?
It takes an average of 24 trimmers to produce about 12 pounds of hand-trimmed flower in an eight-hour day. While it is objectively faster and less expensive for a machine to trim product, it will inevitably damage the flower, causing it to lose structural integrity. A trim machine cannot handle the brittle trichomes delicately and will cause many to break off, removing cannabinoids. Any uniqueness in the plants is lost as the machine tumbles the flowers around and they lose their shape. Additionally, any potential contaminants have the opportunity to spread when tumbling in a machine, as the entire batch touches the same surfaces. With hand trimming, flower that does not meet standards can be identified, isolated, and removed, avoiding cross-contamination.
OUR COMMITMENT
At Breakwater, we take great pride in protecting the integrity of our product. By avoiding harsh mechanical processes and maintaining a spotless production environment, we’re able to offer cannabis that retains its beauty, potency, and unique strain identity. Hand trimming is not just a process, it’s a commitment that we make to invest in quality and consistency over speed and volume, honoring our plants and the people who rely on them for relief and enjoyment.
To all of our dedicated production team members, we thank you for all you do! Your tireless efforts and devotion to excellence make it possible for us to deliver truly exceptional cannabis products.