Hello everyone
I’ve been growing Ak Bean Brains genetics for about two years almost exclusively and I thought I’d share my experience.
Ak4way
Ive grown several of his strains but mostly ak4way. I’ve grown out 4 packs of ak4way to familiarize myself with it. It did have very uniform plants with some nice different phenotypes. Most of the plants are as described a single stem plant, so it will require some training to get a nice bush, but they do grow some decent side branches with a single FIM if you give them space. It is a very stable strain. I’ve grown them mostly with out topping, but of the current round I have 4 that I topped and trained and will be going into 7 gallon pots. The best thing about this line to me is the chill but strong high. Most of it has that old school indica high that just makes me feel like everything is right with the world. It’s something that I don’t find in a lot of modern genetics. It’s been pretty consistent throughout the plants as well. It seems to be a seed line overall that just works well for me. The next is that it has a very wide complexity of different smells. The first plant I grew out had a very sweet floral complex bubblegum type smell with an interesting baked goods smell in the background. It was weird like some kind of pastry with a lot of egg baked in. Another phenotype had a grape bubblegum and gas smell but not diesel more like propane. It was floral and hashy the background. Another notable phenotype was of the recent batch that I grew out it was very spicy and a sage taste as well as a sweet floral afghani type smell. It also had a a slightly more rounded bud shape. Another interesting thing about this line is the smells that come off of it during flowering. The two most notable that I’ve experienced were gas(specifically white gas or propane not diesel or fuel) and ammonia/cat piss smell. During one grow everyone in the house thought that the gas fireplace was leaking and during another we all thought our cat was peeing somewhere in the house, but then it always became obvious it was the plants. It was interesting like the plants were smelltriloquists, throwing smells all over the house(I don’t run odor control because I don’t need to were I live), but it wasn’t the smell directly from the plants inside the tent. The buds smelled more sweet and floral with grape and baked good smells at the plants. I will keep growing this line because I like it overall. My favorite so far has been the grape gum hash pheno and then the baked goods pheno.
NL1
The next I have grown the most of is the Ak Bean Brains NL1. There have been a few different ones. The straight NL1 that he offers is a 89 Seed Bank of Holland the he personally bought in 89. The next is an Alaskan Cannabis Cache mid to late 80s NL1 x his 89 NL1. Then there was the 3 way NL which is the latter plant crossed with another NL1 that I can’t remember. It has been so awesome to grow these. This is a strain that was on the bucket list for me and has been a dream to grow. I used to dream of smoking NL1 20 years ago and assumed it was something I’d never get to smoke. The most notable types to me have been the first plant of the ACCxAkBB NL1 that I grew. It had the awesome juniper smell that I think is where I a lot of things come from(specifically part of Bubba Kush)In this plant I could taste so many different things from all of my 28 years of smoking, but most specifically I could taste the first thing I ever smoked in it. Most importantly in the secondary terpenes, that really come out when you smash the bud or smash it all over your finger or cook with it, this is were I could smell this spicy cedar incense and earth smell in the flowers of this ACCNL1 x AKBB NL1. I’ll say it ratatouilled me, because it reminded me of the first thing I ever smoked. This requires some explanation. The first’s thing I ever smoked was some Mexican brick weed my uncle gave to my mother. This was around 92-93 so probably around the last era were you could get brick weed like that. She never smoked so I when I first found it I was the only one taking from it and I eventually sneaked enough of it until it was gone and she noticed. This brick weed had a very distinct spicy cedar incense and earth smell. It honestly had a great high. It is my earliest memories of cannabis. I was listening to a podcast I can’t remember which one and the person was detailing cannabis history and was saying that NL1 one was so prevalent that it may have been used by the cartels at the time. When I smoked it and played around with it and made some dry sift that I pressed by hand it took my right back to the first stuff I ever smoked. To be clear this was not bad weed it grew incredible buds that had a juniper afghani smell. I’m convinced the brick weed I smoked in 92-93 was a relative of this NL1. It had just been smashed. The next most notable pheno came from the 3way NL. I’ll call it the gumball pheno. This is what I would call my personal holy grail NL1 pheno and what I will personally try to find in the remaining seeds I have. This smelled exactly like gum balls from an old school gumball machine. It is identifiable because it takes a little longer to mature and the hairs stay white longer or barely turn light pink. It’s popped up a few times. The first one was incredible, just straight bubblegum smell and taste. It was exactly what I look for in cannabis. Specifically what I just call the bubblegum terpene profile that usually has the high that I personally look for. My personal theory is that this plant is a relative of Bubblegum(my personal favorite strain specifically BOGs lines). This would make sense based on what Nevil said Bubblegum was made of. The next one is the grape pheno. This one turned purple and smelled like hashy grape. It reminded me of the grape bogglegum pheno though not as potent. The final NL1 pheno I found and I’m not sure which pack it came from was what I will call the terpentine pheno. It smelled like a terpentine factory on fire. This quite literally nauseating to smell in the jar. This was not for me but had a nice high. I still have several packs of these to go through.
Black Domina X Super Skunk
The next strain that was very notable was the Black Domina x Super Skunk. I wish I would have kept a cutting of this almost more than any other of the AKBB plant I’ve gone through. It is Bob Hemphill’s sohum Black Domina x 90s Super Skunk. I would call this plant dangerous at least in the way it effected me. It made feel like I was almost drunk. That feeling were you think you’re fine and don’t notice you’re doing something incredibly stupid. I grew one giant plant of this that took up a 4x4, so I had it around to smoke for quite awhile. As a side note the method I use to make and consume edibles I personally believe to preserve the terpenes and I get wildly different effects from different strains(I plan to start a topic on this).This strain made dangerous edibles in that I didn’t know how high I was until it was too late and had done something incredibly stupid. Falling over something, slamming my hand on something. The worst was when I burnt my hand severely with steam while on what I’ll call a heroic dose(2 grams in a single edible) of this strain and had to go to the hospital. Normally this would have caused me a great deal of anxiety, especially with the amount of edibles I had taken but the effects from this strain were so stress relieving I didn’t even care and I barely felt the pain. To me this is an illustration that different strains can have different effects in edible form it’s all about which terpenes survive what temperatures and how it made and then consumed. The other thing about this strain is the insane terpene profile from the Sohum Black Domina. It’s such a strong artificial orange smell and like an old plastic kids pool. This rivals tangie in terms of taste and terpene production but isn’t lacking in the high department like it is. This is one of the things that I’ve found with AKBB strains is that the diversity and complexity of smells and background smells. This one smelled like a plastic kids pool full of scented plastic oranges and vinyl flooring while a dog played around on a hot summer day. It also was the best hash making strain out of any of them. It made insane melty hash. This wraps up my AKBB review. I wish I would have documented everything a little better with pictures. I lost some photos but still have a few.
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Awesome descriptions. I have about 36 akbb packs from being a seed fantatic years ago 
. You’re really making me want to pop some soon. It’s nice to hear some info about the ak 4 way, I’ve been wondering about that one for years. I wish I had some of those NL1. They sound awesome.
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Awesome! Thanks for posting this. What a wonderful review and descriptions of things I’ve had a hard time finding grows and reviews of.
I’ve got a few packs, Chocolope and NL#1. Making me think that NL#1 is next 
. Running 907 Blue Genes right now, have high hopes for that
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Thanks. I don’t think you can go wrong with the ak4way. That’s a lot of packs. I think I have maybe 15-20 left including the testers. His NL1 has been great.
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Thanks. You will definitely enjoy the NL1. 907 blue genes has always sounded interesting. I have an Indiana Bubblegum x 907 blue genes tester. Hoping to relive some 90s era bubble berry.
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Great reviews man! Psyched you found a nice one in the acc nl x nl… got a couple freebie packs of that one. Sounds like classic piney indica. Ive also got a Purple hindu x nl from him that should be good… I think he uses the same purple hindu as hemphill.
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Very cool! I have been running some ak4way and nl1 from akbb outdoors in past years along with others. Really enjoy your detailed descriptions!
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Thanks. There’s some awesome stuff in those. Honestly the one the best freebies I’ve ever got. There’s some serious pine juniper terps to be found in there. The juniper one was almost like gin/cologne. I’m pretty sure it’s the same PHK.
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Thanks. How does the NL1 do outdoors?
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Nice! Ive got that nl1 as a good potential breeder plant down the line. Yea hope so hemphills PHK releases look great, missed out on them.
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Me too. I’m looking to track down what I called the gumball pheno and breeding it to bogglegum and then maybe to ak4way. I missed out on the Cricket and Cicada seeds I wanted for like 2 years then I finally got the Puck BC 3 as a birthday present to myself.
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Nice man. I’ve got 2 sensi star v1 x puck bc2 growing now. They’re some nice stinky easygoing indicas in veg. Will be set on heavy indicas for awhile haha.
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