The paper discusses the reduction of weights in stabilizer codes, which are essential for quantum error correction. Stabilizer codes are widely studied and form the basis for most fault-tolerant quantum computing proposals. The authors focus on small-to-medium size codes suitable for quantum computing hardware, providing a detailed description of Hastings's method and proposing a simplified weight reduction method for quantum product codes. The simplified method reduces the check weights of hypergraph and lifted product codes to at most six while preserving the number of logical qubits and increasing the code distance. The performance of the weight-reduced codes is benchmarked using a photonic quantum computing architecture based on GKP qubits and passive linear optics, showing significant improvements in both logical error rates and the break-even point. The paper also includes a review of classical and quantum coding theory, and provides a detailed explanation of the quantum weight reduction method, including copying, gauging, thickening, and coning steps.The paper discusses the reduction of weights in stabilizer codes, which are essential for quantum error correction. Stabilizer codes are widely studied and form the basis for most fault-tolerant quantum computing proposals. The authors focus on small-to-medium size codes suitable for quantum computing hardware, providing a detailed description of Hastings's method and proposing a simplified weight reduction method for quantum product codes. The simplified method reduces the check weights of hypergraph and lifted product codes to at most six while preserving the number of logical qubits and increasing the code distance. The performance of the weight-reduced codes is benchmarked using a photonic quantum computing architecture based on GKP qubits and passive linear optics, showing significant improvements in both logical error rates and the break-even point. The paper also includes a review of classical and quantum coding theory, and provides a detailed explanation of the quantum weight reduction method, including copying, gauging, thickening, and coning steps.