Hay smell when drying - Any actual solutions?

Fuzzydankster · Sep 5, 2020

One thing you can also do before harvest to help dry is starve your plants of water last few days. Be sure to have proper air flow but no direct fan on the drying flowers. I dry with whole plant and dont get wet hay smell. However in my jars, while curing, if i dont burp properly, i can smell a "hay smell". Also dark periods of 24-48 hours before harvest help break down chlorophyll.

Dont run humidity above 60% thats not good on the flower and probably contributes alot to your "hay smell"

Proper Drying and curing are the most crucial steps.

MerryJane22 · Sep 6, 2020

This is/was my first grow and I'm searching around about the same issue. I'm curing 4 separate harvests right now and the ones I harvested first have been in jars now a month (autos) and the smell and taste has definitely been improving. Not the normal smell I'm used to though,lol.

I think I dried them too quickly? humidity & temps were in the right range but I think the circular fan being in the room just dried them too quickly? they were dry in like 6 days (stems snapping dry).

I think next time I'll try a few of the tips you got. No water for several days prior to taking down, take plants down at night next time and leave them in darkness for a few days. I'm also going to leave everything on but fan leaves and dry trim instead. This time I trimmed off all the sugar leaves etc and just left buds on stems. Leaving the leaves on I'm told allows the plant to dry more slowly & evenly?

In any case.....despite the lack of intense aroma, the THC seems to have been left intact. So there IS that. Good luck!

Fuzzydankster · Sep 6, 2020

Yea i like to have some air flow but a fan can cause too much. I like a 10-14 day dry. And i do dry trimming. When i cut plants i remove any fan leafs but leave all sugar leaves. And even if first couple days you do smell the "hay smell" its ok. Alot of hormones are being released still. Smells like "fresh cut grass smell" or "hay smell" are just natural proccess still accuring. But shouldnt last but for first 2 maybe 3 days of the drying. Just do couple air exchanges each day at the beggining.

RippedTorn · Sep 10, 2020

Fuzzydankster said:
Also dark periods of 24-48 hours before harvest help break down chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll is a pigment. If your plants are green they've still got the pigment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_leaf_volatiles
It's pretty self explanatory how to keep fatty acid derivatives in the human-attracting spectrum and out of the predator-attracting spectrum: Don't let an actively growing plant know its been injured. If you bud ever smells like hay it's not turning out nearly as good as it could if you prevented that waste of metabolic energy.

BurnzYzBudZz · Sep 10, 2020

RippedTorn said:
Chlorophyll is a pigment. If your plants are green they've still got the pigment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_leaf_volatiles
It's pretty self explanatory how to keep fatty acid derivatives in the human-attracting spectrum and out of the predator-attracting spectrum: Don't let an actively growing plant know its been injured. If you bud ever smells like hay it's not turning out nearly as good as it could if you prevented that waste of metabolic energy.

Source? Thanks.

mancorn · Sep 10, 2020

If you’re having too quick of a dry (because your dry area is too hot), you can bag up the buds in paper sacks. This will help retain moisture without fear of mold/mildew. Just “burp” your paper bag and shake up the contents. Not recommending totally wet stuff, but before your small stems crack. You can leave em in the bags for a couple weeks before jarring.

roncruiser · Feb 21, 2021

Very informative thread. The buds are in the middle of the third day of drying and the chlorophyll smell is in the air when I opened the tent today. Current conditions. Temp~70F. RH 45%.
Glad I found this information. One less thing to worry about. Thanks!

dreamnfox · Feb 21, 2021

mancorn said:
If you’re having too quick of a dry (because your dry area is too hot), you can bag up the buds in paper sacks. This will help retain moisture without fear of mold/mildew. Just “burp” your paper bag and shake up the contents. Not recommending totally wet stuff, but before your small stems crack. You can leave em in the bags for a couple weeks before jarring.

i am in colorado, very dry, i always do this step but i put my stuff in a turkey bag, roll it down to bud level then place it in the paper grocery bag. It works like a charm

TeW33zy · Dec 16, 2022

Grownsince95 said:
Im surprised more people haven't chimed in saying how normal this is... Its just the chlorophyll breaking down and it goes away if you're drying and curing correctly.

Right, they don't grow but obviously acting like they do

MasterWatererJeff · Dec 17, 2022

TeW33zy said:
Right, they don't grow but obviously acting like they do

Saying the hay smell is normal is like saying everyone has herpes. Everyone you know might but I don't.

Perrin6363 · Dec 18, 2022

Could you be harvesting too early?

TeW33zy · Dec 19, 2022

Fuzzydankster said:
One thing you can also do before harvest to help dry is starve your plants of water last few days. Be sure to have proper air flow but no direct fan on the drying flowers. I dry with whole plant and dont get wet hay smell. However in my jars, while curing, if i dont burp properly, i can smell a "hay smell". Also dark periods of 24-48 hours before harvest help break down chlorophyll.

Dont run humidity above 60% thats not good on the flower and probably contributes alot to your "hay smell"

Proper Drying and curing are the most crucial steps.

False, your giving bad advice. There are 2 types of drying environments (if the genetics are there in the seed/clone) that will seperate you from rookie, beginner, intermediate, moderate and sometimes even Master level growers to a cannabis cup winner terpene and flavornoid profile. In order to achieve Terpenes and Flavors that allow you to compete and potentially win in cannabis cup competitions u must present your flowers from a level 4 or 5 dry & cure environment. There are only two types of drying environments that will allow you to bring out 97% of the terpene and flavornoid profiles. That's 55-60°F and 60-65% RH but 75% of the cannabis cup winners were presented with a dry environment of 65°F @55% RH for 48 hours then drop it to 55°F @63-65% RH for the remaining 13 days. A dry of 15 days are cannabis cup winners. You have to get those AC temps cold to slow it down to dry of 15 days. What we find is that around day 13 the moisture on the outside of the bud becomes dry before the inside which is normal but maybe like 1-2% dryer than what we like to see. In order to fix that, we changed - not the AC temps - but the RH from 60% to 63-65% and it fixed the problem. We wanted the outside of the bud to slow down by .066% per day. To you guys it doesn't matter but for us cannabis cup winners it matters very much.

Tip: You want your dry to last exactly 15 days on the dot, not a day later or a day faster. At the 13th day, our bud moisure % has to measure 17%, day 14 16% and day 15 15%. This is only achieved at 55°F and 63-65% RH.

Biosystems Engineer, Agricultural M.S
Sr. Engineer Medical Technology
Master Grower
Cannabis Cup Winner 2019, 2021

BurnzYzBudZz · Dec 19, 2022

TeW33zy said:
False, your giving bad advice. There are 2 types of drying environments (if the genetics are there in the seed/clone) that will seperate you from rookie, beginner, intermediate, moderate and sometimes even Master level growers to a cannabis cup winner terpene and flavornoid profile. In order to achieve Terpenes and Flavors that allow you to compete and potentially win in cannabis cup competitions u must present your flowers from a level 4 or 5 dry & cure environment. There are only two types of drying environments that will allow you to bring out 97% of the terpene and flavornoid profiles. That's 55-60°F and 60-65% RH but 75% of the cannabis cup winners were presented with a dry environment of 65°F @55% RH for 48 hours then drop it to 55°F @63-65% RH for the remaining 13 days. A dry of 15 days are cannabis cup winners. You have to get those AC temps cold to slow it down to dry of 15 days. What we find is that around day 13 the moisture on the outside of the bud becomes dry before the inside which is normal but maybe like 1-2% dryer than what we like to see. In order to fix that, we changed - not the AC temps - but the RH from 60% to 63-65% and it fixed the problem. We wanted the outside of the bud to slow down by .066% per day. To you guys it doesn't matter but for us cannabis cup winners it matters very much.

Tip: You want your dry to last exactly 15 days on the dot, not a day later or a day faster. At the 13th day, our bud moisure % has to measure 17%, day 14 16% and day 15 15%. This is only achieved at 55°F and 63-65% RH.

Biosystems Engineer, Agricultural M.S
Sr. Engineer Medical Technology
Master Grower
Cannabis Cup Winner 2019, 2021

Cringe, Let’s see those flower pics, master grower. So many ways to skin a cat.

freezeland2 · Dec 20, 2022

BurnzYzBudZz said:
Cringe, Let’s see those flower pics, master grower. So many ways to skin a cat.

I’d like to see them too. And which cannabis cup and what strain(s) were they.

Moshmen · Dec 20, 2022

freezeland2 said:
I’d like to see them too. And what strain(s) were they. I could go look it up but to lazy.

1 st post - cup winner - has to be done like this attitude - doesn’t sound like anyone I’m listening too! Lol if he does post pics they will be copy and paste for sure

freezeland2 · Dec 20, 2022

Moshmen said:
1 st post - cup winner - has to be done like this attitude - doesn’t sound like anyone I’m listening too! Lol if he does post pics they will be copy and paste for sure

Probably so but it will be easily verifiable.

TeW33zy · Dec 25, 2022

Madmax said:
No you shouldnt expect the hay smell .something isnt right how you are drying it.Try trimming your buds and leaving it on the branch..and get the humidity down to say 50%of the whole room and leave the tent open.only time ive got the hay smell is when along time ago jarring it when its not dry..so id guess its because its all confined in the tent with leaves and all with too much humidity.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Smh, why wouldn't you smell when the plant is dumping Chlorophyll out? It's perfectly natural and fine. It goes away on around Day 8-12 dry. I always go 3 days more of dry past the last day I smelt Chlorophyll. If I smelt Chlorophyll on Day 11 and Day 12 the smell went away then I would dry 3 more days at 60°F and 65% RH. This is to ensure all the Chlorophyll is dumped out and gone.

Madmax · Dec 25, 2022

ARE YOU FUCKEN YELLING AT ME COCK...never had the hay smell.merry fucken christmas

brownm30 · Dec 25, 2022

Kushizle said:
My outdoor is low-medium density and my indoor is medium-high density. Outs takes 7-14 days and my ins is minimum 14. My last indoor crop I slow dried over 21 days lol.

That'd be plenty long enough. Is there airflow? Also your sure there is no powder mold or any biological contamination? Outdoor buds are so big and stay moist they are notoriously plagued. You ever use grow bags? Those work somewhat decently once it's dried let it sit for 2 weeks in cure bag and it will be waaay improved. Gotta be your environment or your bud. Eliminate variables as much as possible. Use your brain. If your growing dank your no dummy. And merry Christmas

brownm30 · Dec 25, 2022

TeW33zy said:
False, your giving bad advice. There are 2 types of drying environments (if the genetics are there in the seed/clone) that will seperate you from rookie, beginner, intermediate, moderate and sometimes even Master level growers to a cannabis cup winner terpene and flavornoid profile. In order to achieve Terpenes and Flavors that allow you to compete and potentially win in cannabis cup competitions u must present your flowers from a level 4 or 5 dry & cure environment. There are only two types of drying environments that will allow you to bring out 97% of the terpene and flavornoid profiles. That's 55-60°F and 60-65% RH but 75% of the cannabis cup winners were presented with a dry environment of 65°F @55% RH for 48 hours then drop it to 55°F @63-65% RH for the remaining 13 days. A dry of 15 days are cannabis cup winners. You have to get those AC temps cold to slow it down to dry of 15 days. What we find is that around day 13 the moisture on the outside of the bud becomes dry before the inside which is normal but maybe like 1-2% dryer than what we like to see. In order to fix that, we changed - not the AC temps - but the RH from 60% to 63-65% and it fixed the problem. We wanted the outside of the bud to slow down by .066% per day. To you guys it doesn't matter but for us cannabis cup winners it matters very much.

Tip: You want your dry to last exactly 15 days on the dot, not a day later or a day faster. At the 13th day, our bud moisure % has to measure 17%, day 14 16% and day 15 15%. This is only achieved at 55°F and 63-65% RH.

Biosystems Engineer, Agricultural M.S
Sr. Engineer Medical Technology
Master Grower
Cannabis Cup Winner 2019, 2021

Mic drop

Hay smell when drying - Any actual solutions?

Hay smell when drying - Any actual solutions?

Fuzzydankster

MerryJane22

Fuzzydankster

RippedTorn

BurnzYzBudZz

HOWCan.i.helPYOU?

mancorn

roncruiser

dreamnfox

TeW33zy

MasterWatererJeff

Perrin6363

TeW33zy

BurnzYzBudZz

HOWCan.i.helPYOU?

freezeland2

Moshmen

freezeland2

TeW33zy

Madmax

brownm30

brownm30

Hay smell when drying - Any actual solutions?

Hay smell when drying - Any actual solutions?

Fuzzydankster

MerryJane22

Fuzzydankster

RippedTorn

BurnzYzBudZz

HOWCan.i.helPYOU?

mancorn

roncruiser

dreamnfox

TeW33zy

MasterWatererJeff

Perrin6363

TeW33zy

BurnzYzBudZz

HOWCan.i.helPYOU?

freezeland2

Moshmen

freezeland2

TeW33zy

Madmax

brownm30

brownm30

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