Hang the whole plant untrimed , so that it will slow dry. Only dry until the stem snaps , & then jar cure for 3 months.

sun said:

Hang the whole plant untrimed , so that it will slow dry. Only dry until the stem snaps , & then jar cure for 3 months.

Click to expand...

wow 3 months?? i wasnt expecting that

3 months is a good long cure , but not nesesary.The slower you dry it the less of a cure you will need.

sun said:

3 months is a good long cure , but not nesesary.The slower you dry it the less of a cure you will need.

Click to expand...

how do you control how you dry? i think this is where I am doing something wrong

/www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/why-i-trim-dry-now-dont-believe-the-hype.52585/

I have always just hung them in a dark room with polysheild ,sometimes with a little fan .Mabey someone could tell you about ideal temp and humidity.

You need to control the humidity and temperature in your drying area. I prefer to dry at 68deg or lower with 50-55% RH. Takes about 5 days to a week to be ready for jars.

KingMe1203 said:

Hi, i have dropped two times. Both times my product game to be garbage

First time i used a trimmer, the nugs looked good, but the weed was str8 garbage. I used a trimmer, and than used Curing Nets.

second time i hung, than trimmed, and after curing, if u touch the nug, it basically turns into shake.

What am I doing Wrong?? what is the best way to dry/cure. I am not using a trimmer anymore. Should I trip first, or trim after. Should i hang off a thread or should i use a curing net?? please i need help.

Click to expand...

You're not monitoring relative humidity. Drying, which I do as a whole plant or large branches (sometimes really thick stuff just needs to be broken up, otherwise, read on), my goal is to make drying take about a week to ten days. I've found that most varieties do best in a relative humidity drying environment of 50% or so. Air movement is fairly crucial, IMO, but it shouldn't be hitting the product itself. Cooler is better, too.


Remember--DRYING should never be too fast or too slow--going too fast means big loss of smell (probably terpenes..? I don't know, something happens) and too slow risks mold.

Curing is where the good stuff happens, where the smells really develop and relative humidity evens out throughout the product. I do this as whole as possible, but often 'debone' the plant and put that into bins (I'm primarily an OD grower) and those may go into a dark room where I can better control RH. For curing, I want it in the 60%-65% range, and 1mo is a minimum in my world, 2mos is pretty darn good.

When you touch the product and it turns to shake, that means you've let it get far too dry. If it molds, it's too wet. Get a monitor and watch what happens. Depending on your local conditions, you may need to add or remove humidity. Always use air movement (different from ventilation, just use circulation). Some folks live in areas where they'd better be using filtration for the drying/curing areas!

Once it's all done, trim at your leisure.

Seamaiden said:

Air movement is fairly crucial, IMO, but it shouldn't be hitting the product itself. Cooler is better, too.

Click to expand...

Golden advice here. Movement discourages mold, but direct flow onto the product will encourage evaporation.

Remember--DRYING should never be too fast or too slow--going too fast means big loss of smell (probably terpenes..? I don't know, something happens)

Click to expand...

That's correct Sea, the terpenes are volatile compounds and evaporate much more quickly than water under the right conditions. Many are held within the bud structure--but if conditions for evaporation are favorable enough you will lose these, too. Terpenes are responsible for most of the smells the plant gives off, especially the more pungent ones.

Curing is where the good stuff happens, where the smells really develop and relative humidity evens out throughout the product. I do this as whole as possible, but often 'debone' the plant and put that into bins (I'm primarily an OD grower) and those may go into a dark room where I can better control RH. For curing, I want it in the 60%-65% range, and 1mo is a minimum in my world, 2mos is pretty darn good.

When you touch the product and it turns to shake, that means you've let it get far too dry. If it molds, it's too wet. Get a monitor and watch what happens. Depending on your local conditions, you may need to add or remove humidity. Always use air movement (different from ventilation, just use circulation). Some folks live in areas where they'd better be using filtration for the drying/curing areas!

Once it's all done, trim at your leisure.

Click to expand...

After seeing the new cannabis vault product that someone posted on here (and being familiar with the humidipaks/bovedas for my cigar storage) this is now the product I am going to recommend when beginners have issues curing. They have hygrometers there on the site as well and I believe the prices overall are very reasonable--especially when compared with the rest of "canna" industry and their markups.

As for the drying, it really comes from a lot of reading and a lot of experience. You will destroy your first grow or two not putting enough effort and planning into this process. For most people this is enough to motivate them to fix the problem.

You need to treat your environment control as anally for the drying/curing process as you do for growing the fuckers. Same deal, different values (and no light).

Get the temp down a little lower (easy without lights) and bring the RH up to 50-55%.

The best method I've found for knowing when to jar them is by just placing them in a jar with a hygrometer. If it goes over 68%--you need to dry them more.

Below 68% most molds will be outside of their comfort zone--if you use the humidipacks/cannavault they should bring down 68 to 65 (or whatever its "set" at) fairly easily.

You will over work the packs, however, if you try to put in something 10-15% out of the range you are trying to maintain. The packs work best when used to maintain rather than change (in either direction) humidity values.

What size yields are you getting, if you don't mind my asking? I have several solutions to offer for drying but they all depend on how much material you've got to deal with.

Either way the smaller the space you are working with--the easier it is to control the environment, so keep that in mind.

I also recommend that you trim after the hang dry--before putting into jars. Trimming wet causes a lot of damage in my experience. Remove the foliage that is easy to get to before hanging--but leave the precise work until they've dried up some.

If drying in a cramped space would it be better to have oscillating fans that blow on the product due to lack of space or just a carbon filter and dehumidifier and have that be all the air movement needed.

I noticed a lack of smell on my last run which puzzled me. Reading that direct airflow can cause terpenes to evaporate and reduce smell may explain this. My drying room was very very cramped and to get any air movement (minus the carbon filter and dehum) the fans were hitting the nugs.

back in old days in overgrow some dudes sujest water curing , if eny body use that metod pls explayn base point . p.s sory for my english i am from esern erop :)

Im putting together a drying room and was brainstorming ideas for what it will be constructed out of no positive what wiuld be the best, cedar, greenboard, plywood, pine ... Apprrciate any input

mazar111 said:

back in old days in overgrow some dudes sujest water curing , if eny body use that metod pls explayn base point . p.s sory for my english i am from esern erop :)

Click to expand...

Been there, done that, and the resulting product was horrible. If you've got good weed, DON'T water cure it!

Basically, the method is this: Harvest, debone, get it into water ASAP. Keep changing the water daily, if I recall you go a week or so. Then drain, and hang to dry. Once dry you're supposed to have a cured product. I disagree.

my point about water curing is when cut plant THC slowly came to degradet - enemy nomber one of THC is Hlorofil . when plant dry swoly in dark room in 8-10 degrees C for 1-2 week hlorofil not have chance to destroy to much but small part will .when use water curing all hlorofill go to water and water came green , i think that maybe hlorofil never have chance to destroy any part of THC and other canabinoids and terpents .... .SAMEIDEN i think you point maybe is right about end produkt maybe smell and teist come strange and funky but my point is about high ?

p.s english for me is to difficult sory for stupid mistakes

No worries, your English is better than my any-other-language.

I have to be truthful--I smoke too much on a daily basis to really be able to talk about one strain's high versus another, or differences besides what I can taste and smell immediately. But I will tell you this! No one, absolutely NO ONE liked that water-cured stuff. So, I threw it out.

I also think that we don't know enough about the compounds, water-soluble and otherwise (*I* don't know enough about them for sure) to be able to easily explain what's happening when we change things like going from air curing to water curing. I wish I could tell you more than what I observed and experienced, but I'm afraid that's where I've hit the limit.

tnx

Yeah....it is 2013, not 2003. The days of hanging a plant and trimming the weed dry with scissors for DAYS is over. Time to wake up everyone.

Get a Trim Pro Rotor. I just wrapped up a 5 1/2 lb trim in 2 days....SOLO. If you still use clippers or (worse) a "trim Crew" it is really time to get with it. A Trim Pro Rotor allows you to trim it DEAD WET as it is being clipped down. 24-48 hrs on a dry rack then into bags. From there it takes about a week of burping to get stable.

Faster...more accurate trim...less labor...no trim crews...no harvest information needed to be shared...CONSISTENT MOISTURE IN BUDS...stellar sugar trim for extracts. A complete no brainer.

Seriously. The days of hanging a plant and clipping by hand ARE OVER.

Peace.

PotDragon said:

Yeah....it is 2013, not 2003. The days of hanging a plant and trimming the weed dry with scissors for DAYS is over. Time to wake up everyone.

Get a Trim Pro Rotor. I just wrapped up a 5 1/2 lb trim in 2 days....SOLO. If you still use clippers or (worse) a "trim Crew" it is really time to get with it. A Trim Pro Rotor allows you to trim it DEAD WET as it is being clipped down. 24-48 hrs on a dry rack then into bags. From there it takes about a week of burping to get stable.

Faster...more accurate trim...less labor...no trim crews...no harvest information needed to be shared...CONSISTENT MOISTURE IN BUDS...stellar sugar trim for extracts. A complete no brainer.

Seriously. The days of hanging a plant and clipping by hand ARE OVER.

Peace.

Click to expand...

For people who have $1500 to spare. Lol.

so much good info on this thread!