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