banereturns said:

Hello from Minnesota. 1st time serious grower, managed to get 9 lusty females average height 11 ft. tall. I've had enough clipping leaves to last a lifetime, but I have some questions about processing. I hope it's allowed, as I have a lot of material from trim that I would like to process into something useful. I grew inside last winter and ended up with a couple ounces of bud, but this summer proved to be very successful; here's a pic:
View attachment 2556014

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Bigalmoby said:

Bowl trimmer best thing ever
Looking good

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Galgrows said:

Lots of work to do still as you now know. Hanging them and drying them stripping all the largest leaves off. I hope your drying area has access to electricity for large fans to move the air you sure don't want any mold and you need some heat about 60-66f . Lots of hash makers here and plenty of ways to make it with small buds. I don't waste my energy and time with trim unless it's got lots of trichomes mixed in it. You have at least 5lbs of weed bud i'm guessing. What do you want to use it for?

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Galgrows said:

Lots of work to do still as you now know. Hanging them and drying them stripping all the largest leaves off. I hope your drying area has access to electricity for large fans to move the air you sure don't want any mold and you need some heat about 60-66f . Lots of hash makers here and plenty of ways to make it with small buds. I don't waste my energy and time with trim unless it's got lots of trichomes mixed in it. You have at least 5lbs of weed bud i'm guessing. What do you want to use it for?

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Bigalmoby said:

Bowl trimmer best thing ever
Looking good

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banereturns said:

Thanks. I wanted to grow weed to flowertops since I was 15, so I can cross it off the bucket list. 4 Foot plants from now on, no higher!

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Galgrows said:

@GNick55 or @Oldchucky maybe they can get you further along i just tagged them for you. These guys make hash. I've got kief from grinding buds but i don't make hash, I should but i don't.

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PlumberSoCal2 said:

If you can adjust temp and humidity in your garage the sweet spot is 60F and 60% humidity. If not it is what it is, like mine. Once you can snap small stems it's time to start curing. Jars, buckets and even large bags will work.

Remove the large fan leaves. Remove the flowers from stems and place them in your curing containers. You don’t need to manicure the flowers at this stage but large fan leaves need to go.

Depending on the moisture still in the flowers the containers will notmally build up some condensation and the reason the containers need to be "burped." It’s an industry term We burp the jars, buckets bags etc by opening and allowing some fresh air in for 5-10 minutes depending on the moisture in the flowers, gently shake up the flowers to reposition them then seal them back up and check again in a few hours.

The first couple days are the most difficult because you don't want them to start molding and why they need to be checked often. Check them often and burp them as needed.

After a couple days you'll only have to do this once a day and then less often as they begin to cure. A couple weeks or a month or 6 months are the normal cure times. The longer the cure the smother the smoke.

This is a learning process. Once you do this a few times you'll learn how the process works and it will become easier, promise.

The idea is to slowly dry the flowers without them becoming moldy or dry and brittle.

Then there's long term storage. I give away a lot and process a lot making hash or coconut oil extract and still dump some in the composter. I've found some that was 1 or 2 years old and no longer tasty even though the clear jars were kept in the garage. Light, heat and air all break down organic matter so try to avoid clear containers.

There are bags on the market that work real well for curing but I don’t have much experience with them as long term storage as the ones I bought will only hold about an ounce. Far too small for my needs but they do work great for smaller amounts.

I'm sure I'm missing a few things and hopefully a few others will chime in. Most of us learned the hard way on curing with moldy buds.

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banereturns said:

Thanks so much! Your instructions have actually given me great relief. So far I've followed your instructions almost perfectly, up to snapping the small stems and storing in 1/2 gallon Mason Jars. I know they are clear, but I keep them in a cabinet and 'burp' them once a day. Having 42 jars to shake & burp every day makes it quite a chore. The buds have been curing for 3 to 4 weeks at the oldest and I finished the last 6 jars yesterday and today. The trim I did was as you said, any leaf with a stem was trimmed prior to hanging, and most of the sugar leaves but I just gave out on the last few branches. I trimmed thousands of leaves. After I started with the jars, I did a final trim and manicure, according to the instructions from the ILGM online growers guide. The plants were grown from seeds I made from crossing a female clone from Black Domina (Indica 95%) with a male plant I grew from a seed from a bud of Candy Cane (Indica 75%). The results are very mild and give an overall mellow buzz. I have a bushel of small buds and loose flowers that I would like to further process. This has been a bit of an experiment so far with surprisingly good results, and I'd like to finish with something worthwhile from the non-jarred material. Butane is not happening here, and same goes for using 190 Proof white lightning; I don't want to really cook butter for 8 hours either. I guess that leaves grind & sift. I have two silk screens and one #20 sieve, so maybe it will work. I guess my main questions are these two things: Do I dry the material in the oven at 160°F to decarboxylate first? What can I do with the 'sift' material once I have it collected? I appreciate anyone chiming in for this first timer.

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PlumberSoCal2 said:

You're doing great but sounds to me like it's time to invest in some 3-5 gallons buckets. Makes life easier. For small plants I use the large Folgers coffee plastic containers as well as any large coffee container. Buckets are the way to go, just don't over fill 2/3 - 3/4 full on any container, including bags. Sorry I forgot that one but I'm OLD. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Thoughts on buckets: I always use food grade which are not cheap but donut shops usually give away or charge a bucket or two for used buckets and lids. They go through a lot and have nowhere to store them. And if you ever get an itch to try growing in say a Dutch Bucket set up you've already got plenty of buckets, but 5 gallon minimum on that project I believe.

There's a WEALTH of knowledge on these pages. Use the search function and read to your hearts delight. And keep asking questions and start a grow diary.

AND there's no better place than the Farm to chat with others who are seeking the same when family and friends can't understand our passion

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cpurola said:

I recommend dry sifting first then decarbing the hash.
I do the decarbing in 4 oz. jelly jars. I put the open jars in the oven at 230F for half and hour, add butter, make cookies.
(had my cookie a little while ago. LOL)

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banereturns said:

Thanks so much! Your instructions have actually given me great relief. So far I've followed your instructions almost perfectly, up to snapping the small stems and storing in 1/2 gallon Mason Jars. I know they are clear, but I keep them in a cabinet and 'burp' them once a day. Having 42 jars to shake & burp every day makes it quite a chore. The buds have been curing for 3 to 4 weeks at the oldest and I finished the last 6 jars yesterday and today. The trim I did was as you said, any leaf with a stem was trimmed prior to hanging, and most of the sugar leaves but I just gave out on the last few branches. I trimmed thousands of leaves. After I started with the jars, I did a final trim and manicure, according to the instructions from the ILGM online growers guide. The plants were grown from seeds I made from crossing a female clone from Black Domina (Indica 95%) with a male plant I grew from a seed from a bud of Candy Cane (Indica 75%). The results are very mild and give an overall mellow buzz. I have a bushel of small buds and loose flowers that I would like to further process. This has been a bit of an experiment so far with surprisingly good results, and I'd like to finish with something worthwhile from the non-jarred material. Butane is not happening here, and same goes for using 190 Proof white lightning; I don't want to really cook butter for 8 hours either. I guess that leaves grind & sift. I have two silk screens and one #20 sieve, so maybe it will work. I guess my main questions are these two things: Do I dry the material in the oven at 160°F to decarboxylate first? What can I do with the 'sift' material once I have it collected? I appreciate anyone chiming in for this first timer.

Click to expand...