Curing for only 1 week?

[Mr Lizard]

If it was the start of winter and I hung plants to dry in my tin roof garage. I would be waiting 12-16 weeks for a proper dry. I just hang them inside where it's warm in winter or in the shed in summer. When the branches "snap" properly and don't have that flex anymore then I'll trim and cut up. I've been doing it for 35 years and it seems to work

 

[hawse]

Good advice here... I basically do the same thing - I hang the whole plant upside down for a couple of days, then cut the side branches off the bigger stalks and hang those for a few days - then eventually when it's ready cut those into smaller "sticks" that I'll keep rolled up in a piece of brown paper until it's eventually stable in the jars with a little hygrometer... Takes around 7-10 days unless it was a crappy grow and fluffy buds and then it dries a lot quicker lol. If it doesn't smoke good at that point you screwed up somewhere along the line... Yes it gets better over time though...

 

[Frank Nitty]

I go with the shoebox method... Same as the paper bag... I don't cut and hang anymore...

 

[Frank Nitty]

 

[CoB_nUt]

@OP there are other visual clues as to when your drying bud is nearing it's ideal moisture stage. I'll drop one.

1 clue is the stems/branches will have a slight yellow tinge to them.....the bright green has begun to fade. I've found it most times,to run concurrent with the crispness of the outer buds that still have SOME sponginess to them,environment dependant,this is when I paper bag mine in the summer months.

@Thundercat ,I appreciate your demeanor and candor when challenged. Says a lot about the man.

 

[Frank Nitty]

Lol dude you are just looking for something to fight about man and I'm not gonna do it. I offered my suggestion to the OP about how I do things based on my experience (several others chimed in that they do the same things with awesome results). So we offered the OP advice to help him improve his process. You trying to fight with me and throw shade is not contributing to the thread.

You call it what you want, it's cool, you do you bud.

You handled that with class...

 

[Thundercat]

You handled that with class...

@Thundercat ,I appreciate your demeanor and candor when challenged. Says a lot about the man.

Thanks guys. I’ve been around this site for a lot of years, and would like to think I’ve learned a few things about how to interact with all sorts of people. I was telling my wife the other day that this has also definitely helped me improve my social interactions in life too .

 

[DaFreak]

All sorts of people? Dude you are "those sorts of people." Just saying.

 

[Frank Nitty]

All sorts of people? Dude you are "those sorts of people." Just saying.

Shoo fly!!!

 

[Home Grow Hype-Girl]

For what it's worth, I recently did an experiment and collected samples at various points in time during the cure, and put them in the freezer in vacuum sealed sous vide bags.
Samples were all taken from the same plant and were curing in jars a very strict environment of 70 degrees at exactly 62% humidity.

It started off with a typical 5 day hang dry. After that, buds were trimmed and jarred.
Samples were removed from the jars, placed into sous vide plastic bags and vacuum sealed and immediately placed into my garage freezer inside of a cardboard box.
I took samples at the following intervals once in the jars:

- 2 Weeks
- 4 Weeks
- 6 Weeks
- 8 Weeks
- 12 Weeks
- 16 Weeks
- 24 Weeks

I then passed out samples to all of my friends and it was pretty unanimous. Here were the results:

There was no noticeable difference between the 2 week and 4 week samples. Visually, the samples looked great still. The taste was good, but not complex.

There was a noticeable difference with the 6 week samples. Visually, the samples still looked very fresh and had not begun to darken. The taste was noticeably different, however. More complex. More refined. It was also a bit stronger.

There was not much of a difference between the 6 week and 8 week samples. One person reported an additional bump in the taste complexity but I screwed up and he knew what he was sampling so I don't count his review.

The 12 week sample was noticeably different from the 8 week. It no longer had that nice visual freshness. It was considerably darker and, while still looking great, it did not look as nice as the others. The taste was only marginally different but the inhale was noticeably smoother.

The 16 and 24 week samples continued to show declines in appearance and smell. These no longer had the bag appeal and the nose just wasn't there any more. No real improvements in taste.

My conclusions:
A 6 to 8 week cure is optimum without sacrificing appearance.

My 2 cents

I write a grow journal for Boveda Cannabis and have been using them for curing, storage, and rehydration if necessary. I wonder if they would have made any difference. Humidity control at the correct RH level for the product does make a difference and that sweet spot is different for Cannabis, cigars, guitars. Sounds like an interesting personal experiment.

 

[Frank Nitty]

I write a grow journal for Boveda Cannabis and have been using them for curing, storage, and rehydration if necessary. I wonder if they would have made any difference. Humidity control at the correct RH level for the product does make a difference and that sweet spot is different for Cannabis, cigars, guitars. Sounds like an interesting personal experiment.

Oh oh!!! Sounds like somebody's going to get the hookup!!!

 

[DaFreak]

I have grown strains that do not benefit from a cure before and are best right after it’s dry, and strains that are best after a few months cure. The later are the strains I consider superior with better taste and smoother smoke and the previous being ok, but not keepers. If anybody is growing a strain that doesn’t get better with a cure I’ll throw out there that it’s probably not worth keeping.

 

[raggyb]

For what it's worth, I recently did an experiment and collected samples at various points in time during the cure, and put them in the freezer in vacuum sealed sous vide bags.
Samples were all taken from the same plant and were curing in jars a very strict environment of 70 degrees at exactly 62% humidity.

It started off with a typical 5 day hang dry. After that, buds were trimmed and jarred.
Samples were removed from the jars, placed into sous vide plastic bags and vacuum sealed and immediately placed into my garage freezer inside of a cardboard box.
I took samples at the following intervals once in the jars:

- 2 Weeks
- 4 Weeks
- 6 Weeks
- 8 Weeks
- 12 Weeks
- 16 Weeks
- 24 Weeks

I then passed out samples to all of my friends and it was pretty unanimous. Here were the results:

There was no noticeable difference between the 2 week and 4 week samples. Visually, the samples looked great still. The taste was good, but not complex.

There was a noticeable difference with the 6 week samples. Visually, the samples still looked very fresh and had not begun to darken. The taste was noticeably different, however. More complex. More refined. It was also a bit stronger.

There was not much of a difference between the 6 week and 8 week samples. One person reported an additional bump in the taste complexity but I screwed up and he knew what he was sampling so I don't count his review.

The 12 week sample was noticeably different from the 8 week. It no longer had that nice visual freshness. It was considerably darker and, while still looking great, it did not look as nice as the others. The taste was only marginally different but the inhale was noticeably smoother.

The 16 and 24 week samples continued to show declines in appearance and smell. These no longer had the bag appeal and the nose just wasn't there any more. No real improvements in taste.

My conclusions:
A 6 to 8 week cure is optimum without sacrificing appearance.

My 2 cents

I'd be catatonic on the floor after this test lol.

 

[growmikegrow]

For what it's worth, I recently did an experiment and collected samples at various points in time during the cure, and put them in the freezer in vacuum sealed sous vide bags.
Samples were all taken from the same plant and were curing in jars a very strict environment of 70 degrees at exactly 62% humidity.

It started off with a typical 5 day hang dry. After that, buds were trimmed and jarred.
Samples were removed from the jars, placed into sous vide plastic bags and vacuum sealed and immediately placed into my garage freezer inside of a cardboard box.
I took samples at the following intervals once in the jars:

- 2 Weeks
- 4 Weeks
- 6 Weeks
- 8 Weeks
- 12 Weeks
- 16 Weeks
- 24 Weeks

I then passed out samples to all of my friends and it was pretty unanimous. Here were the results:

There was no noticeable difference between the 2 week and 4 week samples. Visually, the samples looked great still. The taste was good, but not complex.

There was a noticeable difference with the 6 week samples. Visually, the samples still looked very fresh and had not begun to darken. The taste was noticeably different, however. More complex. More refined. It was also a bit stronger.

There was not much of a difference between the 6 week and 8 week samples. One person reported an additional bump in the taste complexity but I screwed up and he knew what he was sampling so I don't count his review.

The 12 week sample was noticeably different from the 8 week. It no longer had that nice visual freshness. It was considerably darker and, while still looking great, it did not look as nice as the others. The taste was only marginally different but the inhale was noticeably smoother.

The 16 and 24 week samples continued to show declines in appearance and smell. These no longer had the bag appeal and the nose just wasn't there any more. No real improvements in taste.

My conclusions:
A 6 to 8 week cure is optimum without sacrificing appearance.

My 2 cents

you should do the same but not freeze the stuff it would cure much better i would think freezing it would keep it in present state

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I'd be catatonic on the floor after this test lol.

The final tests were done over a whole weekend

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

you should do the same but not freeze the stuff it would cure much better i would think freezing it would keep it in present state

Going back and reading my original explanation, perhaps it was not clear.
Jars were held, with Boveda packs, at exactly 62%. After 2 weeks, a few buds were removed, placed into bags that were then vaccum sealed and frozen. Then another sample was removed from the jars at 4 weeks, etc. The curing was not being done in a frozen environment. The purpose for the samples moving to the freezer was to hold them at whatever age they were when they were pulled.

 

[DaFreak]

Damn, cudos, mich more controlled than I would have imagined.

 

[puffdatchronic]

Why make a thread about it..you already know you don't care and are gonna smoke it anyway.. you need permission off the pot snobs or something? Fyi I start blazing mine as soon as is physically possible and it cures over time. As long as I'm high I also don't really care. I find though you get plenty of good flavour right off the bat when using a vape.

 

[DaFreak]

If there is something worth being a snob about I think pot is it. Preferred smoke is still a joint, but I don't discriminate.

 

[madvillian420]

Yep, drying and curing is the #1 noobs fuck up their harvest. They usually dry poorly and then try to rescue hay smelling flowers by sweating them out in jars for months and burping them daily.

Good weed grown and dried properly tastes great with no cure. Jars dont need to be burped if you put flowers in when they are actually dry to appropriate moisture content.

This sounds EXACTLY like what im doing. What should i do to save my harvest? i dried for about 5-6 days, (low RH, about 35-40%) then trimmed and jarred my nug about a week ago. Ive also kept the jars open for a few hours a couple times. Ive been burping and sampling daily by vape and smoking and so far the herb is burning kinda funny and doesnt taste so great. One strain does have a bit of hay smell and the other smells dank so far.