Need an old school grower's advice on drying / curing

[jonnynobody]

Back in the day grower's didn't have all the fancy gadgets we have today like mini hygrometers. They had to know when a bud was dry enough to cure by experience. Hand feel and flexibility of the stem. Same with curing. There was no mini hygrometer to help them zero in on the perfect humidity level.

With that said I'm working on improving my dry / cure process. I've been drying too fast and it's affected the burn quality and smoothness of the smoke by locking in too much chlorophyll and starches. This time I've left the buds on the stems with as much stem as possible to slow the dry process down substantially. Once they are crispy on the outside but the big stems still bend and tiny stems snap I've placed them in food safe plastic containers to sweat them out. I crack the containers open in the morning and evening to assess which containers have crispy outsides on the flowers and are ready for resealing. Any containers that have mushy exteriors get vented overnight or through the day. The first strain I dried, sweated, and cured is much better quality than my last cycle. Same strain. It's significantly smoother and it is more potent. The aroma is richer too after cracking the container open after a couple days of storing sealed.

So here's where I need help. When do you consider your flowers dry enough to start the sweat process? How long do you like to sweat them until you clip from the stems for the final cure process? Kind of an off topic question here but still applicable to old school growers. We had a lot of rain recently that's raised the humidity levels through the roof. I have heavy duty dehumidifiers but they give of a lot of heat. Humidity was so dam high the dehumidifier kept cranking. It sure handled the humidity but my flower room got up to 86 degrees F even though it was cold outside. I turned off the dehumidifier and fired up my AC in dehumidify mode and the temp in the flower room dropped to a 69 degree low. I check the density of the flowers twice a day as I approach harvest time. The flowers hardened up over the 12 hours of lights off at 69 degrees. Is this just a coincidence or does lowering the temp during lights off produce a better quality flower? With the dehumidifier running it's regularly 79-82F in the flower room during lights off. I'm wondering how counterproductive this may be? Maybe I should run the AC in dehumidify mode at night to keep temps and humidity under control to produce a better quality flower with more terpenes? It just seems like all that heat can't be a good thing when the plant is supposed to be resting stress free during lights off.

 

[Grojaks]

You’re older school than me I guess. If your buds are drying to fast you have an environment issue that needs fixed. Letting it die on the stems is exactly what you want to avoid. Do you trim as soon as you chop? Leaving most of the leaf on until dry will prolong drying,

Sweating is old school but I’ve never subscribed to that school of thought, why do you want too? I dry, trim and toss my buds in Mason jars that I burn twice a day, nowadays I use Bovida humidity packs for long storage

 

[Rurumo]

You'll get your best results if you can dry them low and slow in a humidity controlled environment. Drying in a big box can help because the humidity will build up in there even if you open up the windows to cool your space off. It can be hard to balance, but if it's 80 degrees in there, it's going to dry fast regardless, even if you hang the entire plant and dry trim. We never used to have mini hygrometers, even now, accurate ones are hard to find, but the results I get by using them are much better than without. You can test your buds to see if they are jar ready by filling up a jar's worth and sticking the hygrometer in there. If the RH is too high, leave the plant to hang another day, then test a fresh set of buds. I had a hard time finding accurate mini hygrometers-the really cheap tiny ones were all totally inaccurate, they don't even match each other. The two inkbird mini hygrometers I have, match each other, my larger one, and my dehumidifier-they have been super accurate and a massive help to me. As long as you get close to hitting your target temps, RH, and drying time, and get the buds in the jars at the right time, your final product should be good.

 

[jonnynobody]

You'll get your best results if you can dry them low and slow in a humidity controlled environment. Drying in a big box can help because the humidity will build up in there even if you open up the windows to cool your space off. It can be hard to balance, but if it's 80 degrees in there, it's going to dry fast regardless, even if you hang the entire plant and dry trim. We never used to have mini hygrometers, even now, accurate ones are hard to find, but the results I get by using them are much better than without. You can test your buds to see if they are jar ready by filling up a jar's worth and sticking the hygrometer in there. If the RH is too high, leave the plant to hang another day, then test a fresh set of buds. I had a hard time finding accurate mini hygrometers-the really cheap tiny ones were all totally inaccurate, they don't even match each other. The two inkbird mini hygrometers I have, match each other, my larger one, and my dehumidifier-they have been super accurate and a massive help to me. As long as you get close to hitting your target temps, RH, and drying time, and get the buds in the jars at the right time, your final product should be good.

Time to invest in some mini hygrometers. Thanks man. I should clarify the high temps were occurring in my flower room for the plants that are still finishing up. When I dropped the temp it seemed like they hardened significantly overnight. My drying area is less than ideal. There's so much negative pressure in my basement due to all my exhaust fans dumping air outside that even with higher humidity the constant airflow seems to dry them fairly quickly. I had a humidity level of 55% and they still were ready for sweating in 3-4 days. I just can't resolve the negative air flow issue. Jonny needs a bigger house to add a drying room

Renfro made a suggestion I'm really digging now that I didn't have an appreciation for at the time he posted it. He has such large harvests there is simply no way he could process it all before half of it would be over dry and trashed. No one can trim that fast. His solution was using rolling tray racks like cookie trays would be stacked up. Once the branches were dry enough to clip off he cut them into sections and stored them in turkey roasting bags. He tossed those mini hygrometers in every bag. Then he and a helper would come back and trim it all at their leisure over a couple months without losing any quality due to over drying. Dude really had the routine down to handle the load he was running. It's neat to see how other growers handle the different problems unique to their garden. I really appreciate all the great info you posted.

 

[inth3shadowz]

Ive gone through about 5 harvests now, and never used a hygrometer once lol. Never seen mold or anything. I follow a method I found, dry until branches BARELY snap, not too dry. Then jar, first week once a day leave open an hour. 2nd week, once a day open 30 min. 3&4th 30 min every other day. Getting some great results. I trim fan leaves and leave sugar on until jarring.

 

[Rurumo]

Ive gone through about 5 harvests now, and never used a hygrometer once lol. Never seen mold or anything. I follow a method I found, dry until branches BARELY snap, not too dry. Then jar, first week once a day leave open an hour. 2nd week, once a day open 30 min. 3&4th 30 min every other day. Getting some great results. I trim fan leaves and leave sugar on until jarring.

I went without them for 25 years, you certainly don't need them, BUT, now that I have them, I wouldn't want to dry without them. Once you start playing around with them, taking notes, trying different things, you'll find the hygrometers really step up your game and give you better and more consistent results.

 

[jonnynobody]

I went without them for 25 years, you certainly don't need them, BUT, now that I have them, I wouldn't want to dry without them. Once you start playing around with them, taking notes, trying different things, you'll find the hygrometers really step up your game and give you better and more consistent results.

I tossed a hygrometer in one of my cure containers with some flower overnight to see what the situation was and it's at 60% this morning. Is 62% the ideal RH for curing? I'm ordering the micro hygrometers today. I had no idea things were getting that dry.

 

[inth3shadowz]

I went without them for 25 years, you certainly don't need them, BUT, now that I have them, I wouldn't want to dry without them. Once you start playing around with them, taking notes, trying different things, you'll find the hygrometers really step up your game and give you better and more consistent results.

I'm sure finding the ideal RH is important, but I think IMO the most overlooked aspect of this whole thing is most people chop wayyy too early. I've seen it all throughout IG and even here. No amount of dry and cure will make shitty grown weed good lol