I always wait until the seeds start falling out on their own.
Kudos on making your own seeds. I'm a big proponent of making your own. It's not hard.
Now that you've realized how easy it is I bet you have some crosses you want to make. My advice is to get some landraces and make your own hybrid.
Have fun with it. There's nothing wrong with running through different crosses and not making clones or saving seeds. You might find something great but something else will come along soon.
There are hundreds of plants I wish I had taken clones of but everytime I grow a batch of seeds I find something else just as good. Once you get some good strains going it's fairly easy to make the same level of quality on seed runs and crosses.
I know this is an old thread, but I hope you will see this.
A question for you- I am making my own seeds currently. I’ve had the plants on 12/12 lights for 4 weeks and I just removed the male (poor guy) and now the females will finish up their duty. They are packed!
Q: What lighting schedule would you recommend while the females are creating their seeds?
Thank you in advance.