nice bro. yea, kinda hard to any monday blues down here.
it's the other way around for me. way too much humidity. i have a seperate tent and dehu here at the house just for drying and curing. i usually keep the temp around 75 and the humidity at 50% for drying? what do you think is ideal temp/humidity? seems to be a big debate. i like to slow cure but for drying it usually takes me about 7 days at 50%.
You are so nice to let your girls out to stretch their branches and sun themselves...That'll make for some happy buds.
As far as the whole fast / slow dry and cure issue, I see it as this:
The combinations of fast dry, long cure and slow dry and shorter cure are in my opinion, six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Either one, if instituted correctly, can produce superior results.
In the world of dehydration, the quicker you dry something, the more of the properties and qualities of the product being preserved is kept. With Mj that is good to a point. If you dry too quickly and thoroughly, you preserve things like chlorophyll which is one thing you don't want in your smoke. That is where your cure comes into play. Curing is nothing more than controlled decomposition. Many things that we enjoy consuming in life are subjected to controlled decomposition such as wine, beer, cigars, cheese, beef, etc. and Mj depends on the curing of it's flowers to become something nice and plesant.
If you are drying in an environment that has a relative humidity of 50% or greater, you are slow drying, and slow drying to me is drying and curing at the same time as the plant matter begins to break down while hanging and once your buds are to a level of dryness, you continue the curing process in humidors until it turns into something that YOU like.
Personally, I think that the drying should be at least slowed down to 5 days so that the chlorophyll and starches can begin to break down and as much of essential oils are retained in the bud and to me, slow dried and cured bud has always been a little smoother smoke.
I try and keep the humidity in my jars at around 50 - 55% for as long as possible. My smoking buds are usually around 25 to 30% moisture and all I know is my friends and family like what is produced and that is what counts...and it all boils down to TIME... Regardless of the steps taken...the longer the cure, the better your smoke will be.
Edit: One thing is decaroboxylation only occurs in an anerobic environment so I have always wondered if you were to use CO2 or N2 in your jars, if that would speed up the process at all and affect your end result in a good ar bad way.
View attachment 2221952
View attachment 2221955
