Buds Drying Too Fast, Smells Like Hay... Help!

jsteezy1290 said:

leave the shit hanging until the stem snaps when you break it but its all up to the way you want your weed, if you want it soft then put them in the jars when the stem still bends, no one can tell you how you want it we can only lead you in the right direction which is put them in jars to cure

Click to expand...

Mikey Hustle said:

I feel your pain FireCoral. I had this SAME EXACT PROBLEM as you did. My strain was White Widow from a very reputable club in the Bay Area.

In my 1st grow, I thought it was the nutes also. So my 2nd grow I only fed them PH water, nothing else. And I got the same result. (except much less yield)

I was stumped like you. I was too embarrassed to GIVE it to my buddies.

But then the 3rd grow. I bought a bag of peralite, and added 1/3 of peralite to my Fox Farm Ocean. (2/3 fox farm, 1/3 peralite). I was able to actully have water run thru the pots WITHOUT over watering them.

I also was VERY serious about the curing. Bought appx 40 tall jelly jars from walmart. And I put an oz in each. 3 weeks later I actually had bud that was good, and it smelled good too.

Unfortunatly it still doesnt have that KICK that I expected from White Widow. But everyone loves it.

I still thought I hadnt done all I could do.. Until I visited a few MJ clubs in the area, and the White Widow they sold looked JUST LIKE MINE. Except it smelt like wet ass hay. So now Im guessing its the strain.

Im curious... Whats the strain in question? I read all posts, but didnt come up on the strain.

Mike

Click to expand...

Drio said:

Curing is absolutely essential.

Normally my weed smells like hey until 3rd week of curing.

And if i want it to be tasty it needs months.

Click to expand...

ink the world said:

I had the same problem w/ the hay smell for a few grows. I finally have it beat.
I think one of the problems is that there are no real set times as far as drying and curing goes. Ive found through my experience bud density, temp, humidity all play a part in the process.

Heres what I now do to dry and cure.

1. At harvest I leave the buds on the main stocks, it helps protect against too quick of a dry. I do a good trim on all buds but leave a little bit of the smaller leaves.
Discard all fan leaves, save smaller trimmed leves and small buds for hash making.

2. I hang the stocks from clothes hangars in my grow room above the light. Air is moving, but there is no direct fan on the drying buds. The trimmed small buds and leaves are placed in a paper bag to dry.

3. After 3-4 days I start paying alot of attention to the hanging buds. I'm looking for the outside of the bud to be crispy, but the inside to still have some moisture. I make sure I pull them before the entire bud gets crisp, thats where for me the key is. If you wait too long and the buds get crisp throughout, the bud dosent cure to its full potential.

4. Once the buds are at the stage I want them, I place them into plastic Ziploc containers. I leave the buds covered for 12 hours and then open it and check. If the outer part of the bud is damp at all I leave the container open for 12 hours. They then stay closed and sealed for 6-7 days with an opening and rotating of the buds every day.
After the 7 days I take a sample and go from there.

Click to expand...

FireCoral said:

Thanks! This really reassures me. I'm 3 weeks into curing now. Maybe I'll go open them up in a few and see how they've been doing.




Thanks for the info! This sounds very similar to what I was going to try next time. But I was thinking it would be faster to try 2 different methods by splitting the harvest in half instead of trying only 1 thing per harvest. So, I was thinking I would try half on hangers and half in a paper bag. Since you have experience with the paper bag method, can you tell me what to expect? All I know about it is what I read online, and we see how far that got me with reading about the hang-drying method How well do bigger buds fare in the bag? Do you use the same dry-outside/moist-inside method of checking when it's time to cure? TIA

Click to expand...

FireCoral said:

I'm a newbie here and basically a newbie to growing. But I do my research before I attempt anything. So I'm in dire need of help that I can't Google.

This is my second harvest, but I had the same problem both times. The buds are drying extremely fast, which is odd considering the repulsively humid climate I live in.

This is what I've been doing:

First/Second time: manicured before hanging, hung single branches on string in a cardboard box with 2 out of 4 sides almost completely cut out for ventilation.

First time: went into dark closet at about 75f with no ventilation and no fan.

Second time: went into a different dark closet at about 82f with plenty of ventilation and a nice breeze from a fan

First time: bud dried in about 5 days

Second time: bud dried in 3 days

Yes, 3 days! I'm very disappointed. I walked in my house after work today to the nasty smell of hay and ran right for the closet to check. Thankfully some of my kola buds and still damp, but I want to salvage them if possible. I don't like smoking weed that smells like hay >_<

Now, I know the first thing you're going to tell me is to put them somewhere colder (65f-75f) which is not possible for me. I live in a wretchedly hot and humid state. I pay the electric company plenty to get my house to 78f. Unfortunately, the closets don't get as cool, even if I leave the doors open.

I have a feeling the heat is what's causing the quick drying, but I would think the RH in the house would more than make up for that. I don't have a humidity gauge, but let's just says during "winter" (which is right now) it's about 85f outside and about 90% humidity. So inside, I'd guess the humidity is about 70-80%.

My questions are:

1. If it's not the heat that's causing the quick drying, what do you suppose it might be?

2. Is there a method I can use that will make the buds dry slower?

3. Does the drying time actually affect the quality of the buds? Or should I be happy they're drying fast and go straight to curing?

4. I read somewhere to not water 2 days prior to harvesting; is this recommended? Would that explain the short drying time?

5. I have a minifridge I was planning on curing in. I haven't tested the temp yet, but I'm crossing my fingers that it will be the ideal curing temp if I adjust the air. If I can get this to the ideal drying temp, do you think brown-bag drying would be a better route?

Note: I'm going for quality here, so please refrain from posting answers that have to do with keeping my buds "heavy" or suggesting that I should be happy they're drying fast so I can smoke it sooner. This weed is for me, not for sale! And I want it to be fantastic.

Thanks in advance for your input!!

Click to expand...

theherbalistspecialist said:

Maybe next time try water curing a little bit of your harvest to see if you like that better

Click to expand...

ink the world said:

I dont put the bigger buds in the bags usually. Ive found that the buds dry faster in the paper bags, can make the finished product a little bit harsher. I only throw the larger buds in a bag if they are taking way too long drying while they hang. That doesnt happen often, but if its humid it does happen sometimes.

Click to expand...

dool said:

i use boveda moisture packs to add a little moisture to buds that have dried to fast .. they work awesome and your bud will feel perfect and smell better after only two days.

Click to expand...

FireCoral said:

Yeah, I think you're onto something there. Shortly after I posted to this the last time, someone I gave some clones to had the SAME problem. He has a different setup and has been doing this much longer than I have. So I figure his expertise should have avoided this problem, but no. After trying his, I determined it's probably just the strain and not me! Oh, and the strain in question is White Satin. So maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's a white strain since your problem was with White Widow.

I've actually already decided a few days ago on switching soil to FF Ocean in my next grow, whenever I can get to the store and get some and was planning on picking up some perlite as well. So this is good news, maybe the plants that go in that will turn out better. I was using MG before, so that goes without saying that it could have a lot to do with the PH in the soil.

Click to expand...

Mikey Hustle said:

The grow im doing right now (GDP) really shed some light on the Miracle Grow. I transferred them from the 5" pots, to the 12' pots. But heres the kicker.

1 1/2 month old GDP in 5" pots weak root growth (they were in Miracle Grow)

3 week old GDP in 5" pots ENORMOUS root growth (they were in Fox Farm Ocean)

I know this thread isnt about soil. Just wanted to toss that in. Also both sets of plants lived in the same room. So the conditions were the same.

Click to expand...

FireCoral said:

I actually just looked this up and I'm definitely gonna try it with some of my next harvest. Thanks for the suggestion +rep



Cool! Thanks for the info



Well, that's one reason I was confused about this. I live in a humid area. My humidity levels are actually too high for drying/curing and I haven't had the money to get a dehumidifier yet. So, even though I already have a ton a humidity, they were still drying within 2 days, and I couldn't figure out why. But I've come to realize that since my strain has smaller buds it will dry a little quick, and as others said, it's not written in stone about the drying times. So I'm thinking of hanging by the stalks next time instead of by the branch, and I'm going t give them a little less airflow. Also, I'm going to try this water curing method since final weight of the bud isn't important to me. Thanks for the suggestion though

Click to expand...