You actually dry two things and one isn't even needed. The plant and the oil or gland filled trichs. I guess it's the plant that's the hard part, trichs should dry easily and in more diverse ways. To dry a plant you just let it dry, if you fuck up the trichs are normally ok and it's the plant giving a bad taste.
I don't understand how the cure stops, the plant may stop but oil is a different compound it will always slowly degrade or age. If you seperate into hash you see just how oil cures and the plant doesn't do a whole lot.