I use these as well. They work GREAT.
The only possible downside is some people think that it tends to leech some of the smell from the jar, which I think in time I have noticed as well. But honestly, the difference in smell is very minimal, and your buds will still taste great. I don't think it causes any difference in taste, it may even just be the presence of the humidity pack materials and the salts in there mixing with the smell of the buds. But regardless, even with this tiny downside to the boveda's, they will keep your buds at the perfect humidity and give the best smoke with just perfectly burning buds. The upsides to boveda's FAR outweigh the tiny possible effect where it seems to leech a bit of smell. You wont regret it.
That being said, I wouldn't pick your buds off once dry and plop them right in with the boveda pack quite yet. Stick them in a jar with a small humidity meter (pet store, 10 bucks), seal it, and let them sit in there while watching that humidity meter for a little while.
1.If the meter goes above 62% pretty quickly (like 30 minutes?), keep drying them a bit more.
2.If you jar your buds and humidity very steadily rises and after a longer period of time (hour+) you see it has gone above 62%, burp the jar. (open it, shake the buds around and let it sit to get dryer air in the jar for 5-30 minutes, depending on how quickly the humidity meter rose.) Then reseal it and repeat this process until the humidity gauge never goes above 62%. At this point you can stop burping, but this could be days of this process. This is the ideal way to cure your buds, and if you can dry to this perfect point (which for me seems to be just before the stem crack, although this can be very difficult to gauge) and jar just at the right time there honestly is no better way to cure your buds, and you wont need to stick a boveda pack in until you take buds out enough to smoke that the humidity starts dropping well below 60% or so. THEN you can stick a boveda pack in and it is helpful for longevity of your buds.
3. On the other hand, let's face it, things don't always work out so perfectly and you might jar your buds to find the humidity never rises above 62%. this means you have over dried. But the closer your humidity reads to 62% after letting them sit in the jar for a couple days, the less of a deal this is. Honestly, if you pull right when the stem cracks, this is likely to happen, but it won't really be severe enough to make much of a difference. It's not a bad method. And regardless, this is when boveda packs are REALLY helpful. If you over dry a bit, just pop a boveda pack in and seal the jar and they will get re-hydrated in one to 3 days or so. The smoke will be just as good as the perfectly cured buds, but you might have lost just a bit of flavor and potency from over drying. Not much though, I over dried to 45% this last grow, stuck a boveda pack in, and these buds are still amazing. Initially they were a bit harsh form over drying (and lack of cure I guess), but after a few days with the boveda they smoked great.
More people need to know about using bovedas. I sware 99% of the weed you get out there, by the time it gets to you at least, is WAY over dried and as a result becomes really harsh. All that people need to do is go out and buy a 5$ boveda pack and keep their buds in with that. I don't understand why every bag you go pick up is dried to absolute f*&%ing shit unless it was just picked off the plant. So ah... spread the word I guess. Lol.
