How do I make a drying closet with the best conditions? what are the best conditions?

wazooboo

Active Member
I have harvested about 4 or 5 times and I grow indoor with hydroponics. The only harvest that came out with a good flavor and a smooth burn was the first one, which was the blue dream I grew. I'm currently flowering another blue dream at 12/12 from seed. Everytime I grow weed the buds on the plant while it's flowering smell dank as fuck, look huge and get my fingers super sticky. I flush with florakleen for four days while I wait for the trichomes to get cloudy and then I harvest. For the first few hours my weed smells good, then it starts to smell like hay, after a few days the harvest looks like a fraction of what it's supposed to look like, I'm keeping the fact that it's losing water weight/mass in mind. The buds get really crunchy/nasty smelling within 4 days but the stems don't snap, they're still moist... I tried putting a leaf from a fresh plant into a jar and threw the buds in there. It restored the humidity but the quality of the smoke is still poor. I've been curing for 8 days now and the smell is smelling less like chlorophyll but the taste is not getting better and the smoke is super harsh. I'm quite blazed out of my mind right now though for only 3 one hitters ahaha.

What I notice is that the conditions where I live are ridiculously unstable. We have 85 sunny degree days followed by 55 degree rainy days. We have random cold fronts and heatwaves. Summer is never really summer and winter is never really winter. So sometimes my buds dry way too fast and other times they dry just at the right speed. I dry the buds in the dark always hanging. sometimes in a closet, sometimes in a box, whatever I think of that time that's convenient. But I never keep a thermometer/hygrometer where the buds are drying so I can't tell you what temperature/humidity they dry in... Besides incorrect drying, what are other possible explanations why my weed is turning out so shitty?

I've tried a bunch of different seeds that look healthy and plentiful during their bloom, I doubt it's bad genetics for four consecutive bad harvests. Some of them store bought some of them bagseed.
 

Nullis

Moderator
What are you curing in, glass?

The room you dry in should just be slightly warm, and there should be some air circulation. If there is moisture in the air (i.e. on a rainy day) you could simply use something like Damp-Rid in the vicinity to help dry the air in the room. The buds don't have to hang, although for larger colas that would probably help them dry out quicker... otherwise you can spread the buds out on newspaper, or inside boxes lined with newspaper.

Once the outside of the buds feel crispy, and the stems are more rigid/on the verge of snapping (smaller stems may snap): cut the buds from the stem, place inside of clean glass jars (fill loosely). Some people use paper bags instead at this point. The buds are going to shrink, often considerably. A significant portion of the weight of a fresh bud is indeed water.

Anyways, once the buds feel dry enough on the outside, put them in jars and seal it up. Check on them after several hours; if it feels that the outside of the buds is moist again, then leave the lid open for a few more hours. If it really feels moist you should put it back in paper bags or spread out, just for long enough until they feel dry on the outside. Basically, you just keep checking on the jars periodically and breathing them, and doing so less frequently over time. The goal is to equalize the moisture inside the buds and release it gradually. Once they are completely dry, that's it- the time for curing is over, so just don't let them dry out too quickly. Get a hygrometer if you need to.

Doing as described here has never left me with anything smelling like hay or super harsh or anything. It is possible it has to do with your growing methods, or blooming from seed but I wouldn't know. Immature bud does tend to smell like hay, though.
 
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