for drying most of the plant, the best way i know of is hang the large colas, and air dry the rest of it on screens with a fan under it pushin air through it with a dehum or dry air crystals in one of those containers by the fan in with the setup so it will absorb the moisture gettin let out by the buds, also make sure you have perfect darkness for the buds to dry in light is very bad for drying buds, after they get crispy on the outside put them in paper bags and open them every day too let fresh air in do that for awhile like 3-4 days and then put what you want to cure into jars and you can cure anywhere from a week to 6 months MAX, open teh jars every 12 hours and let fresh air in and take them out too let them breath and put them back in, after a week of this you will notice the buds harden up, thats good.
and for quick drying, put some buds on a screen with a fan goin hardcore with some heat, remove as much stalk as you can becuase stalk holds alot of moisture which keeps feeding the bud until its dry if you remove it the bud will dry much quicker, for testing use pop corn buds they will dry fast, nice colas should be cured for maximum potentcy and flavor, the longer you cure the more potent it gets because more trichromes convert to thc and other compounds which effect potentness. buttom line quality is something you cant rush, testing your bud wont give you a fair example of how it will taste after its cured but at least you could get abit of an idea and still see how the high is.
hope this helps
-GanjaFarma