Stealth drying? Any advice?

Hey RIU,

I'm actually about three-four weeks away from harvest, but I want to try to get a head start on this drying process as it will be my first time. I actually don't have anywhere else to dry the finished buds except in my small box that I'm growing in. I was wondering if that's ok to be drying your buds while in a 12/12 cycle for my other girl. (One was an auto at 18/6). Actually I'm more along the lines asking what is the worse that can happen with doing that b/c I have no option but to dry it in the same box I'm growing in =T. And for the drying process, I've read a lot of diff opinions... Some say has to be lights off, some say lights on etc etc. As of now, with lights on, temps get 75-82F with 40-50% humidity. Lights off is 65-70F~ with around 50-60% humidity. I know it's a little humid, but think that'll be ok with the 12/12 light cycle going on? Thanks in advance!

You will need to find a suitable place to dry, your box will be too hot; mostly humidity will be a problem, and the light being on will not help things.

If you want to have good quality bud you will have to dry and cure properly, growing it is usually the easiest part.

regards,

This is a critical step...you fuck this up and you my friend have wasted your time. Have you ever smelled moldy nuggs??? If you have...you will never forget it and will go to great lengths to avoid losing and ENTIRE CROP. Dehumidifiers do a good job and keeping humidity consistent which is what you need...pricey but well worth the expense. You might get away with not having to employ a dehumidifier but if things go bad...you might not recover in time. Just ma 2 cents

Thanks for the replies guys. Would 40-50% humidity be alright for drying? That's gonna be with the lights on. I suppose since I'm gonna still be vegging while drying, I would just go 24/0 for the drying process. (I'm hoping max five days, it's only gonna be one plant a small auto) Would that mess my other plant vegging at 18/6 in any way? During that drying process, I'm prob gonna be running a 55w just so temps stay around 65-75F. In that way, it wouldn't be too fast of a dry, and as soon as that's done i'll jar em. Could anyone tell me if there's gonna be any problems drying at 65-75F in around 40-50% humidity? And would switching 18/6 veg to 20/4 for around five days do any harm or stress? Thanks in advance!

I've decided that I'm most likely gonna put a small box to hang the buds in after the chop so there's not that much light coming in. Punch a couple holes for ventilation and put the box near my intake hole where temps down there would be no higher than 75F. If humidity gets higher than around 55% I'll prob throw a small fan in there till it's done drying. That way I'll be able to keep the 12/12, or I might just do 18/6 to ensure humidity doesn't rise in the the grow box while lights are off.

what i've done before which worked pretty well actually was i took a large cardboard box and cut the bottom off, took some wire coat hangers and straightened them out to make rails inside the upper area of the box by poking them through one end and out the other side of the box to hang my buds from then just closed the box off from the top like you normally would any box, and took a really small desk fan and set it on the floor, pointing at slight downward angle and set my box on top of it in a corner and gave it a week. It worked very well for an on the fly dry rack. the cardboard box itself will soak up some of the moisture produced in the air from your bud drying so it helps aid in the process for that matter

HankDank said:

what i've done before which worked pretty well actually was i took a large cardboard box and cut the bottom off, took some wire coat hangers and straightened them out to make rails inside the upper area of the box by poking them through one end and out the other side of the box to hang my buds from then just closed the box off from the top like you normally would any box, and took a really small desk fan and set it on the floor, pointing at slight downward angle and set my box on top of it in a corner and gave it a week. It worked very well for an on the fly dry rack. the cardboard box itself will soak up some of the moisture produced in the air from your bud drying so it helps aid in the process for that matter

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Thanks for the reply hank. That's pretty much what I had in mind. Was your dry box inside your grow area? And how well did it go? Dried nicely and slow in the box? How was the humidity levels inside the box? Did you put some exhaust holes or something? Sorry for the 21 questions lol, just hate to ruin my grow at the very end...

Make sure you put a hygrometer in your drying box and shield it from the lights, as long as you can keep the light out and the humidity under control you should be fine.

Try not to have fans blowing directly on the buds or they will dry too fast, if you need to you can put the buds in paper bags in the box as well, you will want to rotate them if they are laying in a bag and not have more than a single layer. If your temps are in the low 70s that is plenty cool enough.