I cut my whole plants down and have been drying for 6 days in 60F/60RH environment. I kept the RH that high because I’ve been out of town.
I’m back now, have lowered the RH to 45-50 and am watching daily.
Which leads to a stupid question:
If I chopped a plant, weighed it (let’s say the whole thing weighs 877 grams wet), and then put it in ideal drying conditions. . .
. . .could I reliably pull that plant out of the drying tent when that same plant is around only 260 grams? That’s about 1/3 of it’s original weight, which should tell me broadly that I’m getting close to done?
I know that I have to account for the weight of the useless branches, AND this does not take into consideration the health/condition of specific buds and problem areas.
But would this generally be an accurate way of assessing that point of moving from the dry to the cure?
Using wine fridge: standard parameters are ~55F and ~50% humidity
Fridge is located in a garage which is usually closer to ~75 and ~40-80% RH (I’m in Oregon)
-I’ve added a small USB fan on the bottom shelf, pointed at a wall, for air movement
There is no fresh air feed, so I open several times a day
Note on drying rate:
I’ve mapped out a curve of moisture loss (e.g., weight) goals for the first three or four days, as I think this period is key: I have to get a lot of water out in 48 hours, but too much and I’ll create a dry skin on the outside of the buds; too little and I’ll get mold.
Right now, the “curve” is: at end Day 1 (first 24 hours), buds weigh 80% of their orig weight. At end Day 2, they’re 66% of orig weight, and on Day 3, 60%. I don’t know that this is right. I’m extrapolating from some stuff I found on industrial-grade cannabis drying.
My curve tries to account for drying rate, too. In other words, how fast it’s losing moisture. I project the fastest weight loss (20% on Day 1), gradually decreasing to 17.5%, 15%, 12% (it’s pct weight loss each day gets lower and lower) etc, and slowing down. Remember this is the RATE of drying, not the actual moisture level. I don’t know if my RATE targets are correct, either.
My assumption is, get the buds to 60% of their original weight by the end of Day 3. Should this be 50% or is that too steep? That’s something to investigate.
There, my curve flattens, the rate of water loss gets slowly lower, and they start going in jars when they’re around 40 - 50% of the original weight. (Again, this is all theory – I’m only on Day 3.)
I’m starting to think that nailing the first 2 or 3 days is everything, and that parameters can be a little loser after that, but I don’t know this for sure.
This “going into jars” gets subjective quickly, because big and small buds dry at different rates of course.
Note on using this fridge:
Despite it seeming like a perfect solution, it isn’t. I’m learning.
Darkness is great, USB fan on bottom is fine.
Fresh air intake/outgo is my biggest concern.
Have a ton of props ready: cardboard, paper bags, parchment paper towels, kitty litter, DampRids, little tupperware containers with wet washclothes, etc. All the manual tweaks to make humidity go up or down.
I have two little hygros monitoring humidity. It seems to spike WILDLY up and down. I’ll open it to do some adjusting, and it will climb and climb, even after I close it, even is lung room is dryer than the fridge. I don’t understand the variability yet.
I am do a ghetto version of this, adding and removing various shit from inside the fridge to help the buds along. Not ideal. Has to be a simpler way. lol.
Right now, I’m thinking: brown bags of two or three different thicknesses, and call it done.
I sit at my desk. My room in the house is 74 and humidity is around 45 - 55%.
Why am I doing it this way? Oh, the smell, yes.
But this is harder than I imagined. I have a lot to learn. The weight loss “curve” is an unknown to me, but the first few days seem critical. (I am TRYING to make the curve also last around 10 days, too, so there’s that.)
Lots of perfecting to be done, but wanted to share.!
Remember: none of this is advice. I’m just document my efforts so we can all learn and remember it lol.
Also, in this chart. . .I broke Bud #1 (35g) into two pieces on Day 2 and am now tracking it as two pieces. weightloss|690x388
These things take time. I have my own version I posted about here. I think the main concept to keep in mind on drying in the wine fridge is we are trying to slow everything down. We try to get below 68 RH this is danger zone above 68 RH for too many days consecutively is higher risk of mold or rot. Get below 68 with in 3 to 4 days tops. After that slow it down even more to to remove .5 lower RH per day. The goal is to slow drying to minimum of 2 weeks preferably 3 weeks or more. That depends on flower density. Then you can cure it in the wine fridge thus stabilizing and refining the flower. The longer this process takes the better. Things that dry to quickly don’t have time to breakdown the chlorophyll and sugars ect. Unfortunately those are tasted in the final product. This wine fridge dryer was to help eliminate drying to fast this being the number one problem in drying for people with rough climates during drying.
Keep in mind the Peltier cooling system in the wine fridge brings in fresh dry cool air every time it cycles. Most of us mount a small dehumidifier in the wine fridge hooked up to an RH controller with a very accurate probe ( most use this ink bird RH controller) to monitor RH. When RH in wine fridge gets above the preset let’s say 68 RH in the wine fridge the dehumidifier kicks on slightly raising temp 2 degrees in about a minute or two and this signals the wine cooler the temp has raised and starts the Peltier system in the wine fridge to add more cool dry air. The Peltier cooling system in the fridge dose all the work. The dehumidifier only controls the amount of times it cycles more or less depending on the set RH point. Thus allowing you to slow down or increase dry time by raising or lowering the RH set point on your controller. I think RH is what should be guiding point when drying. Not sure how accurate weight could be as the density of different strains will definitely have different amounts of moisture with similar weight.
Thank you. My wine fridge has a compressor. . .it’s not a thermoelectric type. My understanding is that it’s only the latter that works the way you describe. Is that right? (Not sure if this gives you any clues, but there is a panel on the inside back of the fridge and it had the slightest bits of frost on it when I went inside to clean it all up recently.)
Ooohhh … ok then the lotus method is your friend. Much harder to accurately monitor the RH. The condenser in the refrigerator is much dryer and harder to control. The RH will always be too low. The paper bags help to keep humidity up around the flower as it’s drying to help slow it down and even out the moisture as it drys. These refrigerator systems also run very cold generally 45 degrees and below for full size. Some of the smaller units may adjust higher but not much if it’s a freezer combo. A lot of people have success using brand new pizza boxes instead of bags. I would say if you have either one try one or the other or both. Trying to slow down the process. If you haven’t looked up the lotus method, you should be able to search here.
Thanks, buddy. I will dig into that (I think I’ve reviewed some of the Lotus method before but you’re right, it would probably help me).
Yeah, the temps are fine in this fridge. All 50s, always. But I’ve seen the humidity at 45% and 75%, quickly and for no obvious reason that I can determine (not opening the door, or the lung room, or adding a load of wet or dry stuff). But it has this annoying way of jumping into the RH 70s AFTER I’ve opened the doors. I come back 20 minutes later, it’s 48 or 50 It’s hard to predict.
Which is why I’m cribbing together this ghetto solution of adjusting stuff every few hours and adding/removing cardboard and stuff.
I mean, as awesome as a wine fridge seems for this job, there have got to be easier ways to do it.
And if I have to invest $100 in revising a wine fridge, I’d be better off just changing my method buying cheap stuff.
The surge in RH is what happens when warmer air holding more moisture outside the fridge comes into contact with the colder dryer air inside fridge when opened. That warm air holding moisture pushes up the RH almost immediately. Remember, warmer air holds more moisture. Colder air holds less moisture. I think you’ve got the nuts and bolts of the operation down. You’re definitely diligent. I’m thinking surge in between opening the doors must be the fridge operation changing the RH. The RH is probably slowly climbing until the fridge cycles back on. Then it quickly flushes cold, dry air, changing the Rh when it turns on just during normal cycle to keep temperatures at preset. Some guys have messed around with timers cycling, the fridge power. The slowing down the amount of cycles the fridge will go through in any given time. Trying to control how much air flows through the refrigeration system with a timer. This helps to slow the process.
I re-read that again today – sorry. I’m a moron. I contradicted myself here. The door opening DOES make more sense. It was happening in a way that I didn’t understand (too many things at once), but your explanation tells me much more – the temp in the lung room is so much higher than the cooler that, almost instantly, it spikes it higher. It takes a WHILE to come down (but opening the door won’t help me lol) and when it DOES come down, it is of COURSE reflecting the state of everything ELSE in the fridge.
Which means if I’ve left damp carboard/paper in there, it will dry more slowly. Maybe not even all the way.
And if i’ve just CHANGED the cardboard or added a new DampRid, it will drop slowly but. . .a LOT.
Today is Day 4. I’m seeing better patterns now, thanks to your explanations.
At end of Day 1, the buds were 80% of their original weight. By end Day 2, they were 66% of original, and Day 3, was 60%. That (I think) is an important part of – I think the buds MUST need to lose a certain amount of moisture in the first 48-72 hours, and it is AROUND that much.
Maybe it needs to be slightly faster or slower – I’ll be learning some of that.
As I’m going onto Day 4, the rate of water loss is slowing a lot – I am planning on decreasing weights to levels like. . .
Day 4 (56% of original weight))
Day 5 (54%)
Day 6 (52%). . . .
In other words (I realized this last night haha), if I graphed it, it would look like a steep curve that starts to flatten pretty sharply around Day 3/4.
Down in those small increments still the buds are at around 40-45% of their original weight. I suspect at that point, they may be ready for the jar. I don’t know. Most do this strictly by instinct/feel, and then the daily check simply becomes burping, right? I will re-make the curve based, in part, on what I’m learning.
Also, different sized buds have wildly different parameters. I could theoretically make everything roughly equal size, but I want to resist that for a bit while I learn. Risky, I know.
I will say this – the “littlest” buds will dry fastest, and I’m assuming I’ll jar those first, even at about 50% moisture level. I can cultivate those guys carefully on the shelf in a jar and divvy them up among other jars as needed, as the rest finish. Very much a progressive thing.
A lot of this is associating “feel/look” with the raw numbers. Most people do this by feel. I love that, but can’t do that yet. So I use the raw data, yes, but I try to spend time at each stage, “memorizing” what those numbers feel like in the bud.
The numbers on my curve? They’re made up, but based on bits that I’ve read from people and from studying some industrial drying stuff I barely understood. lol
I’m building that Excel sheet along the way, because I’m weird like that. It isn’t very finished but you are helping me build it so I’m happy to share it with you.
Doesn’t sound like you need it though.
THANK YOU, man. You are really helping me a LOT. Now, it’s my girl’s bday so I gotta go be good, but thanks again and ttyl.
Sorry for long reply. you really got me thinking and if I don’t write all of this down, I’m gonna forget. (You know, it’s only old age. )
and I’m not bright/handy about most diy things, but you may be inspiring me on making a modification here. But mostly I think you’re just gonna help me learn how to use what I’ve already got.
I don’t mind a LITTLE appliance baby-sitting lolol. . .
)