My house is very hot and i have a swamp cooler that fluctuates temp and humidity wildly during the day, i cant get my tent below 73 and thats evening temps. So, what do i do to dry my bud? I just bought a wine cooler and set it to 58 degrees. The hygrometer i put in there reads 63 temp but the humidity shot up to 90 when filled with bud, i put a small dehumidifier in the bottom of the cooler and the humidity reads 43 now. Im guessing lower is better to avoid rot so i’ll keep the dehumidifier running in there. Does anyone have experience drying in a wine cooler?
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@SimpleHomeGrow Very cool starting your project. But I fear you may have jumped a few critical steps early on. We use the dehumidifier to cycle the wine cooler. Having all that humidity confined without cycling frequently and often is going to give you problems. You should crack the door immediately to ventilate at least partially and keep your eye on the RH. There’s a link to the thread we use for these DIY wine cooler. I’m worried that your Rh may lead to problems if you dont keep it low enough. You should probably crack that door immediately and monitor. Consider a few modifications as quickly as possible. You’ll see them in the link. As always, ask us any questions in that thread. Cheers !!!
Edit- just scroll up to the top of that thread when you follow the link. Not sure why, but it copied from the very last post. Probably my mistake.
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I’ve purchased the blue Inkbird humidity controller, it will arrive in two days. From my understanding of your comments on that thread I should set the dehum I placed at the bottom of my cooler to 74humidity for a day and then take it down a notch each day until around 63? I’m currently running it constantly until the inkbird arrives and I’m sitting at 43 humidity 63 temp
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@SimpleHomeGrow Consider turning off the dehumidifier and leaving the door open 1 inch. Check your relative humidity for the next couple hours. If it doesn’t go over 65 Max You’re probably OK. I fear the dehumidifier on constantly will dry too fast. You need to buy yourself enough time till you can get the ink installed. That won’t take long. Then you’re gonna have to pick a point to start from. We like to start at 73 max 74 And then drop one per day. Till you get to 68 Then you can drop slower .5 per day. You’re gonna have to take one to two points off At the minimum. And start from there. And once you reach 68 drop .5 per day.
Edit- The idea here is to use your door to control the relative humidity Until the changes are made. You may be a quarter inch or a half inch From closed. Maybe an inch. Just monitor your Rh and adjust your door accordingly.
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perfect, i’ll do exactly that, i’ll go pop that door and let everything relax until work, if it evens out to around mid 60’s i’ll probably leave it like that until i get back and check again. Thank you so much, you may have just saved months of hard work
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Some guys get away drying like that opening the door a couple times a day with no modifications. It’s a lot of risk Closing the door completely, so I always recommend cracking it and monitoring the Rh. It’s definitely not the most effective way to go, but for 48 hours or a few days, it definitely won’t hurt at all.
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Make sure you flip the nugs often so they don’t get flat if you’re laying the buds down. That’s one of the few reasons I hated the Cannatrol.
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Just my experience I built one of those diy wine cooler dryers with the whole setup in taking apart a mini dehumidifier and wiring it up to the cooler. I also added plastic mesh to each metal wine rack for the buds to lay own.
Just my opinion but it seemed to be too much work keeping an eye on it than just having it in a tent or room drying. The outcome didn’t seem any better than my normal drying plus I could only fit about 1-2 plants in it.
If you didn’t harvest your plant early you shouldn’t have any worries of hay smell. At 75f your dry room should be fine. I just dried my outdoor in my garage this year as I recently pulled down my grow room that was insulated had ac, humidity controlled and fresh filter outside air ducting in and exhaust when needed.
To be honest my stuff I just dried in my garage and is now in cure in jars smells amazing! My garage gets highest about 80f during the day and lowest 50f at night. They dried in about 8 days.
Dried in garage
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thank you, i’ll flip them around as soon as i get back from work, gotta make rom for two more plants in there so i’m thinking of doing some hanging instead of laying
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Amazing, thank you, i think i may hang half of the this next plant up in the garage myself as an experiment and see how it goes!
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I was going to say, isn’t it cheaper and easier to just get a portable ac and cool the room down? I think ac infinity is selling something that cools and heats now.
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Here is the picture of my build I had. I don’t use it anymore I have pics with it loaded with flower too I’ll have to fine them though.
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Hanging the plant whole with a slow dry is always a good way to go. However Some don’t have the space Ability to contain odors, etc. These are a great solution for those people or people that don’t have good environmental conditions available. A Slow 21 day dry on the whole plant would be my ultimate goal. And then to cure. But my dryer does allow me to Really slow down my drying. I’m in the high desert and it gets extremely dry. Into the single digits often and frequently. These things destroy Without adequate equipment to compensate. I would rather Use that equipment and space for a garden rather than drying. This allows me to kinda forget about it once it goes to the dryer. I can use that equipment and space for a second flowering area. Cheers !!!
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Exactly, I also live in the high desert, last time I tried drying in a tent it may as well have been hay. A little macgyver is needed when there’s no shade for miles.
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I am smack dab in the middle of the base of two mountains. Just on the backside. The beauty is I’m at the base of the mountains so easy access anytime. But we do get weather extremes Can be exceptionally hot or snowing lol. Cheers !!!
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It may be cheaper for an AC, I’ve thought of it. I have a little trauma from the last time I plugged a portable AC into this room. It blew the breaker no matter what we tried. We could only run that AC and nothing else at the same time. This is sort of just one stop on my road to finding the right solution. I’ve convinced the GF that split AC units next year for the whole home and an electrical eval is the answer so this will probably be just one season of problems. Fingers crossed
Update on the “Door Ajar” tek. It’s sitting at 63/63. So far so good
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You did a clean job on that build. I’m sure some guys around here would be interested in that if you felt like getting rid of it. Not sure how that would go but don’t be surprised if you get asked lol. Well done, sir @Neoangelo147
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Utility costs are what seem to be the detriment there. Even with the cannatrol at $1600 compared to the ~$700(?) ac infinity unit you mentioned. cannatrol runs at 70w, the ac infinity is 800w. (I’ve been looking into this recently as my first harvest is coming up)
Having a one-time larger purchase price and ongoing lower utility costs seems like it’d often be the better choice. If doing a diy wine fridge situation, it’s an even cheaper purchase price, so for many people it’s absolutely the best option, even before you get to space concerns.
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Ac infinity rig was about 150 if I recall correctly.
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