Hay smell persisting

it’s in my book, close enough? :wink:

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That temp might be hard to get, but I will keep making improvements as I can

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Great info. Currently using my Veg room for drying.
Oh yeah…I’ve made hay in the past. Hayted it.
:peace_symbol:

Hoping for a nice long 7 to 14 day hang. Whole plant.

@other_barry best wishes on future drying.

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looks great! love the digital monitor!

62% is my personal cut off, above that starts to get into the scary zone for me. Yours are pretty spread out though… would be more of an issue if you have 10x that stacked side by side.

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I am trying to figure out a solution to bring the tent temp down. I was considering a small evaporative cooler, until someone pointed out the 8 hour refill time.

I like your app. There is a project on reddit that reminds me of.https://old.reddit.com/r/Pigrow/

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This is what I’m using to monitor.

I’m fortunate ambient temps and rh in my garage are near optimal for drying at the moment.

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As others have said the key to not having the hay smell is to slow down your drying process. You want then to dry as slow as possible without developing mold issues. I heat with a woodstove and in winter my humidity in the house rarely is above 40% . I hang my plants full and do not trim at all until they are dry . Typically 10-14 days . I also prefer to jar my buds a little on the moist side as opposed to bone dry. After a week of daily burping and sometimes even leaving the jar open for most of the day , they end up perfect. Once you have the hay smell happening there is no way to lose it. Remoistening it does nothing for the smell or taste.

Drying and curing to me comes down to experience. You have to develop a knack for it that can only be done through trial and error.

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Well, it seems I have the error part locked in.

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Some plants will always smell like that, even if you do a perfect job.

I find the best time to jar is when you have to ask yourself “will this mold on me?”. Just slightly too dry to get moldy is the best. The processes that govern curing (oxidation, enzymatic, bacteria, etc. processes that break down the plant material, semi-fermenting) only actually work if the material has moisture. The trick is to not let it mold.

Once it’s dry, it’s more or less done, over. The wetter the plant, the faster and more complete the process. Slow drying is the key, whole plant hanging and dry trimming is the best way to accomplish this. If it is getting too dry too fast, you can cut the individual branches and place into a paper bag, let the internal moisture equalize the drier exterior.

I hang about 7-10 days until the sugar leaf is crispy but the stems don’t actually snap, trim, and jar. I burp if the bud seems too moist but other than that let it ride. If the bud is too moist to be sealed in a jar I’ll just leave the top off the jar overnight to let it dry some and re-seal. A slow dry and dry trim is infinitely more important than a long cure. A long cure is just storage, the actual process mostly goes down in the drying period. I see so many people get hay from Boveda curing. I think they let humidity get far too low with the 62%.

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It can be warmer, 70F isn’t really an issue, but the warmer it is the more humidity matters, and the more chance for mold.

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I had been having temp ranges from 72-84F. I recently started leaving the tent open during the day, and now its showing a range of 70-75F, but it’s also not very warm at the moment. The humidifier is already helping the % as well

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Man the stem snap test is bunk…i can snap the stem while they are growing. Wtf does it even mean.

Im drying some plants right now and first 3 days they stank to high heaven. Now they are getting some grassy smells day 4 and 5 of the dry. 58%-62% RH at 62-65F.

If i put my nose to buds it smells good. The GF says the basement still reaks. Maybe im becoming nose blind. Still a far way from being dry. The ones in the corner are still moist day 5 of drying. Suspect those will take 12 days or longer.

I didnt log my last grow so unsure how long into flower i ran it last time. But the last time I was om vacation while drying to no idea if they stunk while drying. But when dry trimming and jarring they stank. I used my AC and kept temps like 60F

These were ran until ready. But in hindsight I should have given another week.

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Yeah most of this is normal.

First ~3 days it’ll smell like it did in flower.

Next 4-7 days or so is grassy/hay smells from the chlorophyll breaking down. If drying stops here, there isn’t really any saving it(the smell).

After that, if you’re still drying properly, it’ll start smelling dank again.

All in all, it generally takes anywhere from 10-16 days to dry a whole plant. I cut at the base and hang with all leaves, and I dry trim after the full length of time. Then into jars, doing it this way, I usually don’t need to burp at all, or only for the first couple days at worst, and the herb comes out damn near perfect.

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Yeah I dont waste my time burping. Once you sre harvesting lbs thats a pain in the ass. I also work a lot and dont have time to burp 3 times a day. Mainly because im home for 12 hrs a day and 6 of that is spent sleeping.

I suspect I have another 5 days of drying. Keeping it dark and cold and around 60%

I just put a tiny desk rotating fan on low to get air into the corner of the room. Drying in a 14x18 room so all the branches are well spaced out.

I couldnt dry the plant as a whole these were massive plants and most likely would have molded. I cut 6 plants into 120 give or take a few branches.


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Yup definitely the way to do it.

The buds should never touch so If I do get a big plant, I will separate her out at the base of each branch for hanging but that’s as far as I will go. I will not take buds off the stem nor cut the branches down and put on a drying rack, hanging mesh or not.

Looking mighty nice over there, but I’m sorry for the trim jail you’re about to experience :rofl:

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I recently heard about an interesting drying/curing method from doc_ray_genetics on Instagram.

Doc Ray recommends the following:

  1. Line dry for 7 days
  2. Rolled for 4-7 days in brown paper sack (BPS) at night and used open cardboard trays during the day
    2.1 During the day, the flower is spread on cardboard trays and rolled periodically then returned to BPS at night
  3. Weigh for water loss
    3.1 To determine length of time for rolling flowers use daily weighing. Take a morning weight in the paper BPS, let flowers lay out all day (rolling periodically), end of day return to BPS and weight it again.
    3.2 The difference each day is the water weight loss drying each day. At first, the numbers reduce quickly, but around day 3-5 it slows down tremendously.
    3.3 At some point, the flowers will not lose any more weight. This is the dry point. Move to air tight storage.
  4. Put in jars and burp daily then less frequently as flowers age and cure
    4.1 The longer it cures at low temps and about 50% humidity the smoother the smoke.

I haven’t tried the BPS or cardboard method - but I will with a small batch to compare to my current method.

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I have 3 helpers so should be easy enough. Last grow I did 20oz by myself in 2.5hr

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I think I need to get good at normal curing before I start trying experiments xD

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I hope this is something that gets better over time, because it takes me muuuuuuch longer. Especially dry trimming.

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Dry trimming is easier for me. And bud density matters. A lot easier to trim a pound of dense buds versus a pound of fluff

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