Well I usually do a slow dry, take a week if I can slowly stepping down humidity in a controlled environment, which in the past has been my cab or a spare tent setup just for that.
Iāve never dried in the freezer but I am intrigued, gonna have to try some testers. After Iāve dried and gone into jars and finished any burping I toss in a boveda for a day to stabilize then I pull a vacuum on the jar for long term curing/storage.
Under ideal circumstances, when my jars are rich and plentiful, Iāll leave things curing in the jar under vacuum for 2 months before I crack into it. I find that amount of time really letās the flavours mature and the smoothness to develop. Iāve never found that length of curing to lead to a noticeable loss of potency or lessening of the character of the high.
The difference in flavour Iāve had this produce has been at times quite startling. Iāve had strains that seemed fairly average and forgettable flavor wise at the point they went into jars come back out 2 or 3 months later with a level of complexity and depth that I never expected. When I put something in thatās already delicious at jar up time, well, itās enough to make a man weep tears of olfactory joy in praises to the lords of terpenes.
So yeah, to wrap my as usual likely over long thoughts on the subject up, I do like curing under vacuum. If you ca still find one of the jar sealer attachments for doing mason jars I canāt recommend them enough.
I put my 3-4 days dry buds (~75%RH not wet) in open containers to allow sublimation without condensation Scooby do bop bop wowā:notes: Power Punch is working ā¦ we are in and out of our freezer enough to get good air exchange but not enough to create any condensation itās just my wife and I here. After about 14 to 20 days Iām at about 55 to 65%RH ready for sealing, smoking, or long term storage. On that note Iām super happy with my new vacuum sealer
Oh hey, if your sealer only does bags, I had a buddy who used to make a ring out of cardboard to form a bit of a perimeter around and a bit taller than his bud before he would vac a big bag. It ended up almost drum like, but it kept a lot of pressure off of his buds so theyād stay pretty and fluffy and not get all squished.
no need to - it is automated with an air pump on a timer, that is set to āburpā the container (ie exchange the air in the container) a few times a day at set intervals
Huh thatās interesting. I donāt think Iāve ever continued burping during the curing period, especially since I started using Boveda packs. I always thought that the curing process of starches converting to sugars was a function of time, and not a reaction that required oxygen to be present in the jar.
I mean, I donāt want to say a man with 60+ pounds of weed curing in automated buckets doesnāt know what heās doing, guy clearly has some experience. I just never heard it to be necessary at that point, and Iāve not done it. Never seemed to hurt things, and Iāve done many harvests now since I started vacuum sealing my jars with a Boveda in them. Things still cure great for me, so Iām just curious what the reasoning is, especially if heās tossing big Boveda packs in there.
Yes but I also noticed an air conditioner in the window behind him so if that room was climate controlled to 62% relative humidity his burping the buckets would not really affect the curing process then I think therefore I am.
Hey @monkeyman what is your ambient temp and humidity where you store your buckets?
Yeah that makes sense, but heās still exchanging the air inside the buckets once a day. Thatās the part Iām trying to get, itās a really great setup for doing what heās doing, I just donāt know why heās bothering. My understanding was that as long as you have gotten things to proper, evenly dried humidity by the point you jar up then you dont need to go on burping. The whole burping process is about helping the inside of the denser buds evenly distribute their humidity with the rest of the less dense material.
But he dries for 5 days, trims, then hangs back in his drying cab for another week at 62%. By the time he goes into buckets I wouldnāt think heād still have a need to be exchanging that air daily to even out humidity anymore. So why bother?
I guess I need to do a little more of a dive on the science of how the starches convert to sugars in the curing process, because Iām not getting what he is achieving by doing this. Iāve known plenty of serious growers over the years who would cure in buckets or totes but by that point they were sealing them up and shelving them for a couple months.
I even knew an old school outdoors guy who would end up with so much in a good year that he would bucket it, tape the buckets for an extra seal, double bag the buckets and bury them. He did this with dozens of buckets, pounds upon pounds, for decades. Heād let it cure for 2 or 3 months until the harvest season heat died down and the market glut of freshly dried variable quality outdoor had passed. Then heād dig it up with a nice full cure on it and get a better price then many of the other outdoor guys in the area.
He is only curing that way for 3 to 5 weeks, then it goes in to other storage or vacuum seal. I have been doing it this way for awhile due to the lack of jars and also beng lazy, and it works as advertised.
I think thatās EXACTLY the point - he is getting an evenly dried product this way without having to open jars and possibly manhandle buds, further degrading them. This way you allow them to dry for a few days, then you put them in the bucket with a large boveda pack, set the pump timer to auto-burp the bucket and 3 to 5 weeks later you have nicely cured buds that can then be stored away, simply take them off the pump and keep them in the buckets, or vacuum seal them with a boveda pack.
I store it in my house so the temp is generally around 70 and the ambient humidity varies, but I keep a boveda 62% pack in the bucket like he does
But you see, my confusion is that he would still NEED to do that for so many weeks after spending about 2 weeks hanging before they even go into the buckets. I dont get why his humidity would be so unstable still, and then take another 5 or 6 weeks to further stabilize through ongoing burpingā¦?
I also find a little confusing that heās still burping when he also has a 62% boveda pack in there thatās making the boveda Pack work harder than it would have to if you just left it sealed no? If the buds were close enough to the 62% when they go into the bucket the boveda should be good enough.
Scooby do bop bop wowā:notes: Power Punch is working 
ā¦ we are in and out of our freezer enough to get good air exchange but not enough to create any condensation itās just my wife and I here. After about 14 to 20 days Iām at about 55 to 65%RH ready for sealing, smoking, or long term storage. On that note Iām super happy with my new vacuum sealer 
