I’m gonna be harvesting my single plant grow in the next couple weeks…I’ll be chopping the whole plant and I had my first harvest and cure get dried out to quickly and wasn’t worthwhile for much…this second grow is worlds apart in looks, smell, density and structure…I just wanted to see what methods you all recommend
Dry it and put it in a jar.
1 Like
Hang at 60% humidity at room temp for 7–10 days. You may need some gear to make this happen.
4 Likes
Stick one of those boveda bags61% into your jar too. Those are nice.
1 Like
I started to enjoy the grove bags to cure. Im lazy.
2 Likes
I already have a good humidifier and the spot for hanging but should I leave fan leaves and all on during the hanging
1 Like
I did not like them, they change the smell.
1 Like
Cool, thanks. Next time I’ll try to experiment and see if I notice too.
Aren’t the boveda for the long cure time and storage
It depends. I trim and then hang because I find it more convenient.
Since you have a humidifier I’d suggest you get an inkbird to control it and you’re set.
It’s what I use.
3 Likes
I think they(boveda bags) are useful if you are opening and closing the container often. If i want to store long time, I get the humidity just right, and monitor it a few days to make sure it isn’t changing, then seal, and leave it in the dark, and forget about it.
1 Like
I think I had to much airspace the first time and I am going to get new mason jars how much airspace do I leave
I stopped using jars because they don’t come back to me. I use big ziploc style freezer bags to cure in. Maybe 10% headroom is enough?
4 Likes
Easier to burp I would imagine
I think a different style, yes. I burp these bags if needed in front of a fan and you can make them big and open and manipulate it differently than jars. Or make them as tight as you want it, if you dont have a lot of bud to fill the bag.
I take all stemmed leaf off before hanging but in your case with a smaller plant might make sense to keep them in. It could help the bud not dry from outside too quickly
2 Likes
I cut the branches off the main stem and hang them after cutting off all stems and leaves. After a couple of days the buds are then cut from the stems and put in a tiered drying rack until they feel dry to the touch, then into jars 75%full. I burp them and roll the jar around so the buds dont stick together.
3 Likes
I trim and hang for 10 days then into jars with bovida pack and burp for 2 weeks daily, than in dark and burp weekly or until no,pressure than in dark. I have bud that’s 10months old and is still a fresh as when I harvested
2 Likes
I don’t let my jars leave LOL…
I mighta gone overboard for my drying, but it was the final piece of the puzzle here. Got SO sick of cures that smelled like a fresh cut lawn, or were so dry and crumbly you saw dust float away as you broke up the bud. So, I looked to how the big boys do it and tried to scale it down.
2x4x5 tent. Used ONLY for drying, no grows in there. You could reuse your tent, but I decided to dedicate space to my buds.
mini humidifier (analog switch is essential, those soft power switches dont work in my application)
mini dehumidifier (analog switch)
3-fan window fan (analog switch)
Govee Temp / Humidity sensor (H5075)
(2) TP-Link wifi controlled switches
An Installation of Home Assistant software on a raspberry pi to control it all.
Using the tent helped me control RH in a controlled environment vs, an unsealed room. I chose a fan / filter humidifier as the ultrasonic foggers tend to leave a white powder all over (minerals in the water), and the fan / filter model works on evaporation with the filters trapping the minerals instead. I wrote a simple script with a target humidity and temp, as well as tolerances for each. This controls the humidifier and dehumidifier, and I’ve been able to dial it to within a 1% range of the target. The 3 window circulation fan was necessary to quickly even out the RH in the tent when the hum/dehum ran, otherwise I’d get spikes as the moist air would accumulate low and gradually rise. I considered an exhaust fan to “burp” the tent, as if it was a giant mason jar, but I find I open it often enough that its not an issue.
Side benefit is you can see when its time to jar up your buds, quite literally… If you graph the govee humidity readings, I can see when I put fresh cut plants in, and when they are finally at 60% RH on the chart. First days after you put fresh plants in, with RH set for 60 and a tolerance of 1% set, you’ll have a range of RH from 60 to like 67/68%. Home assistant polls the sensor once every 60 seconds, and if its higher than 61% it turns the dehumidifier on. Lower than 59% and it turns on the humidifier (winters are extremely dry air in my house). Well, at first, the plants are adding so much moisture that the RH can climb to 68% in a minute, then the dehumidifier is turned on, and its brought back down to 60% in about 2-3 minutes. Repeat this all day long and it gradually decreases. By day 5 its only climbing to 64-65% at the peaks, and between 8-12 days later its down to a pretty constant 60% with no peaks. Time to jar 'em up with bovedas then!
Quite complicated, yes… But I think for me, 110% absolutely worth it. My cures are now night and day difference, the smells in the jars are dank, fruity and delicious, not like the underside of my lawnmower deck, and the buds are still just barely moist 5 months later if stored in a jar with a boveda, Smoke flavor, taste, smoothness and I wanna say potency all improved as well…
Back in college I could cure in a paper bag to slow the drying time… But in this house, it still dries too fast in the winter in a paper bag.
I do take off all large fan leaves before hanging. Once they’ve hung 8-12 days and are gonna be jarred, I do a final manicure and trim off the sugar leaves and jar them up separately to make hash from.
7 Likes
I did my first grow similar to @Nagel420 albeit a little less high tech as I did not apply my Home Automation to it yet. I havent set HomeSeer up in this new house yet.
I used Inkbird controllers to control the tent. Set targets of 60F at 55-60% humidity. For temp if under setpoint a heater would come on, if over the setpoint it would power a 4" exhaust fan that is set to low speed, ie burping the tent. Same thing for humidity, either drives a humidifier or a different 4" low speed exhaust. I have a large dehumidifier I keep outside of the tent in order to keep the humidity in the garage below 50%.
I am on day 10 of drying my 1st grow in decades and I think they will be ready to jar today. Last night the stems were snapping nice but still left one fiber unbroken, they “almost” snapped clean…
During the 10 days I was able to maintain 60F +/- 2F and 58% humidity +/- 2% for all but 2 days. Had a warm spell and the garage got up to 70F on 2 days. The only option I have to cool the ambient space is a window AC unit in the garage and I chose not to use the electricity.
While I can smell terps there is still some lawnmower essence to the buds as well. I am hoping the cure will resolve that. I plan on doing jars and auto-burping them with an aquarium air pump and timer. I will put a SmartPush humidity sensor in 2 of the jars to monitor humidity swings. As the swings get smaller in amplitude I will reduce the frequency of the burps until it stabilizes at 63%. Then Bovieda pack and seal.
You can see the blue lines held pretty good except for when the weather got unseasonably warm.
Not saying this is the right way, but it seems to be working so far. Anyone see anything I am missing?
1 Like