If you dry at 60F/60RH your buds will be pretty close to if not totally perfect.
I haven’t found a better way than this so far…
I could add that not wet trimming, just leave all the leaves on the plant to dry, helps with avoiding a hay smell as well, especially if you’re already in a dry climate. Now you may need to run a dehumidifier or something to maintain that 60% RH in the room or closet or tent or wherever you’re drying. Just make sure it’s not blowing on the plants.
If you need a humidifier to maintain 60% that is a thing, just make sure to spend the money on a good digital one you can set to maintain 60% rh and that it is actually accurate. or calibrate it yourself before using and again, should not be blowing mist anywhere near the plants at all.
It might be helpful to not think of it as “drying.”
More an acclimating imho. Set up an environment at 60%RH and let the buds slowly reach that 60%
You could just “dry” in the oven but that’s not really what it’s about.
I use a sealed bathroom that starts at 50%RH. When I add buds to the room the humidity rises to 65ish. It stays there for 5-7 days and then the RH starts to drop. When it hits 55% or so the buds are at 60% ish and are ready. It is calculated guess work.
This doesn’t work in the winter when I need a humidifier but it should give you somewhere to start.
My weed curing in the jars smells great, when I take it out of the jar! The hay smell in the weed itself is gone, it’s the jars themselves that are retaining the hay smell. If I stick my nose in the jar it smells like shit but if i take buds out it smells delicious. Soooooo, new jars!
You’ve got a lot of good information on the table here already. I’ll just add one tidbit.
What you want to prevent when curing is moisture re-entering from the ambiant room humidity. That will always give you hay smell, the smell of plant cells lysing and decomposition. The room humidity must remain negative relative to the bud humidity.
If you can build a controlled environment, ideal is to take about 2 weeks to go down to 60% ambient humidity. If you cannot, 10 days will still last a lot longer than a 5 day cure on the shelf and is a good goal to shoot for.
Once they have achieved ideal humidity you MUST seal them. This is very important. Allowing ambient humidity to meander above and below bud humidity will cause decomposition, brown stem and hay smell. Do not leave them on the line. Not for one day.
Water always leaving buds, never going back in. That’s the basic key to success in curing.
I thought it was the chlorophyll in the bud that caused the hay smell. After growing so many plants and curing them, I think that some genetics just suck, but usually something minor went wrong during dry or cure (usually temp related as a lot of us have no control over that) and the last is when the plant was harvested. I have found this problem more in over ripe bud than early personally, but I’m sure way too early will do it too.
Calcium is also the main factor for flavor in plants. Especially Cannabis as they are heavy feeders like tomatoes. If your soil was light of Calcium, your buds will have less flavor too.
I get rid of as much leaf as possible and always wet trim before hanging . Its next to impossible to control humidity with large amounts . When you hang whole plants / untrimmed you will have hay smell and will have problems with mold caused by wet plants . Leave space between each top for air flow when I can snap the match sticks and crows feet off its dry enough to tub . After final trim I bag in two gallon zip locks and back into the totes and into my cool basement . Flour Tortillas are your friend just toss a couple on top of your weed in the totes when needed to add humidity . I have been doing it this way for a long time with no reports of problems . I know everyone has there own way and that’s great as long as your happy that’s what matters . Right now the humidity here is 17 percent things dry fast . I use zip locks because there easy to reseal .
Do me a favor and consider drying some without those moisture packs to compare the difference, my friend uses those and all his weed la ks smell and Tastes the same. People have been growing drying and smoking dank herb for a long time before those started circulating and I might just be old and stuck in my ways but I don’t trust them and think there effecting the qaulity in the opposite way people think.
I’ve always removed all non sugar leaves , dried in conditions that make it take 5-7 days , trim it as soon as the stem will snap and put in sealed container, check in 24 hrs if still good and dry vacuum seal and store in a cool dark area, if damp again allow it to become dry and reseal , repeat process as need be untill it stays dry. The outside if the bud will want to dry faster then the inside even with a slow dry and the idea is to pull the moisture out so it has a even level of moisture threw out the bud before long term storage.
I do the same, I collect my empty jars, when I have 6 or more, I put half a liter high proof alcohol in a jar, put the lid on and shake, open and pour into the next jar, when I finished all the jars, I keep the alcohol for making an RSO run. Then all the jars go into the dishwasher on a high temperature wash and come out squeaky clean.
Debris can build up in jars if not cleaned and can possibly harbour mold spores and contaminate the next batch going in, if left uncleaned after being emptied.
I had a hay/green/not dank smell when I used to improperly dry or jar up my buds while they still retain moisture. It took a while for me to realize I was under drying. Not sure that’s exactly what happened with you, but it’s something to consider. It’s probably not the humidity packs either, once my dry game got better I realized the bud would smell exactly as it should even with a humidity pack. I stopped using them for a while but realized that isn’t what screwed me up.
Just my two cents brotha hope you get to the bottom of it.
I doubt it’s the jars themselves as I’ve had that happen too. I’ll open a jar that smells mediocre, take some bugs out to put in a ziploc to bring somewhere, then they magically smell great next time I open the bag. I think the air exposure does something.
Trick with dehumidifier is not to have inside grow room. But will only work if your on passive intake or drawing air from house. If your intake Is from outside you will not have treated first.
It’s hard to over dry as the process of curing is allowing the buds to dry even even. Buds sealed in mason jars if not opened will regain moisture adding fruit peel or vegetable peel can speed up rehydration the same thing that adding fan leaf does. Some things in this discussion promt Me to assume that the strain is original haze? Original haze does not breed well to itself, Tom hill haze is said to be 70% hay.
Another supposed side effect of inbreeding original haze is the catpiss pheno. According to Neville when asked what’s wrong with that he retorted “nothing if you like catpiss”
The nl5xhaze he bred circumvented this particular problem and allowed An expression of haze with shorter flowering and more manageable hybrid. The nl5 used I would compare to how bohdi uses the snow lotus to add desirable traits like resin production while allowing the the donee to retain its expression.
There are a few blanks I’m trying to fill in are f2 ok? I’m assuming that when sensi bought out the Flying Dutchmen a few years back it was for there haze and skunk lines which were not worked. As Neville bought 2000 seed from Sam and had germination rates of hardly double figures there offering in seed form must be f2? But ibl haze produced hay?
Cool you should mention that (my thoughts exactly). There was a Boveda giveaway a couple months back and I received the package last week. It is evident from the documentation included that a lot of folks have concerns and expressed them.
Right off the top they are blathering on about a terpene shield and then;
‘Take the Boveda Challenge’
Gather at least 1/8 oz. of fresh flower (post-dried/cured)
store half in a jar with a Boveda pack and half in another jar w/o.
store 14 days and do not open
14 days later…
grind up a sample of each and feel the difference, smell the difference
roll a couple joints and taste the difference.
Interesting thing was they wanted to use post cured flower… (at least that is how I interpreted “fresh flower (post-dried/cured))”
Next harvest I do ‘The Boveda Challenge’… both ways as I’m not convinced.
I’ve messed with the boveda’s over the last 2 years or so and I’m not a fan. Still have 3-4 full 10 packs of 58’s and 62’s. I’ve tried them with commercial/black-market, cbd, my own… pre-cure/post-cure, usually fine for the first week or two but long term I usually end up with either a mold type smell or a muted smell/taste, regardless of jar or herb dryness. Jar’s are stored in standard room temp, 65-70F ~50% rh.
@Funkjunky Definitely agree with you. If I dry in my tent I have a circulating fan on the floor moving air, pointed at the wall not the hanging herb. Cloudline still exhausting set to 60% RH. And a Dehumidifer outside the tent in the room set to 60%. I just hang the whole plant, I don’t take any leaves off and no massive defoliation either. Gets me a nice 14-16 day dry with zero mold and great smelling bud.
I live in a house unlike any other I’ve lived in damp like a shack. My landlord is under impression I’m im creaming it in therefore its up to me to make repairs as obviously I’m swimming in it.
I can’t leave mason jars open to release moisture, if the buds are retaining still brown paper bags are best
I’ve ever used the humidity packs to dry or cure , I’m under the impression they’re to maintain the correct humidity while in storage once they’ve reached the proper consistency .
Been using the large packages in a vacuum container which hold almost a half pound for close to a year now and haven’t noticed any degradation in taste or smell .
Not saying the buds have spent a year in the jar but a couple months to burn through a half pound then refilling as necessary.
My long term storage stands with vacuum sealing and freezing thaw ,fill container , drop in a humidity pack , smoke.
I don’t defoliate any more. The trick with me is initial dry proper. Wait for that day when you walk in open cupboard and your initial thought is damn someone has nicked half my weed! Then if stems don’t snap give another day. Like armadillos crunchy on the outside. At the centre of the bud there is still moisture which we slowly coax out
