Losing faith in my curing methods... am I doing everything okay?

[Big Foot]

Dj Shorts takes curing very seriously.

http://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/cc10/cure.html

 

[Greyskull]

Hello everyone, recently harvested 11 different strains and I've been trying diligently to give everything the perfect cure so I can bring the smells out. I've had some success with curing before but I've never managed to get a real potent smell. I know that some strains just don't have potent smells but I know that some of these ones should because I got them from a commercial grower and his shit STANKS!

have you thought about asking the commercial grower you sourced the plants from what he does to get that stank? curiuos what he tells ya...

 

[belgowiet]

i cure at least for 1.5 month before i smoke a joint of it

 

[somebody041]

have you thought about asking the commercial grower you sourced the plants from what he does to get that stank? curiuos what he tells ya...

i have. there is an intermediary person between me and mersh growery. i've tried to get him to ask some growing specifics and all i've gotten was he "starts with chemical nutes and then goes to organic with a month left." all the plants are outdoors, grown to be giant bushes, and he uses molasses. the intermediary person is not very helpful.

 

[Greyskull]

bummer. i was very curious....
i bet the commercial grower with the stanky stanky doesnt even TOUCH mason jars. SERIOUSLY.
ITS ALL IN THE DRY because the buds cure as they dry.

chop fan leaves off plant
chop whole plant, hang upside down
let dry at 65 degrees 50% humidity with two oscillating fans, 4-5 days
once outside of all buds are crispy, trim, then put in mason jars
open jars everyday for 15 minutes
every 3 days take out buds and put back in to ensure even drying
leave buds spread out for an hour if they are excessively wet, as needed

^^^those fans blowing around your drying buds are gonna cause them to dry to fast and you'll get some crappy tasting/smelling buds. if i were you i'd keep it simple....

*harvest/trim your buds to your liking (i like to only remove the leaves that have their stems visible - if a leaf is jutting out from a bud i leave it... for now)

*store in a room temp 70-75f, humidity 40-45rh NO FANS!!!!!!! dark room preferred, but temp/humidy is key - AND NO AIRFLOW DIRECTLY ON THE BUDS. if you get your conditions to as described your buds will snap off the branches in 5-7 days. once the buds 'snap' off the branches... try a sample : )

*into turkey bags and down the road it goes. no burping no spreading no jars - its easy. no grassy smells. JUST GREAT BUD.

try it you may be surprised.

of course you have to grow the plants correctly (and yes, that means flush, too!)... if you dont grow them right nothing you do during drying will correct that misstep.

good luck....

 

[TexasToker]

Like Greyskull said man, those fans are making the outside dry faster than the inside, there by drying it uneven.

Have you tried water curing? If this is your own smoke, there is no better way IMO.

Step 1: Get a jar or container the right size and fill it with distilled water, I use an ice cooler.

Step 2: Remove the parts of the plant you want to water cure, and give them a quick trim up, removing the large fan leaves and trimming away as many or few of the trim leaves as you desire.

Step 3:Submerge the buds in the water(distilled). (sometimes you may need to gently place a plate or something on the to keep them down)

Step 4:Leave it uncovered (in order to let the chemicals evap out) for 24 hours in a cool and dark place. Drain the water and replace with fresh water (I think distilled is the best).

Step 5: Refresh the water every 24 hours for 7 days, it will get nasty, then clean as you get closer to 7 days.

Step 6:Hang the bud like a normal air dry (may want to keep the cooler or a bucket under them since they will be sopping wet). It usually dries within 24-48 hours, and is ready to smoke.

This method takes A LOT of the odor away, weight, and bag appeal. The smoke is AWESOME though. I like this method because it makes the product useful sooner without compromising potency.

 

[Paddi]

Curring the totally perfect way is very difficult. I say this as an outdoorman harvesting many fat girls at the same time....

Learning by doing have learned me:
Lots of fresh air (well working fan) and low temp (14-16 Celcius) for the first two weeks followed by an evening with 25 C and very low humidity....and then direcly in airtight glasses in a "cold" dark room in my house.....And I´ll get stoned next august too


Temps and humidity means a lot...

P

 

[somebody041]

bummer. i was very curious....
i bet the commercial grower with the stanky stanky doesnt even TOUCH mason jars. SERIOUSLY.
ITS ALL IN THE DRY because the buds cure as they dry.



^^^those fans blowing around your drying buds are gonna cause them to dry to fast and you'll get some crappy tasting/smelling buds. if i were you i'd keep it simple....

*harvest/trim your buds to your liking (i like to only remove the leaves that have their stems visible - if a leaf is jutting out from a bud i leave it... for now)

*store in a room temp 70-75f, humidity 40-45rh NO FANS!!!!!!! dark room preferred, but temp/humidy is key - AND NO AIRFLOW DIRECTLY ON THE BUDS. if you get your conditions to as described your buds will snap off the branches in 5-7 days. once the buds 'snap' off the branches... try a sample : )

*into turkey bags and down the road it goes. no burping no spreading no jars - its easy. no grassy smells. JUST GREAT BUD.

try it you may be surprised.

of course you have to grow the plants correctly (and yes, that means flush, too!)... if you dont grow them right nothing you do during drying will correct that misstep.

good luck....

i think you're right. there is no way that he bothers with burping mason jars considering the amount of bud he has to deal with but the bud smells amazing year after year. i'll try to raise my temps a bit next time for a more even dry.

as far as the fans go, they weren't blowing direction on the buds. i had one about 5 feet away blowing the opposite direction of the buds. it's at the height of the buds. the other fan is about 15 feet away and on the ground. it's primary purpose is to blow air into a veg room. the buds are drying in a basement that doesn't have any airflow so i was worried the air may get stale if there was no movement. i turned the fans off for the last few drying plants and these buds do smell much better.

 

[TexasToker]

If they get too dry you can always throw a fresh fan leaf in the jar to give them some moisture back too.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

More and more growers are learning that slow drying and slower curing are the keys to maximum taste, smell and storage life. Things that slow drying are; Relatively still air. No fans unless your humidity is very high where you dry., Keep plant intact including fan leaves until dry. Not only do the fan leaves help to slow drying, but they add considerable water soluable flavors (and even probably some carbohydrate weight) as they move their sap to the buds, which dry last. It's important to stop drying while the stems still bend, rather than go to snap stage. Leave the buds on the stems, or at least sections of stems, as long as possible. The stems help long term storage and act as a buffer zone to humidity changes. Bud only has to be dry enough that it doesn't form mold in the jar to begin curing. It should be packed carefully into mason jars, or suitable container, with stems still on. Jars full enough that there's not much extra oxygen, but not so full that mold forms. A good cure takes many months, and if the bud is packed in with a good amount of original moisture (not dry snapping stems), it will change quite a bit over time. You'll know when it's done!

I'm fairly certain that leaving fan leaves on during drying improves taste, or more correctly, removing fan leaves harms taste! I've convinced other locals to 'leave on leaves' and they report the same; improved taste and smell. What I'm not so certain about is whether it might even improve yield from extra carbs in the sap. More people need to try it, we'll get to the bottom of it around here for sure.

 

[jd4083]

I do everything you mentioned almost exactly the same way, the only differences being that I hang branches (not the entire plant) and dry in a lil 2x2 tent that used to be for my moms, with 4" scrubber/inline combo and all. And like others mentioned, I was taught from the very beginning that once the stems just snap without being bone dry it's time to start jarring.

 

[somebody041]

TexasToker - thanks for the tip. in the past i've used sections of tortillas but i like the idea of using the plant.

Mr. Greengenes - great info, thanks man. i've always left the fan leaves on while drying in the past but i got tired of sifting them out of the trimming stuff when i make hash...

 

[TexasToker]

i've always left the fan leaves on while drying

Quite a few people leave the fan leaves on for other reasons, such as when they wilt they form a kinda sheath around the bud and protect the trichs. I personally do not like trimming at all (due to joint pain), so I cut em off.

 

[SuperConductor]

3 Months? Man you need some better strains. Anything worth keeping around here is ready to be smoked the day its dry enough to burn fine in a joint. Also SMELLS AMAZING at that point. Gotta be vaccumed sealed to leave the house.

Ive found more than anything else with smell.... its all in the genetics and how happy the plant was growing.

If you guys have bomb genetics but the stuff aint smelling, sounds like you havent found keeper phenos yet.



Edit: and yes I've cured stuff for 6+ months. I also find that my organically grown stuff is much much smooth with no cure versus my friends GH grown stuff with no cure. Then again that could just be my biased opinion

Even cheap tobacco is cured and for good reason, not just for flavour and smell reasons either. Smoking cured buds isn't great for your lung health but smoking uncured buds is much worse.

Nothing to do with what fancy names your growing just the simple fact that cured buds are much less harsh than uncured. You may not have been smoking long but smoking uncured buds takes it's toll after a while. Can you seriously not taste the clorophyl green taste of fresh buds? You get it with 3 week flushed organic buds too.

 

[reckon]

A week...? What you need is a big bottle of ...



Keep on keepin' on for 3 months, then get back to us.

+1

takes a good MONTH to cure,....and 3 MONTHS is better

when ripe and ready to harvest: cut entire plant down, trim EVERYTHING so you have nice nugs, place on sweater drying racks (target=$5 each, and they stack!), place in A/C'd room with LESS than 50% RH, and let dry until just a tiny bit of wiggle is left in the tips, then in the mason jars they go: burp daily, occasionally empty and rotate, and in 30 days they are ready, but in 3 months they are EPIC.

you KNOW your getting it right when you put it in the jars, and they are kinda crispy, but after a day or two they completely rehydrate and get kinda soft again and you get that "lawn" smell back,...then after a couple of weeks the aromas start developing.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

Weed that has that 'lawn' smell is usually passed over in my garden. I call it hay. I think the whole issue of curing is more important with weak tasting, low potency cannabis than with serious dank. When you're growing top notch genetics, you can barely get that stuff dry before it's smoked and/or sold. Well grown connoisseur cannabis doesn't really need to be cured. Curing increases potency because it reduces vegetative mass, but serious dank is plenty potent enough right out of the microwave! A unique or strongly flavored plant can be taste tested from the others well before it's cured. I can guarantee you that, when a true connoisseur is confronted with the best genetics around, he/she will prefer that 'wet' over some perfectly cured 'hay' any day.

 

[oldbootz]

yea, tried a test sample of this not-so-good strain that i grew from a friends seed batch after 1 month cure and it was just not up to scratch, then i tried a test sample of my masterkush plant from a branch that broke off before the plant was ready (week 6-7?) and it had been drying for 4 days and i was on my ass afterwards, nice taste and smell even.

but genetics aside i also believe that potency smell and taste come from the growers methods as well. i regularly take seeds from bud that im smoking, grow the plants out, and smoke my version of the plant to be very surprised with the difference.

 

[wopuVR]

what I have heard is that after 3 months is the best point of cure, but its all downhill from there, so people will vaccum seal and freeze at that point. I imagine, 1 month is probably plenty to get to 90-95% of the 3 month cure.

Simon has a great post on a perfect cure every time. A perect cure every time - by simon
I really like this thread because he actually talks about WHY hes doing things. Most people assume that the environment/situation for everyone is the same as their own, so they will tell you how they do it and not give reasons for WHY they do each of the steps along the way, so there is no opportunity to learn and adjust the process for your own needs.

Since I live in a place with 20% humidity, leaving it out to dry would dry it way too quickly, and the buds would become very brittle very quickly, like 2 days, while the stems would remain flexible and green. I created a simple cardboard box with a clothesline through it, with some openable vent flaps, stuck a temp/humid meter in there, and then adjusted the flaps until I got 50% humidity in there. This slowed the drying process down quite a bit, which is good, don't want the bad stuff getting trapped in there from drying too fast. It took more like 5 days this way to get brittle buds, but this also made it all dry more evenly, including the stems. I don't think that the stems should snap, if the buds are crisp, and your stem snaps, it seems to me its a sign that there is almost zero moisture left, and you need some moisture for curing. The test I use is twisting the stems, if it breaks apart after 1-2 twists, its good to go, if its still wet, it will be reluctant to break and you can keep twisting around. After about 5-7 days of hanging, I remove the fan leaves and stems and then put the rest in a paper bag and let it sit in a cool dark place for 8 hours or so before checking on it. The paper bag is enough of a container to create somewhat of a micro climate, which will make the water on the inside of the stems and buds re-balance within the crispier outer bud. The paper bag is also somewhat breathable so it will prevent mold and getting a wet soggy smell. If you just put it in jars, the moisture will re-balance quicker, so you might need to be opening it every 30 mins or something. After 2-3 days of paper bagging, its time for jars. I put the temp/humidity meter inside the jar with the buds. After half a day or a full day or so, I check the meter. If its above 70% RH its time for the paper bag again. If its 65-70 range, then I just leave the jar open for an hour. If its 60-65 range, I only open for like 10-20 mins and rotate the buds in the jar a bit. I don't want the RH to drop too low, below 55 is bad.

Simon talks about how once the RH inside the jars with the curing buds drops below 55% the curing process stops and even by adding water you can't restart the plant's dying process.

The most important part, which I have read from many sources, is that the longer it takes to dry, the better the finished product. Even when curing it, its not supposed to be about jarring dry buds for 3 months, its supposed to be about continuing to dry buds very slowly for 3 months. Figuring out how to get your size/density of harvest to dry evenly and continuously for the entire time is the key. I also remember reading that mold won't grow below 10-15%, so that is the range you have to work with, so not 0% moisture, but like 5-10%. I guess I should also say, this 10-15% is the moisture content of the buds, which is not the same thing as the 55% relative humidity that the meter measures. The relative humidity is measuring the amount of moisture in the air, the relative part means its relative to the temperature, because air holds different amounts of water based on the temp. I'm assuming that the 55% simon talks about is based on 65-70 degree room temperature. Sometimes it takes a full day of the meter in the jar, before the RH will stop going up slowly, this is because the RH is actually changing as the moisture is released from the buds into the air in the jar. So the 55%-70% range is measuring the moisture of the air in the jar, but its still an effective means of relating it to the moisture content of the buds, especially since the jar has that micro climate thing going on.

 

[somebody041]

what I have heard is that after 3 months is the best point of cure, but its all downhill from there, so people will vaccum seal and freeze at that point. I imagine, 1 month is probably plenty to get to 90-95% of the 3 month cure.

Simon has a great post on a perfect cure every time. A perect cure every time - by simon
I really like this thread because he actually talks about WHY hes doing things. Most people assume that the environment/situation for everyone is the same as their own, so they will tell you how they do it and not give reasons for WHY they do each of the steps along the way, so there is no opportunity to learn and adjust the process for your own needs.

Since I live in a place with 20% humidity, leaving it out to dry would dry it way too quickly, and the buds would become very brittle very quickly, like 2 days, while the stems would remain flexible and green. I created a simple cardboard box with a clothesline through it, with some openable vent flaps, stuck a temp/humid meter in there, and then adjusted the flaps until I got 50% humidity in there. This slowed the drying process down quite a bit, which is good, don't want the bad stuff getting trapped in there from drying too fast. It took more like 5 days this way to get brittle buds, but this also made it all dry more evenly, including the stems. I don't think that the stems should snap, if the buds are crisp, and your stem snaps, it seems to me its a sign that there is almost zero moisture left, and you need some moisture for curing. The test I use is twisting the stems, if it breaks apart after 1-2 twists, its good to go, if its still wet, it will be reluctant to break and you can keep twisting around. After about 5-7 days of hanging, I remove the fan leaves and stems and then put the rest in a paper bag and let it sit in a cool dark place for 8 hours or so before checking on it. The paper bag is enough of a container to create somewhat of a micro climate, which will make the water on the inside of the stems and buds re-balance within the crispier outer bud. The paper bag is also somewhat breathable so it will prevent mold and getting a wet soggy smell. If you just put it in jars, the moisture will re-balance quicker, so you might need to be opening it every 30 mins or something. After 2-3 days of paper bagging, its time for jars. I put the temp/humidity meter inside the jar with the buds. After half a day or a full day or so, I check the meter. If its above 70% RH its time for the paper bag again. If its 65-70 range, then I just leave the jar open for an hour. If its 60-65 range, I only open for like 10-20 mins and rotate the buds in the jar a bit. I don't want the RH to drop too low, below 55 is bad.

Simon talks about how once the RH inside the jars with the curing buds drops below 55% the curing process stops and even by adding water you can't restart the plant's dying process.

The most important part, which I have read from many sources, is that the longer it takes to dry, the better the finished product. Even when curing it, its not supposed to be about jarring dry buds for 3 months, its supposed to be about continuing to dry buds very slowly for 3 months. Figuring out how to get your size/density of harvest to dry evenly and continuously for the entire time is the key. I also remember reading that mold won't grow below 10-15%, so that is the range you have to work with, so not 0% moisture, but like 5-10%. I guess I should also say, this 10-15% is the moisture content of the buds, which is not the same thing as the 55% relative humidity that the meter measures. The relative humidity is measuring the amount of moisture in the air, the relative part means its relative to the temperature, because air holds different amounts of water based on the temp. I'm assuming that the 55% simon talks about is based on 65-70 degree room temperature. Sometimes it takes a full day of the meter in the jar, before the RH will stop going up slowly, this is because the RH is actually changing as the moisture is released from the buds into the air in the jar. So the 55%-70% range is measuring the moisture of the air in the jar, but its still an effective means of relating it to the moisture content of the buds, especially since the jar has that micro climate thing going on.

great info... thank you!