A perfect cure every time

[SecretGardener]

Bulldog, youve got great timing. Some of you may remember SecondTry from a sticky here. I asked him for tips on slow drying, and he said use the Three 7's. 70F, 70% Rh, >7 days.

I recently did this with a plant I harvested 8 days ago. The temps ranged from 70-75F, 65-80RH. It hung for 7 days before I trimmed it and smoked it. She could have used a bit more drying time, as she's still not ready to be jarred, but the smell is incredible. There was no going from great smelling to hay, and *cross my fingers, hope the smell returns*.

He said you can virtually skip the lengthy curing process. Whether thats true or not, It does make a more consistent product that smells amazing when it goes into the jars.


Oh and with regards to the high humidity and possibility of mold. The buds were tiny as the fan leaves were badly burned by excessive air circulation and never fully developed, so I really never feared much about mold.

I did have a fan about 3 feet across from it and pointed it at a wall away from the plant to allow air circulation without possibility of speeding up the drying process. No signs of mold. I just hung 4 more plants up tonight, with 3 more to be hung tomorrow.

I will let you and anyone else interested how this turns out.

Currently I dry my buds in my grow tent. The RH of my house and grow tent is pretty low - somewhere between 35%-45%. How can I raise the RH to a consistent 60%? Do I have to buy a humidifier? How do you guys living in the desert dry your buds?

 

[InducedSerenity]

SecretGardener,

This was my first harvest and dry, but we had a bit of a heat wave and my room was 85 degrees with pretty low humidity. I noticed my buds drying way too fast in the enclosed veg box, so I set the exhaust fan on a timer to only go off every several hours, thus slowing the drying process. Would that work for you? Luckily I jarred just in time, and I don't think they over-dried

 

[SecretGardener]

SecretGardener,

This was my first harvest and dry, but we had a bit of a heat wave and my room was 85 degrees with pretty low humidity. I noticed my buds drying way too fast in the enclosed veg box, so I set the exhaust fan on a timer to only go off every several hours, thus slowing the drying process. Would that work for you? Luckily I jarred just in time, and I don't think they over-dried

The wet hanging buds should raise the humidity without the fan on right? Hmm, that is a good idea. I also read drying the entire plant as a whole (trimmed though) slows drying because water will only evaporate through the cuts you've made. So, theoretically, if you only make 1 cut (the initial stem chop) less surface area to evaporate from? Does this make sense? How does water evaporate from the buds? I always thought water moved from the stem to the outer part of the bud where it evaporated into the air?

But now that I think about it, water vapor is released through the stomata during transpiration. Is that where evaporation during drying takes place?

 

[Indian Culture]

Great idea, I'll have to try this out next time.

 

[InducedSerenity]

Hey Secret,

To be honest I'm not sure on the biological details of the drying process, and it's a valid question. With no air being exhausted from a closed space and no fan, I think drying would be VERY slow, but I actually wanted that in my case, because I didn't want them to dry out much more.

I think we have to experiment to see what works for our situations, but in a fast-drying climate I think a closed box without much airflow would be a good idea to retard the drying process, as long as you're careful with the humidity - throw a caliber in there and monitor the max humidity. Constant exhaust definitely dried the buds way too fast, because I put them in at 4am on Sat night / Sun morn and pulled them tuesday night - not good! Luckily they don't smell bad and seem dried to the perfect levels, but I could use more calibers to monitor my jars. filled 8-9 1/2 gals

iS

 

[igrowone]

at risk of being annoying, i'll repost my recent caliber 'left turn'
it gave me excellent results in a cure, but seems to have gone off calibration wise
only about 4 months since i bought it, spent most of its time in a curing jar
curious if anyone has had the same experience, not 100% sure, but close to it

 

[InducedSerenity]

at risk of being annoying, i'll repost my recent caliber 'left turn'<br>
it gave me excellent results in a cure, but seems to have gone off calibration wise<br>
curious if anyone has had the same experience, not 100% sure, but close to it

Grab a couple of these to test it/them:

http://www.amazon.com/Boveda-One-Step-Calibration/dp/B000A3UBLA

 

[igrowone]

Grab a couple of these to test it/them:

http://www.amazon.com/Boveda-One-Step-Calibration/dp/B000A3UBLA

thanks for the reply, i would do that if i thought it was close to true readings
but they are just too far off, i keep watch on the RH readings from my local weather reports, they used to be spot on, now really off
meter is reading much higher than true RH, probably not much can be done, just wondering if i screwed it up from keeping in the curing jar for 4 months or so

 

[staff11]

Once they are stable after a week or two you can take them out of the jar. I doubt leaving it in did any harm though.

I have found that after 59% as others have too is when the smell and taste really start to shine, anything before that is still a bit wet.

 

[bendoslendo]

I have not bought or used these so can not attest to the quality. Still, they are $6 with free shipping. I'll probably buy a few for the next harvest. If anyone tries one let me know
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.35061

 

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

thanks for the reply, i would do that if i thought it was close to true readings
but they are just too far off, i keep watch on the RH readings from my local weather reports, they used to be spot on, now really off
meter is reading much higher than true RH, probably not much can be done, just wondering if i screwed it up from keeping in the curing jar for 4 months or so

I have two that have been left in jars for several months and they both read within 1% of each other on temp and match on RH and are correct. Try clearing the high and low points on the Caliber, seems to kind of reset it. You should also check your RH on Weather Underground (google it), best weather site around. HTH

 

[igrowone]

I have two that have been left in jars for several months and they both read within 1% of each other on temp and match on RH and are correct. Try clearing the high and low points on the Caliber, seems to kind of reset it. You should also check your RH on Weather Underground (google it), best weather site around. HTH

i just tried the clearing, didn't really think that would do anything
but right after clearing, huge change in readout, not sure how true it is, but still a big difference
many thanks for the tip, i'll watch how it goes

 

[igrowone]

let me thank cottonmouth once more here, this was a big deal on this device
i do have another hygrometer, a walmart special, but it does seem to work well, was careful to give it too much credence because, well, walmart and quality aren't exactly synonyms
but after clearing the caliber, bang, right back in synch
kind of amazed, thought it had died very quickly, so this is for anyone else that may have encountered a 'drift' problem

 

[Ty_Kaycha]

.

 

[navyguy14420]

I'm new to the hygrometer thing and was wondering how you guys know they are off? do you just have several of them and compare them?

 

[Ty_Kaycha]

.

 

[SecretGardener]

Hey Secret,

To be honest I'm not sure on the biological details of the drying process, and it's a valid question. With no air being exhausted from a closed space and no fan, I think drying would be VERY slow, but I actually wanted that in my case, because I didn't want them to dry out much more.

I think we have to experiment to see what works for our situations, but in a fast-drying climate I think a closed box without much airflow would be a good idea to retard the drying process, as long as you're careful with the humidity - throw a caliber in there and monitor the max humidity. Constant exhaust definitely dried the buds way too fast, because I put them in at 4am on Sat night / Sun morn and pulled them tuesday night - not good! Luckily they don't smell bad and seem dried to the perfect levels, but I could use more calibers to monitor my jars. filled 8-9 1/2 gals

iS

I'm going to do exactly that. My normal drying times are 4-5 days which isnt horrible but I'd like to extend it to about 6-7 days. I'm going to try what you've suggested except I have one question.

My tent right now has 1 exhaust fan at the top of the tent and the intake is an open 6" port at the bottom. While drying my product I should seal that bottom intake vent right? Then set a timer to turn the fan on for maybe 10 mins every hour? Then when it clicks off the humidity should rise again right? If the bottom intake is open smell/humidity can escape.

EDIT: Haha what are you doing harvesting at 4am

 

[igrowone]

I'm new to the hygrometer thing and was wondering how you guys know they are off? do you just have several of them and compare them?

like mentioned, some use a calibration kit, i'm kind of of the low cost side of things and depended on weather reports to get an idea of my local RH
that did seem to work well, may depend on how close a weather station is to your location, but i figure a weather station's hygrometer should be pretty accurate

 

[staff11]

Don't use the salt test on the caliber III's, it will ruin them. There is a reason they say not to use it in the instructions, corrosion.

 

[navyguy14420]

so you guys are using weather reports to see if your hygrometers are off and/or using test kits? ok, I'm not gonna bother with that now. I just got my caliber 3 about 2 weeks ago and have two more on the way. I will just use the comparison method. What's in the kits that calibrates the hygrometer? How do you use the salt method? not gonna try it but just wondering.