Drying under HPS - Degradiation of THC

[archverm]

I´m growing two different strains/plants in a growtent. Chimeras Fighting Buddha (55 days) and Bubba Kush Katsu (65 days).

My problem is that i´m living in a small apartment and even opening the tent gets my neighbour (great to have neighbours like this! ) to warn me about the smell in the hallway. I´m close to harvest and I would like to get the BK as mature as possible. I´m thinking of cutting the FB and let it hang in the tent meanwhile the BK still grows in there. I would make a little partition of the space to make it as dark as possible. The tent being mylar and the need of air circulation makes it impossible or at least almost impossible to make it pitch-dark.

Tell me your experience of drying your weed under bright conditions!

 

[hayday]

Use a paper bag or box.Dry right in there.You sound like you need another filter right about now.

 

[accessndx]

Light and heat degrade THC......you want cool, relatively dry (but not too dry) and dark with good airflow.
Methinks you need a "drying tent" with a filter. They make tents for specifically that purpose.
If you HAD to dry in the tent with the HPS.....take a brown paper grocery bag......put the nugs in there......wrap that in another plastic bag (like you double bagged at the supermarket). You want to keep the bag "almost" closed so there is air getting in and out....
You can alternatingly open and close it to limit the amount of evaporation and/or exposure to light.
Ideally you don't want to be doing this in the HPS tent tho.
Got a friend that does dry in light conditions....good news his weed is still dank......BUT when he switched up as per my suggestion....he found that the taste and potency were increased noticably.

 

[gaiusmarius]

the light in my experience isn't the big problem, it's the heat. if your temps are not too high, you can definitely dry for a few days like you suggest. once dry take it out and put in the dark to cure. but if your grow space is getting to 30° or more, then you will lose taste and effect. had that happen in high summer once.

 

[PistilPete]

I used to dry on a closet shelf a few feet above my hps. I used shoe boxes with a bunch of ventilation holes punched into it with a screwdriver. Never noticed any difference. Just make sure the buds aren't too close to the hps's heat... you don't want them to dry too quick or your they will taste nasty. I actually still dry in shoe boxes, just in a closet without a light.

 

[stinkhairs]

A tent is the perfect place to dry (circulation, smell extraction etc) - if you have nothing else growing in it. Don't you have anywhere else dark, like an attic, cupboard?

 

[gaiusmarius]

you could turn the lamp off for 3 days till the bud is nearly dry, then finish it off in boxes and turn light back on to finish the other plant. but yeah heat is the worst enemy of taste and high. the smartest move would be to get a small drying tent with it's own scrubber and ventilation.

 

[Mr Pengra]

Paper bag method or trim the buds down and place them on mesh in a shoebox to dry, the humidity levels in your tent could fluctuate and promote bud rot or molds to form on the drying buds. not worth it in my opinion unless you really need to curb the smell.

 

[Green lung]

It works fine just don't the light directly shine on the buds.


use your imagination

 

[archverm]

Okay, I´ll make a temporary drying tent. i´m going to buy an additional 800m3/h exhaust fan set in there. It will be useful in my next grow also because i´m going to try vertical growing and understood that I will need more powerful ventilation to run it cool.

I just don´t want to mess up with my Fighting Buddha ´cause it´ll keep my mind clear!

Thanks for everyone!

 

[gaiusmarius]

wise move, it increases your security too, with the additional ventilation etc.

 

[archverm]

Yeah for sure! Been a bit paranoid lately so I have been only vaporizing. Can´t wait to get puffin smoke under my spare ventilation set.

Thanks again everyone for pushin me to make the right decision!

 

[NorCal]

its pretty difficult to cure properly under those conditions. I'd use one of the above mentioned suggestions as to the best way you can do it. Here's a pic of some sour diesel nugs that were left to dry in the flower room. You can see there's No THC whatsoever and if you could smell this stuff it smells like hay. This wasn't even directly under the light it was actually in a shoe box on top of a shelf that was at the top of the room. The shelf was actually higher than the reflectors in there. HTH

 

[supermanlives]

i do it all the time when i need to speed things up. sometimes i put it in paper bag right on top of air cooled reflector. no noticable loss of potency

 

[Dr.Dank]

its pretty difficult to cure properly under those conditions. I'd use one of the above mentioned suggestions as to the best way you can do it. Here's a pic of some sour diesel nugs that were left to dry in the flower room. You can see there's No THC whatsoever and if you could smell this stuff it smells like hay. This wasn't even directly under the light it was actually in a shoe box on top of a shelf that was at the top of the room. The shelf was actually higher than the reflectors in there. HTH

View Image

damn i wouldn't want my worse enemy smoke on that! horrible! sorry to hear this bud... sour D is one of my all time favorite.

 

[Green lung]

I dry all my harvests in my grow room, I hang the buds in the closet with the 1 side of the closet left open for airflow. My lights shine somewhat inside the closet but not directly. I have no problems with yellow buds or hay smelling bud.


Light is what makes your buds turn yellow and drying for too long.




Hang some black plastic or garbage bag something that blocks most of the light but lets airflow to the drying buds.



.

 

[Hammerhead]

whats better drying the plants whole or trimming the plants wet then drying??

Im finding that drying the plants whole is better but harder to trim when dry. There more sticky if I dont touch them until dry then trim off the stems.

 

[yesum]

I would not worry if the light is not directly on the buds you are drying. All the heat in there drying it too quick or too much air flow would be the potential problems.

I used to smoke Colombian Gold which was sun dried. Damn fine smoke.

I trim wet but am letting the plants dry in the pots, so they take longer. Comes out great.

 

[Field&Stream]

I prefer to trim it wet then dry.

 

[stinkhairs]

I too trim it just after chopping the plant, then let it dry for a couple of weeks, then cure it for another 2. After that, everything seems to go very well indeed

Is the degredation of THC caused by the intensity of the light (say for eg a 600w hps), or does exposure to any light, even ambient light, cause it to lose potency?