WET VS DRY Trimming

[Bueno Time]

I have found for me that dry trimming makes the buds smell better faster than trimmed when wet and dried. To me when wet trimmed and then dried and jarred they smelled kind of like hay or grass, fresh weed smell until cured for a decent length of time before the smell comes out. I have been drying and then trimming right before jarring or bagging the buds up to cure and I feel like when its dry and you trim it breaks a lot of nice trich heads releasing the terpenes and then when tossed in the jars/bags/totes whatever you use it just marinates in its own scent and doesnt take as long in cure for the smell to be really strong.

I dont know, thats how I think of it anyway but it works better in my experience to trim when dry.

 

[MJPassion]

I did exacty as you described above Bueno Time.

Testing starts in a couple weeks. ;-)
Expectations are very high.

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

I have an anecdotal story.

Two years ago I had a small PM at harvest time.

So, in an attempt to mediate the PM, I used Greenscure and it was very effective.

So at harvest time I selected the buds that did not appear to have PM and wet trimmed them hung them in the garage.

Afterwards, I decided that I would make up a 1/2 strength solution of Greens cure in a 5 gallon bucket. I cut the branches that had signs of PM on them and dipped/swished them in the greenscure solution and then I rinsed in 2-5 gallon buckets of fresh water.

So, you can imagine that the buds were soaked right? And they were, but after a quick vigourous shaking moist of the water was gone. I then wet trimmed them then hung them for 10-14 days (don't recall exactly) in my garage.

They turned out perfectly fine.

So, last year I thought I would try dry trimming on my outdoor buds.

However, the year before, after swishing the buds in the GC solution and rinsing with water, I noticed just how brown and dirty the water was.

Well, what do you expect you are growing outdoors and there is going to dirty/bug shit/ pollen, and PM/molds.

So anyway, swished my just cut buds(on the stem of course) removing the big fans and hung them.

The water was dirty brown but my buds were much cleaner.

After a good long dry, I finger trimmed them (just a little), bucked them fromt he stems and jarred them for cure.

My buds are perfect. better than wet trimming in my opinion.

A few folks I know think its crazy to rinse the buds...Mold and what have you... but it has not happened yet and last years harvest was better for it...in my opinion.


Anyway, last years experiment was a success and will be rinsing my buds in water prior to hanging for a dry trim.


Talk amongst yourselves, there is coffee and a nice pound cake on the server, you will have to excuse me, I'm getting a little verklempt.

minds_I

 

[LSWM]

Dry trim always. As everyone else has stated, wet trim produces a hay smell and pales in comparison to a dry trim.

I cut the plants into large sections and hang them to dry. When they are completely dry I clip it into smaller pieces, or individual nugs, and place them into a 5 gallon bucket with an air tight lid.

This allows me to trim at my own pace and keep all the nug properly stored in air tight containers until I can get to it. Worked extremely well for me this last harvest as I'm the only set of hands I have.

 

[DrFever]

Well idunno i never have had a hay smell wet trimming, i always wondered how the hell people get the hay smell????
When i wet trim first 3 days its such a strong aroma its the only time i AM SHITTING MY PANTS
even when a buddy came over he mentioned ,, You exhausting it outside you can smell it from end of your drive way and thats the scary part hahaha and only time i am little worried or paranoid
Bottom line my dry room is pretty dialed in as its my flowering room.
I have trimmed a shit load and never a hay smell but rather perfect smell slow dry 3 -4 days put it all in a big bag air tight for 6 - 8 hrs to sweat then back on screens for 24 hrs bagged burping every few days then its done
but reallly who cares as long as it turns out great for you

cheers Doc

 

[noyd666]

ALLWAYS WET TRIM MINE AND FRIENDS ALSO WET TRIM, WET HAY ! ONLY WET HAY I EVER SMELT WAS ON FARMS I WORKED AT WHEN A YOUNG TACKER,LOL.

 

[JointOperation]

like its been said.. dry trim if u cant control the environment..wet trim if u can control environment.. or have enough bud hanging in the room tokeep that humidity in check . slow dry low temps.. mid to high humidity works well for both..

its all about if your doing huge outdoors ops.. or small indoor ops.. the smaller the amount of bud.. drying.. the harder to control how quickly it drys.. wen u dry 1 plant in a room . compared to 20.. that 1 plant will dry in 3-4 days.. while the 20 would take 10.

also I like dry because I prefer to get my rooms refilled and back into flower as they dry.. then I trim. and the room goes directly into flower.. to start again .

 

[aridbud]

Interesting. What I found was having more fragile buds to manicure dry...esp. sativa leaning strains. Wet trim...rarely a "hay" smell, but allow soil to dry thoroughly and cut before light/dawn. Lawn grass doesn't have that smell if it's dry.....liken it to that.

Like your synopsis JO...dry trim if u cant control the environment..wet trim if u can control environment.. or have enough bud hanging in the room tokeep that humidity in check . slow dry low temps.. mid to high humidity works well for both..


Whatever gets the job done. Just old school, scissors and fresh plant. The few times dry....it was messier w/ sugar leaves, etc.

CURE is the important thing....a good slow cure.

 

[DrFever]

like its been said.. dry trim if u cant control the environment..wet trim if u can control environment.. or have enough bud hanging in the room tokeep that humidity in check . slow dry low temps.. mid to high humidity works well for both..

its all about if your doing huge outdoors ops.. or small indoor ops.. the smaller the amount of bud.. drying.. the harder to control how quickly it drys.. wen u dry 1 plant in a room . compared to 20.. that 1 plant will dry in 3-4 days.. while the 20 would take 10.

also I like dry because I prefer to get my rooms refilled and back into flower as they dry.. then I trim. and the room goes directly into flower.. to start again .

its not about if you do small or large 1 plant or 200 plants i done 800 plant taking a crew little over a week to trim all trim weed daily went into a room never mixing previous days or next days trimmed bud keeping it all separate
you should not mix the 1 - 2 day drying weed to the fresh cut n drying weed
only time i will add moist trimmed bud to others is if i over dried

 

[Crooked8]

Dr if u have environment control it doesnt matter. Ambient rh needs to be between 55-65% and temps between 70-80. If the room stays like that, it doesnt matter when or how you trim it. If your temps are too high and it dries to fast you lose terps, same woth humidity below 55%. Too low of temps or too high of humidity and you risk mold. I like 60% with 75 degree temps.

 

[JointOperation]

honestly. i dont even know what hes talking about.. lol.. if u have a 20x 20 room. right.. and u try to dry 1 plant.. in there.. thats a non envirnomentally controlled room.. 1 plant will dry faster then if u had 20 in the room.. is all i was saying.. like if ur drying 14grams.. it will dry faster then 2 lbs..

lol.. not saying it matters which way u trim based on size.. its all based on environment. and guess what.. EVERYONES ENVIRONMENT IS DIFF.. unless its controlled.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Just ran into a similar problem..
I've been trimming fresh as I use a trimpro rotor. I've been trying to de-fan / hang dry a lot of my tops to retain that dank aroma, but everything else runs though the machine and goes onto the nets.

My problem is that the 1st half of the crop turned out really nice. Sat on nets at around 60% humidity and took around 1 week to dry. In fact 60% might have been a little too humid as it never really dry enough. I eventually had to toss it in a large cardboard box and take upstairs where it crisped up perfectly in another day. It's never as pungent as the branch hung flowers, but still really nice.

Unfortunately as the more and more I got harvested.. the lower my humidity dropped. Near the end of harvest my room was now sitting at only 40-45% humidity and I think a lot of my rotored flowers dryed too quickly - losing a lot of the bouquet. The packs from the tail end of my harvest are not making any friends while the initial batch got favorable remarks.


Is there anything that can be done at this point. I've got them in turkey bags and kind of burping here and there to try to restore some odor. They are not brittle dry (I put in turkey bags early because of the fast dry time). The flowers actually have a nice feel to them.. just not a kick you in the face odor. If I bag up an ounce the majority of people are impressed and it definitely has some skunk to it before it's brought out of the pocket... However if you stick your head in a turkey bag with a lb though I really don't think it smells very good. ... even bringing questions of spores/bacteria, etc amongst some ..even though there is none visible. Not good.

I had some mold in some larger tops, but those where pitched.

 

[mendo-local]

Dry trim for me.I would be willing to bet that ALL the entries to this years cup are dry trimmed.

 

[xxPeacePipexx]

I have never liked cutting wet bud . I might take the shade leaves off immediately depending on a few variables and as well I may cut the plant into manageable pieces for line drying , but no way am I cutting my bud wet .. I tried both ways and in between as well many many times and in the end I have more control this way

 

[DrFever]

Just ran into a similar problem..
I've been trimming fresh as I use a trimpro rotor. I've been trying to de-fan / hang dry a lot of my tops to retain that dank aroma, but everything else runs though the machine and goes onto the nets.

My problem is that the 1st half of the crop turned out really nice. Sat on nets at around 60% humidity and took around 1 week to dry. In fact 60% might have been a little too humid as it never really dry enough. I eventually had to toss it in a large cardboard box and take upstairs where it crisped up perfectly in another day. It's never as pungent as the branch hung flowers, but still really nice.

Unfortunately as the more and more I got harvested.. the lower my humidity dropped. Near the end of harvest my room was now sitting at only 40-45% humidity and I think a lot of my rotored flowers dryed too quickly - losing a lot of the bouquet. The packs from the tail end of my harvest are not making any friends while the initial batch got favorable remarks.


Is there anything that can be done at this point. I've got them in turkey bags and kind of burping here and there to try to restore some odor. They are not brittle dry (I put in turkey bags early because of the fast dry time). The flowers actually have a nice feel to them.. just not a kick you in the face odor. If I bag up an ounce the majority of people are impressed and it definitely has some skunk to it before it's brought out of the pocket... However if you stick your head in a turkey bag with a lb though I really don't think it smells very good. ... even bringing questions of spores/bacteria, etc amongst some ..even though there is none visible. Not good.

I had some mold in some larger tops, but those where pitched.[/QUOTE

What i would do is put all of your weed in a big garbage bag press out the air twist bag so its sorta air tight
Then place it in a cool dark place for 6 - 8 hrs by doing this it will sweat out any humidity in the inner buds outwards if there is any over dried buds they will moisten back up

After 6 - 8 hrs place back on screens for 8 = 10 hrs everything should be premo

 

[topshelf_sac]

I trim wet and haven't had any problems with smell or flavor.

I immediately freeze my trim for bubblehash too.

I trim wet, hang until all the way dry, then put buds in container with Boveda packs for three or four days.it turns out great with strong flavor and smell. My drying room runs at 70 degress and between 50-60% RH.

 

[theother]

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=44299&pictureid=1038493&thumb=1]View Image[/url] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=48848&pictureid=1144086&thumb=1]View Image[/url] I trim wet and haven't had any problems with smell or flavor.

I immediately freeze my trim for bubblehash too.

I trim wet, hang until all the way dry, then put buds in container with Boveda packs for three or four days.it turns out great with strong flavor and smell. My drying room runs at 70 degress and between 50-60% RH.

Sounds like you got a handle on it shit looks dank. Fwiw the most common miss wet trimming is to chicken out before it dries all the way and debone and bag it. You'll know you did it if you smell that weird halfway sour halfway earthy bacterial funk, and you would know if it was wrong. Seems like dry trimming if you get them bagged to early (impossible of your finger trimming) you can get this weird red wine smell, real yeasty and altogether worse than the wet trim funk.

 

[flat9]

like its been said.. dry trim if u cant control the environment..wet trim if u can control environment.. or have enough bud hanging in the room tokeep that humidity in check . slow dry low temps.. mid to high humidity works well for both..

its all about if your doing huge outdoors ops.. or small indoor ops.. the smaller the amount of bud.. drying.. the harder to control how quickly it drys.. wen u dry 1 plant in a room . compared to 20.. that 1 plant will dry in 3-4 days.. while the 20 would take 10.

also I like dry because I prefer to get my rooms refilled and back into flower as they dry.. then I trim. and the room goes directly into flower.. to start again .

So is this a consensus? If so, I'd much rather wet trim as it's a lot easier to get a great job done in a shorter amount of time, especially with the Bonsai Hero and Trim-R-matic:

http://www.bonsaihero.com/index.php/bonsai-hero
http://www.trimrmatic.com/

Think they're basically the same thing. I have a dry trimmer that works pretty well but for the smaller buds it can rip some apart if you aren't careful in controlling the speed...

 

[theother]

Just ran into a similar problem..
I've been trimming fresh as I use a trimpro rotor. I've been trying to de-fan / hang dry a lot of my tops to retain that dank aroma, but everything else runs though the machine and goes onto the nets.

My problem is that the 1st half of the crop turned out really nice. Sat on nets at around 60% humidity and took around 1 week to dry. In fact 60% might have been a little too humid as it never really dry enough. I eventually had to toss it in a large cardboard box and take upstairs where it crisped up perfectly in another day. It's never as pungent as the branch hung flowers, but still really nice.

Unfortunately as the more and more I got harvested.. the lower my humidity dropped. Near the end of harvest my room was now sitting at only 40-45% humidity and I think a lot of my rotored flowers dryed too quickly - losing a lot of the bouquet. The packs from the tail end of my harvest are not making any friends while the initial batch got favorable remarks.


Is there anything that can be done at this point. I've got them in turkey bags and kind of burping here and there to try to restore some odor. They are not brittle dry (I put in turkey bags early because of the fast dry time). The flowers actually have a nice feel to them.. just not a kick you in the face odor. If I bag up an ounce the majority of people are impressed and it definitely has some skunk to it before it's brought out of the pocket... However if you stick your head in a turkey bag with a lb though I really don't think it smells very good. ... even bringing questions of spores/bacteria, etc amongst some ..even though there is none visible. Not good.

I had some mold in some larger tops, but those where pitched.

What I use is a portable evaporative cooler (like 150 from Home Depot) and install a different pump, just drill a hole in the side and fish the plug for the new pump out. Then plug that into a hygrometer leave it set at 60%. You can even do this now, it won't exactly fix the flash dry but it will keep it from going much further. I used to use the rh from the mass of flowers to maintain a steady environment but like you I had occasional problems and just decided it was unacceptable. Now if I cut a plant out early or for some reason or I don't have much drying the room is always perfect. I leave it on as long as I have stuff laying around, even in turkey bags, I feel that I have a better quality of flowers across the board since doing this, sticky and dank 2-3 months later after a 2 week hang time.

I add h202 to the water res periodically to stop any funk develops on the pads, it's the simplest solution to humidity I have found.

 

[JointOperation]

yes i believe there really is not a difference as long as you slow the process down wen wet trimming is all..

i was told that when u chop a fan leaf off.. and u see that sappy water coming out.. of were the stem is.. that.. that liquidy shit.. is the reason why wet trimming tends to have that hay smell.. which kinda made sense to me at the time.. maybe its a chlorophyll smell?

but i havent heard anyone else mention this.. or any proof to back it up..

but honestly for me.. yes wet trimming is easier and u can get it done quickly. but.. for me.. i need to get my rooms filled again.. so its usually a few days of work before i can get to trimming either way.. so i havent really been wet trimming in a while.. but..

would love to see some real side by sides done.. with maybe lab tests for terps. to see if trimming before.. allows the plant to become more susceptible to the degradation of terpenes.. or wat..

but i guess until we fully understand exactly whats going on during the drying and curing process.. we cannot be 100% positive as to Which method is best..