What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Orange Pekoe Cambodian, Back to the Congo,HSO 707 HB

EvergreenState

Active member
Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Fall Photos

Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Fall Photos

Here come old Flat Top groovin' up slowly
picture.php
picture.php
picture.php
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Switched to Dyna Gro Bloom for the OPC'S about a week ago. Very mild dose of 1/2 teaspoon-2.5ml per gallon. My total ppm is about 450 with over 300 of that coming from my tap water. Very mild dose and they seem to like it so far. The buds started to swell and pick up weight almost right away. Ph 6.2.
The Back to the Congo's and the HSO 707 HEADBAND have been getting water only for over two weeks and they are fading nicely. Although the Headband had retained much of it's color.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Harvest Day 59

Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Harvest Day 59

Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno harvested Day 59. Plenty of amber tricks to warrent cutting down. Not going to be a big yielder but with a small pot, short veg and no training, that's what you get. Yield isn't everything and hopefully very high quality buds will be the prize at the end. Wet trim on the plant and now I'll cut the buds off the stems, do a finer wet trim for sugar and to separate the popcorn from the quality buds, place them on my nylon mesh rack to dry, into paper bags for a few days to pull moisture out of the middle and redistribute it throughout the buds, then jarring them, final drying by opening jars for an hour or so each day for a week and then on to curing. Checking the hydrometer daily to determine if more drying is needed.
picture.php
picture.php
picture.php
picture.php
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Unfortunately had some mold on some of the very top big buds that had to be discarded. That's always disappointing and, fortunately, has only happened to me twice. After breaking down the plant completely, the mold at the top doesn't surprise me due to the fact that bud densities are as high as I've ever seen them in my grows. Extremely tight, rock hard, extremely dense buds.
picture.php
picture.php
 
Last edited:

EvergreenState

Active member
Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Rock Buds

Back to the Congo Deep Chunk Pheno Rock Buds

To give you an idea of the size of the rock buds I took off of the Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno, I measured the diameter of 4 buds. I used my girl's plastic tape measure she uses for sewing to measure the diameter of the buds. Two were 3 3/4 inches in diameter, one was 4 inches in diameter and one was 4 1/4 inches in diameter. They were all about 2.5 inches tall. Big, fat, hard buds.
I've had three different phenos from this strain.
The last time I grew them they were all pretty uniform and not that much difference between them. This time I had three different phenos. One is very similar to my last grow, one is the Deep Chunk pheno which is very different from all the others and it's very easy to distinguish it from the others. Big, fat leaves and this one is the special one of that pheno in that the smell is a very funky, foul smell. What the breeder Richard William's called the Congo smelling Deep Chunk pheno.
The third pheno I found this time would be one that I wouldn't grow again if I took cuts from the plants. I'd toss the cuts if bud structure and quality are important and they are. There are a lot of empty seed pods in almost all of the buds. No seeds but seed pods. None of the other Congo plants from either grow had any of these issues. Having said all of that, the smoke or effect quality is the bottom line for me. If the effect from this plant is killer, which would surprise me, then it's a great plant. I've been surprised before by plants that appeared to have a lot of problems but usually if it looks funky, it doesn't perform.
I can't wait to smoke these Deep Chunk pheno rocks. It's going to be a long 5 weeks waiting for the drying and curing to work it's magic.
picture.php
 

EvergreenState

Active member
We lost a bunch of weight! Fast!

We lost a bunch of weight! Fast!

I weighed my Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno buds after 48 hours drying in a room with an average temp. of 68 degrees F. and 48% humidity. The percentage of weight loss is 55%. That's a much higher percentage of weight loss than I expected after only two days in a relatively cool room at a moderate humidity.
I do a very close wet trim, pretty much a final trim and remove them from the stems. I'll do a final manicure before jarring on some parts of some buds but they are, for the most part, completely manicured. I think most growers don't do this because they dry quicker and a slower dry seems to be the preferred way to go.
I'm more concerned with mold, so I trim tight and cut off the branches and stems. My buds though, after drying and curing, don't smell like hay. Don't get me wrong, there are some hay smells for several days in the jar in the beginning. After opening the jar for an hour or so every day for 7 to 10 days, most of that disappears and the good fragrances start to shine.
The fear with quicker drying is that they will dry too fast and then smell bad. I think higher room temps. and lower humidity are to be avoided and are the main culprit of too fast drying.
I don't think my buds dry TOO fast because the drying room temp. and humidity are moderate. I'll be weighing them again tomorrow and get a 72 hour weight loss percentage.
I'm also very careful how I handle my buds. I pick up each bud gently with two fingers, put them down gently on the scale and then return them very gently. No finger fucking here.:huggg:
 

EvergreenState

Active member
72 hour percentage of weight loss results

72 hour percentage of weight loss results

After 72 hours, same room conditions, the percentage of weight loss is at 68%. I'm going to put the buds in a paper bag for a couple of days to pull moisture out of the center and redistribute it. I'll weigh again in 48 hours and then jar them up.
After watching a video on YouTube by Verde Natural where, after drying for several days, they put the buds in a paper bag, then they put the paper bag in a plastic contractor bag and they closed that bag up tight. I'm going to try that method.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
If the scissor hash is any indication of what to expect from the buds of the Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno then I'm a very happy guy. I'm watching some live Prince videos on YouTube and I'm amazed at what a great guitar player he was. I had no idea he was that great of a player.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Back to the Congo number 3, the one with the seed pods, have a 71% weight loss when I weighed them this morning. It is it's third day of drying. The buds from this plant aren't nearly as dense as the buds from the BTTC Deep Chunk pheno. They are nearly 7% drier over the same time period, under the same conditions. They went into paper bags this morning and then the paper bags went into a plastic trash bag thst I tied up tightly. It will be interesting to see if there is enough moisture in these buds to cure at the right humidity in the jar or did they get too dried out. We'll see.
This method of putting dry buds into paper bags and then into a sealed trash bag, I got from watching this Verde Natural video on Youtube.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1268s&v=7wxS69F9gEU
 

EvergreenState

Active member
In the British Parliament in 1983, Lord Boothby, a distinguished Conservative, attacked his own Government over the high level of taxation on Scotch. When he received what he deemed a " courteous but rather uninformative reply" , he asked
" whether Her Majesty's Government realize that in the modern world Scotch whiskey is about the only thing left that brings guaranteed and sustained comfort to mankind".
 
Last edited:

EvergreenState

Active member
The Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno top shelf buds, no popcorn, were put into a paper bag, which was put into a plastic trash bag and sealed up, for 48 hours. I weighed them this morning and they have lost 4% percent more weight for a total weight loss of 72%. They do feel uniformly moist and are still springy when lightly squeezed, so I think the redistributing of moisture while brown bagged up and then put in that sealed environment of the trash bag, works for moisture redistribution. So they are actually drier but they feel like they are more moist. They were somewhat crunchy dry on the outside when I put them in the bags and now, even though they lost more weight, are evenly moist. Time to jar them up.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Those buds got really moist. The hygrometer reading shot up to over 80% humidity very quickly, in a little over an hour. I took them out and I'll let them dry up for 8-12 hours, check them and put back in the jars.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Checked the jar with the Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno buds that I put back into the jar over night after leaving out for 8 hours to dry out. After being in the paper bag for a few days they were pretty moist so they needed to dry out before going back into the jar. The humidity in the jar this morning was 74%.
I took them back out of the jar and II'll let them dry out for another 8 hours and then back in the jar. I'll check the humidity in the jar tomorrow morning, looking for around 65% and if it's still high, I'll let them dry out even more. I thought that at 72% weight loss the buds would be dry enough to have a lower humidity in the jar but so far that's not the case.
 

EvergreenState

Active member
Plenty of photos of the Back to the Congo Deep Chunk pheno at different stages along the way:biggrin: but here is one of the curing buds. I had to open up the jar again today for a couple of hours because the humidity in the jar this morning was 70%. Holding steady right now at 65%. It will probably need to be aired out again in the morning. Once I can get it to hold at between 60-65% I will let it cure for a month.
Also have a photo of the HSO 707 Headband at day 66.
picture.php
picture.php
 
Top