how do you dry weed when it's humid?

[señorsloth]

so i've been drying a harvest about 24 hours now, but it's raining right now, so humidity is like 100% and it's gonna be like 60% or 70% all this week...

ive had some leaves sitting out for like 2 weeks now, they wont get crunchy, they wont fully dry, how am i supposed to get my harvest dry enough to jar? i have been thinking about buying a dehydrator and putting them in that for a little while before jarring or something but i don't want to ruin the taste

i also don't want to have a bunch of moldy pot from jarring damp weed...

 

[PuReKnOwLeDgE]

Buy a dehumidifier.

 

[the med man]

i second that motion,mm

 

[señorsloth]

i considered it at one point but it's really too much heat, and too expensive, i'm battling that already, plus it's not like i have a huge harvest, it doesn't really make sense to dehydrate my whole place for a few jars of weed every few months...

 

[NEW ENGLAND]

Smoking mold sucks tho,stick it in a shoe box with a couple of holes in the side for ventalation if you have to,turning the buds once or twice a day.

 

[watts]

put it in a room with a window a/c or some type of portable a/c? set the thermostat to 65 degrees F

 

[PaullyHighBred]

I use desiccants to dry my shrooms in a sealed container. I've got a five gal food container that I put 3 quarts Damp Rid (homedepot,walmart) in the bottom of and then layer screens of shrroms on top. They get crispy after about 5 days. I've never had to dry dry more then a qp though...

 

[JOJO420]

Going through the same scenario. The humidity has been over 75% for weeks, and most of the time its 85-99%. Only way I have found is to get a dehumidifier. There are drawbacks to this though. The dehumidifier makes the room run hot, you can vent the thing and that helps.

 

[Puffaluffagus]

I put a dehuey in the room, but I position it close to the exhaust vent(2-3 feet away), and as I result I get the lower humidity level I want, without heating the whole room up to much, as the majority of the heat is pulled out the exhaust vent.
I have a thermometer by the exhaust vent and it's always about 5 degrees warmer then the rest of the room(I have about 5 thermometers scattered in different places)

 

[señorsloth]

see i would really like to find a nice smaller scale way of doing this, i harvest about a quarter pound a month right now and i don't really want to run a dehydrator, i have ac but it doesn't reach my back bedroom that my cab is in, and my drying chamber controlls smell by attaching to the intake of my cab so i can't really put the whole box of drying weed in my living room with the ac, id stink out the neighborhood once a month, lol

i like the damprid idea, i used to grow mushies too, but i used an adjustable food dehydrator set to 90 degrees for that. the only real problem is that with mushrooms your really just trying to dry them as fast as possible, your not trying to preserve any smells or flavors.

i was thinking small scale it would be best to do as much drying as possible the regular way. hanging them for 5 to 7 days should get them close to dry, but probably not enough to jar yet...do you think damprid would affect the flavor at all? i don't really want my buds around that damprid syrup to be honest so i'm kinda thinking about using dried rice in the bottom of each jar or putting some of that almost dry bud in a food dehydrator for a while, get it like 0% moisture then mix it with the damp buds in the jars, and maybe it would even out?

i feel like this should be a fairly common problem and there must be lots of solutions out there, i mean the solution for everybody can't be to just buy a dehumidifier(i'm sure it is for many, and if i could justify the cost and heat i would do it), there MUST be some good small scale tricks to at least get the humidity in the jars down.

 

[PaullyHighBred]

In that case use food grade dessicants in individual packets (walmart, near the canning section). I put a packet in each mason jar of nugs destined for long term storage... I like to let my buds cure around 55-58% humidity, and the packets act as cheap insurance preventing any surface fuzz or mold from forming while mainting a constant relative humidity within the jar.

I've popped jars from outdoor grows that were 3-4 yrs old and still as fresh as when first jarred.

So long as your buds dont come in direct contact with the dessicant and the buds humidity doesnt drop too low (or too high to begin with), the dessicants will have zereo effect on flavor, smell or quality of the final product...

 

[trichrider]

^^^that.
also you could try paper bags after hanging...even with rice sprinkled in the bottom (or damprid).

 

[whatsupdoc]

I'm not a fan of the method, but if I were in your situation I'd give freezer curing a try.

 

[señorsloth]

also you could try paper bags after hanging...even with rice sprinkled in the bottom (or damprid).

damprid turns into a syrup when it absorbs moisture, i wouldn't wanna just sprinkle that in a bag lol but i am not so worried about drying it, i figure i can give it a couple extra days to get within like 5 or 10% of optimum curing humidity, then get it that final bit with something extra in a jar, so i don't have to worry about drying a large amount of space.

I'm not a fan of the method, but if I were in your situation I'd give freezer curing a try.

meh, i cure in jars, i don't want none of that freeze dried stuff, lol no offense...

i like the idea of the desiccant packets, my plan is too order one of simon's little humidity meters on Monday, so it arrives when my stuff is ready to jar on Friday. i have never thought i needed one before, i have a pretty good feel for curing, but the weather has been so random lately i think im just going to play it safe.

plus i figure if i can hang dry my buds down to 60-70%, then put one of those packets in each jar and monitor them closely, till i get them down to proper curing percentages. i figure if they work really fast i'll just keep them in for a few hours a day, if not just keep them in there a bit longer each day, then when i know i reach that magic number i can pull the packet out seal for long term. i like this idea a lot, i have used these packets before, but i couldn't imagine where you would get them, and i don't like damprid because it turns into a syrup when it absorbs moisture, the packets don't. and rice seemed a bit old school, i guess the packets are like the new school version and the simon humidity monitor, well that just makes it more exact.

i'm open to new ideas but this is what i plan to try, i am planning to dry for 7 days instead of my usual 5 because of the high humidity, so that means i think i will be at the desiccant/jarring point this Thursday/Friday. i will document it on this thread when the time comes, but my camera really sucks, i want to get one just for pot pics but all the affordable ones are pink and purple, the one i'm using now is on my phone and very poor.

 

[Hammerhead]

If you Rh is that high I would get a Dehumidifier and a fan..Hope that helps

 

[PaullyHighBred]

On the flip side, unless theres a particular reason you need them jarred up, market/stealth/smell or you really need the space, I'd just let them hang. I've known outdoor growers who let their whole harvest hang for more then a month, didnt need the additional jar cure phase, and smoked bomb as fuck. Nothin wrong with a slow dry, so long as it is drying and not molding

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Just a quarter pound?

Hang it for a few days first. Pull sheets, towels and blankets from your dryer and hang them in the room for an hour. This would work better in a closet, less air to dry.

Get a tupperware that will allow you to put the entire amount flat.
Get/build a rack that will hold the bud a few inches off the bottom of the tupperware.

Use the damprid under the rack, just don't use a LOT of it. You said you wanted to preserve flavor, right? Just don't let that bud touch the rid, bleah.

You should be just fine.

Stay Safe!

 

[señorsloth]

well a quarter pound is a lot of pot too me, although i could be doing better, i'm upping my plant number gradually in my perpetual till i get to the perfect density...the point is in the grand scheme of things i think of a dehumidifier as like a larger scale deal, like for when you are constantly drying pounds, i just have a once a month harvest that dries for 5 days and goes into 4-6 jars, but during these next two harvests i'm going to be dealing with a fair bit of moisture in the atmosphere for those 5 to 7 days... i hardly feel like it justifies a 250$ dehumidifier that will heat up the room even more than it is just for 10 days out of the year when i need it...

i know it's like the industry standard way to handle it and in an ideal situation i could just do that or get a second air conditioner but i can't, and the relatively small size of my operation just doesn't justify it. i feel like there must be a lot of people out there like me, who can't really control the humidity but want to get a good cure nonetheless on a smaller scale, i'm hoping this desiccant packet idea will be the answer.

i also am greatly interested in the idea somebody placed about just letting them hang for a month...what do you guys think about that? the pile of leaves ive left out have stayed leathery and not molded...would it be bad to do that? i mean with curing in the jars the humidity is the same, like 60 to 70% i think, but doesn't the jar keep the terpenenes from evaporating? i kinda worry that i would lose most of them and end up with really smooth, but mostly flavorless buds...but i'm just guessing...would love to know more...

 

[John Deere]

Have you checked your local Craigslist? Several used dehumidifiers listed on mine with many choices <$100. A buddy gave me his old one but CL was my alternative plan. I only use it a couple weeks per summer so no big deal that it's a grungy old one--it works fine.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I meant 'just' a quarter pound as in "that's a small amount to dry" not "that's all you harvest?" LOL

Smaller amounts are much easier without the dehuey. Hanging sheets/towels fresh from the dryer in an air-tight closet will suck up more humidity than you think. You also only need to drop what 20%?

I've always gotten the best meds from jar-cured. Usually to between 45-50% (I know, some folks go more) and then no-touch.

Try a couple nugs a few other ways maybe? Keep in mind they'll still dry faster than a larger bunch would in the same setup.

Let us know?

Stay Safe!