Outdoor Drying Techniques

[DuskrayTroubador]

Hello all, what techniques do you guys use for drying your buds at your grow sites?

 

[Endur]

How I do It....
16X20 Army Surplus Canvas tarp

12X10 Plastic Tarp

2011 Guerrilla Grow...
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=216711

Peace
Endur

 

[mithra]

hoffta, you could never do that where i live and grow !!!!!
You'd have the whole friggen helicopter fleet on you ass. I usually gently cut all the buds off the plant cut the top colas or main buds stick them in a bag take them home trim right away and dry them in my attic. I only harvest what I can process that day, so about a pound a day. This year I'm trying the freezer drying method, gets rid of the stench, and so far I'v got a couple pounds in and its looking good.

 

[THC123]

if you live in a dry area then it is no ^problem if it is humid like here , it will never dry and eventually mold away

 

[SeaMaiden]

I need to get pix up, but my husband and I are working on a new drying area and by necessity it's "outdoors." Endur, we're also in the Sierra Nevada (I saw that thread, I swear it looks like we're working the EXACT same soil), but I have the luxury of being able to grow legally on our land. In any event, the area I usually use will absolutely *not* be large enough, so we're converting underneath our back deck using tarpaulins, and I'll also cover the deck itself to, hopefully, block rain.

So, what I want to know, if you're comfortable answering the questions directly, are these things; Assuming you're on the western slope as I am, and perhaps are also at a similar altitude (2,500'), how long does drying normally take in your set-up? I also take the whole plant when I harvest, and prefer to dry it whole, then break it down for curing in containers. Also, have you ever been able to dry in near total darkness, and if so, have you noticed a difference in the finished bud between that dried in ambient light conditions and near dark?

I have been drying and curing in my basement, and so it's pretty darn dark down there.

Ah, but for the want of a drying barn, for a greenhouse, for it all. <sigh>

 

[Strainhunter]

Hello all, what techniques do you guys use for drying your buds at your grow sites?

Buddy since you're going to be growing in FL outdoor drying is NOT going to work for various reasons whether that be outdoor humidity and/or presence of people (smell, detection & theft).

 

[Sad But True]

Put a add in your local paper "garage wanted to rent".
Then you get to pick and choose a suitable one.
One with a high A framed roof is good so you can put your string lines at the top where it is warmer.

If it has power grab a carbon filter and inline fan, this will stop it smelling out the area.
Also maybe a small dehumidifier.
Also is a good place to store away from your property.

Maybe try to pick up a crappy $100 car to put in there so it looks like that is what you are storing or grab some pallets and pile wood on them, put them right at the front so when you open the door it looks like it is jam packed with wood storage.

 

[DuskrayTroubador]

Buddy since you're going to be growing in FL outdoor drying is NOT going to work for various reasons whether that be outdoor humidity and/or presence of people (smell, detection & theft).

This is a technique that I'm going to copy and paste from another forum and the author addresses humidity. Let me know what you think of the idea:


the problem we discovered quickly was that the weed would begin to mould within 12-18 hrs of being cut unless drying had began. We tried hanging it in trees, we got a tent and everything else, but we eventually came to understand that we had to eliminate as much moisture as possible from the buds quickly in order to have the space to do anything else with the weed. The heat and humidity of our climate was forcing our hand.

The method we settled on was simple. We would make sure the next day was going to be hot and sunny and then in the afternoon we would cut some plants and immediately manicure the weed. We found that drying buds only, was much faster, (by days) than waiting for all of the moisture to dry out of the stem/branches. We would lay the manicured buds on a big piece of black plastic spread out on the ground the hot sun and the buds would dry about 75% in that very first day.
The quick dry method greatly reduced the tendency of the buds to mould and gave us the breathing room to give the smoke some cure.