Hi guys, I’ve been drying my 4 plants in my grow tent for 1 week now, I was thinking 2 weeks BUT it’s overly dry NOW. I put the humidifier on to rehydrate for a couple days until I can trim it. Did I screw it up? Anything else I can do??
I’ll be harvesting my first soon. So, I’ll be watching this thread. What did you keep the humidity at in the drying tent?
You got this far, it is pretty hard to “screw up”. You don’t want to over-dry but you don’t want them to moist to cure. I dried in my tent also and the humidity did drop. I simply hung some damp towels in the tent and it worked like a charm.
One thing I added to my tool chest was a couple of boxes of Bovida.
Bovida is a little packet like the desiccants you get in some packages to keep the humidity down but are more intelligent. They are used during curing but will make up for bad drying process. They are very forgiving.
I bought two humidity’s 52% and 67%. But they work in two different directions. When your product is too dry, they release moisture but if your product is too moist, they absorb moisture.
I keep one in every mason jar and two in my larger containers. Works like a charm and relieves another variable.
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Chemicals, right? Did they alter the taste?
They made of salts and other minerals. I think the taste improved.
Totally cool. Because I have so much humidity 10 months, they could really help me dial things in. Thanks for sharing.
@GrnyGrows @Marijuana_dan When I dried my plants at Christmas, I was hoping for a 10 to 14 day dry. At day 7 they were quite dry so I did a minimal trim (I heavily defoliated just before harvest but kept sugar leaves on during dry and cure). I laid my buds out on cardboard beer flats stacked and staggered for a day before jarring. The buds were really dry and getting crispy, so I cut an apple into 12 slices and put a slice in each jar and sealed it. Next day, moisture and aroma was back! Bit too much moisture, maybe, so I removed the apple slice and left the lids off 1 day to dry back out. Did the week of burping the jars until they just felt “right” to the touch, then popped in a 58% Boveda packet per jar and sealed them up.
After 2 weeks I ran out of the dispensary weed I had to buy (Xmas special, got 2 diff 1/2 oz strains for $80 delivered! Up here in Canada at least dispensary stuff is cheap!) to hold me over so I opened up the larfy jar of buds. (I’m cheap and use Classico pasta sauce jars, 600ml, they hold just over an ounce each). Three months later, each jar I open has been better than the last! Those Boveda’s are totally forgiving and work like a hot-damn! Better than sliced bread! And there are ways you can “recharge” them so they can be reused, just ask Google.
So even when you think you’ve gone thru all that work and screwed the pooch at the end, all may not be lost! I hope your harvest turns out well and gives you some satisfyingly tasty buds!
Once the flower starts to dry out around 50% rh you will start losing terps. The bovida packs will protect the them going forward but won’t bring the ones lost back. It will still be far superior in taste and smoke quality than smoking dry bud.
I would not try to rehydrate hanging flower with a humidifier. trim it and cure it with the humidity packs in the jar. In a week or two should be fine.
Anytime I have to buy dispensary weed I drop them in masons with humidity packs and let them sit a few days before smoking. Seems like their flower is always around 40% or even lower sometimes.
For slow drys or if you know you can’t get to the trimming until a certain day try leaving some fan leaves on instead of just the sugar leaves and also chop in biggest pieces possible.
When I was young, I tried pipe smoking (tobacco). I hung out at a tobacco shop and learned a bit about blends and different pipe designs. More than once, I was shown the apple slice trick. Actually, there were discussions about what vegetable could be used. The emphasize was more on flavor.
I’ve often wondered about doing the same for weed but never really experimented.
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Are there different kinds of Boveda? I got the 62%. I’m in the Pacific North West so I’m worried about moisture/mold. How do you know what’s the right one?
Should you do the initial burping of the jar and then put the Boveda pouch in, or put it in as soon as you jar them and while burping?
@NottwoodFarms there are different boveda packets. For cannabis you want to use the 58-62% ones.
As far as jarring yeah you want to use the packet as soon as you jar it ideally, but there are some variables there too. The biggest thing is making sure your buds are actually dry enough to start cure before doing anything.
If you’re unsure just jar it without the boveda packs first and monitor the temp and rh in the jar with a mini hygrometer.
If the rh stays in that 62% range or lower you’re OK to add the boveda.
As far as burping as long as the humidity outside is lower than the jar burping is safe. You really don’t want to burp your jars in anything over about 60% humidity because it can be counter productive and potentially keep the buds too wet and cause them to mold.
OK, I think I’m getting it.
I’d say our outside RH is average 65%, my drying closet and indoors is 55%. So as long as its not a rainy day I should be good to burp.
I didn’t know I would need so many hygrometers! I only have 3 LOL. Since this is my first time I might just do the hygrometer in the jar first and see where I’m at.
Another related question- I harvested the whole plant, which would hold moisture and take longer (which I read would be ideal) but is that appropriate in a more moist area? Should I chop it up smaller?
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@NottwoodFarms that all depends on how much space and airflow you have. If everything is hanging touching each other then yes definitely trim everything down smaller so you have better airflow. If you can hang it all up and there’s space between everything for airflow no need to trim it up if you don’t want to.
55% rh is a decent rh for a drying room as long as it is stable and doesn’t fluctuate. I don’t forsee any issues there as long as you have at least a small fan in the closet moving air around.
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