Help! I tried the low & slow drying, got mold!

[gatorgrl84]

HELP! I did the low and slow method and got mold! A whole plant ruined, I'm so bummed! I was so excited for this method and know it DOES work so I want to figure out what I did wrong. I'm hoping you guys can help me figure out where I went wrong. I'm going to describe exactly what I did, along with a couple things that happened while it was in the fridge.

It will be 3 weeks tomorrow that the jars were put in the fridge (hygrometers still showing 99% humidity).

I used quart size Mason jars with nylon pantyhose stretched over top. Jars were ½ to ⅔ full. I removed fan leaves and cut buds off the stems. I tried to keep the size of the buds fairly uniform in each jar. I didn't have enough time to jar up the buds right when the plant was chopped so the whole plant hung upside down in what used to be our drying tent for about 12 hours.

I put them in the crisper drawer of our kitchen fridge. The fridge is about 5 years old. The fridge is fairly full but everything is in closed or covered containers, nothing odorous. We did have some leftovers in Tupperware containers get a little moldly, that happened almost 2 weeks ago.

I rolled the jars once a day. While I didn't open and inspect everyday, I would look closely through the jar for any signs of mold. Saw none, until today.

The temp in the fridge was usually around 48°F (I'm thinking this may have been a tad too high). Humidity varied quite a bit. First thing in the morning, it could be as low as 30% but during the day since it's opened periodically, it would range from 40% to the high 60's (highest I saw was 68% but that's not to say it didn't get higher).

2 things happened that likely effected it, possibly causing this problem.

First, the fridge door didn't shut all the way one night and we didn't realize it until morning. Best guess it was like that about 8 to 10 hours. Everything still felt cold and we didn't feel like anything needed to be thrown out. Stupidly, I didn't think to check the temp in the fridge when I noticed the door so I don't know how warm it got. The milk was still good so it didn't get warm enough to spoil that. This happened about a week ago.

Second, we chopped another plant 5 days ago and I jarred it up that night and put in the crisper with the other jars. As of now, this plant doesn't have any visible mold. We took it out of the fridge and put the buds on racks in our drying tent. Hopefully that one is okay.

That's everything I can think of. Sorry it's so long, I wanted to include every detail I could.

My initial thinking was the issue with the fridge door not shutting all the way that one night. Then thought it could have been the extra moisture from adding the new plant. But then I started thinking about it still being 99% humidity in the jars after 3 weeks, and that maybe it's a issue with my fridge or the temp being a little too warm.

I welcome any insight or ideas! I was thinking about getting a mini fridge for buds only and only trying 1 or 2 jars next time. I'm not ready to give up on this idea because we live in Florida and getting the temp low enough is very difficult. I thought this method was going to be the answer to our problems!

Also, I'm assuming all of this bud is a lost cause. I can spot a handful of buds in each jar with mold. I'm inclined to throw it all out but if there is a way to save some, I'm open to it.

Thanks in advance and if you get to this point, thank you for taking the time to read all of this.

 

[nivek]

you could decarb it and possibly make oil,, or less. you decide what is safe,,

possibly wash with a peroxide bath first,

 

[bruno12345]

Do you disinfected your fridge crisper compartment, glass jars, and used disinfected tools to trim your fan leaves/buds?

I would strongly suggest you wash your buds after harvest, using at least a peroxide and water bucket.

Everything in contact with the weed must be cleaned and disinfected to diminish the fungus chances.

 

[Phytoplankton]

First, sorry about your loss! I think you put them in jars way too early, and there wasn't enough air circulation, even with the lid off in a fridge there's too much water in freshly cut plants to put them in a jar. You need to hang the plants in a cool (but not too cold), humid place with air circulation. In that environment it will take a week or two to dry enough to think about final trimming and jarring. Once you get them dry a little, try putting a few buds in a jar with a hydrometer, you'll probably have 75-80% humidity, so you'll want to open and vent the jars several times a day. Curing continues until you reach about 55-60% RH. I used to live in a very cool, humid climate (60-90% humidity and temps rarely above 65 degrees). Even in the house it would take 3 weeks to dry an entire plant to 60%rh. My personal preference is to trim just before it goes in the jar. I now live in a much warmer and a less humid area, and it still takes a week to get the plants dry enough to even think about packing them in jars. I'm sure I have missed a few things and there are other opinions, so hopefully others will chime in!

 

[ChefDGreen]

Shouldn’t have gone straight into jars it cuts off too much air flow for fresh buds. I wouldn’t recommend going into jars until the buds have been either laid out in the fridge on trays or in paper bags for two weeks first.

 

[SmokingWings]

Older thread and the poster who started it disappeared a week after posting her msg.

I get the feeling that she missed the drying step entirely. We have some excellent threads discussing the drying and curing methods, almost all of them slow methods. And the canning jars are the most often recommended storage containers because they are readily available. But before the jarring is the drying steps. Even the "low and slow refrigerator" method calls for drying first and that can be done by putting the harvest in paper bags before going into the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Really good chance that the several steps recommended to dry the harvest first were not read. Would not surprise me if many people read the most recent msgs in long threads and skip the earlier ones. When reading up on something new it is best to read the entire thread no matter how long.

 

[ChefDGreen]

Derp oops

 

[Nunyabiz]

Yep, they skipped the actual drying part and put wet buds into 99% humidity, thats literally guaranteed to make some kind of frankenbud.

I dry mine at 68⁰ and 62% humidity, usually takes 14 days or longer, in fact if you have a room that you can keep at that temp/humidity you can just leave them hang about as long as you like really.

 

[ChefDGreen]

True that

 

[Tejasdirt]

It’s best to not use jars with the Low and Slow ( refrigerator / lotus method)

Also putting fresh bud in jars into the crisper area is not a good idea as the crisper in fridges holds humidity.