Is my cure ruined? Let dry too long

Weaselcracker said:
Yeah bags never stay sealed well for long.
What you just experienced is totally normal- it’s why people ‘burp’ their jars. Especially in the days before we all had cheap digital hygrometers to toss in the jars.
Dry till the stems ‘snap’ (meaning not literally break, but fold 90° when you bend them.) The bud dries on the outside, but is often still wetter in the middle. Stick it in a container for a while and it equalizes. Open up the jar for a couple hours (or whatever length of time depending on the situation), or in more drastic cases take the bud out to dry for a while. Re-jar. Let it equalize, repeat as needed.
The accepted RH for mould to survive is around 70. Above that and you are in danger.
Most people dry to around 60.
The hygrometers are usually only accurate within 3 or 4 degrees. I have a bunch and they all read different things. Some are completely screwy and just say - whatever. So don’t trust them too much.
It’s funny seeing the ads for hygrometer/thermometers online. Some vendors sell them by the half dozen, and if you look in the pics they’re all showing different temps and RH :hmmmm:
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You are totally right!
 
There needs to be just many tutorials on harvest as the grow, at least when you grow you get signs, the plant pretty much talks you. It's like turning grapes into fine wine, you have to know how to turn wood into furniture. Thanks for the helping me get over another hurdle in growing the medicine that helps me get to another day of being anxiety free. Thank you guys!:thanks::snowboating:
 
Dwight Monk said:
They usually good for a "range" so to speak, which is good enough to avoid ending up with moldy stuff when you new to the whole thing. After awhile you get the hang of it, as I'm getting that I can tell by feel and looking at it after a couple years what "range" it is at, be it still too wet or right about at where I'm aiming for (far as my preference to smoke, I"m closer to 59-60 RH while others prefer around 62-64). And then I can go into the leave in jars and not burp anymore and go into storage mode until it's needed.
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Hi. How do you store longer term? :nomo:
 
Calvados said:
Hi. How do you store longer term? :nomo:
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Guess depends on ones definition of that, but I just put in the jars and in a dark place as light breaks it down (rubbermaid totes kind of thing), but my Son goes thru it like I did back in the day so the oldest is usually about 6 months is all if I keep track of rotation. One of those areas there is many points of view on, but if kept in an air tight container and out of light it won't degrade much if any for about a year, after that you lose some THC and then it degrades some from there. I had put aside a bud of everything I have grown (like a gram or so bud) in little ziplock bags, the color had changed in most (more a brownish like old school stuff) as the oldest was 3 years ago but it was still mild in taste and got you just about as high if not the same depending on how old it was, as I decided to smoke some of it and gave the rest to my son.
 
Weaselcracker said:
The hygrometers are usually only accurate within 3 or 4 degrees. I have a bunch and they all read different things. Some are completely screwy and just say - whatever. So don’t trust them too much.
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Some of them are adjustable to a point (the Caliber IV ones I have you can go +6 to -6, so 6 in either direction), that's where I ended up using my Bovida packs I bought that I never use in with my buds, just put them in a jar with a Bovida 62 when not in use and then I can calibrate them to the same thing just before using for curing again. Some of the cheaper ones are factory set and not adjustable, so one of those depends on your budget kind of things, personally as I'm in soil my PH doesn't have to be precise so I use the PH tape stuff and put my money into temp/humidity sticks as to me that more critical, but a to each their own ;) just like a lot of things with growing :rofl: :peace::Namaste:
 
I have some of those small, inexpensive, digital hygrometers. You can calibrate/check the accuracy of them by using the "salt method". Mine all read 75% RH after 12 hours, which is what you want. If they don't read 75% RH, just mark what it reads on them so you'll know how far off you are when you use them.

How to calibrate your hygrometer

How do I calibrate my hygrometer?
www.neptunecigar.com
 
BigD13 said:
See the link below.

Search results for query: Long term storage

www.420magazine.com
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Thanks. I looked into this some time ago and it seemed that people either vacuum sealed them or left them in the mason jars with Bovedas. That’s what I chose to do. One of the jars smelled pretty awful when I opened it the other week. The others were fine.

The one that smelled show RH of 70. I’m guessing the rubber seal was faulty although there was nothing visible that would indicate that. I aired it out and the eye stinging door went away. I’m not really enthusiastic about smoking any of it. Visually it looks fine. Hence the question. I’m thinking I will vacuum pack some next time for long term (over 10 months) and the rest in jars.
 
Shleprock said:
Going to put this to the test. I have some of the bud from when it was on the wet side in jar curing currently at 62 rh that I had to burp a lot to achieve. This will give me something to compare the overly dried (rehydrated) bud to. Will keep you posted, thanks for the reply. :yummy:
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You could look into some Boveda 62% packs. They will bring the jared up buds to 62% rH and keep it there. Get the large packs.

These are what they use for HG Tobacco and cannabis. I've been using them for years. You burp the first day maybe the 2nd day depending on how moist your flowers are at trim.

OP - you mentioned crispy. I usually just hang my plants up whole as mentioned that gives me so leway with regard to when I trim. The plants will dry slower on the hook whole. You can trim when they are moist and put them in a bag or a box (what I do) and let them dry more or if they are good into jars with a Boveda pack.

62% is perfect for curing but its a little moist for puffing. What I do is take flowers out of the 62% the night before I want to puff them and they are perfect.

Drying and curing is an art form and everyone develops their own methods that work best for them.

The reason I hang plants whole is that I don't like to be a slave to the trim table.

Once they are dry we HAVE to sit down and trim. Sometimes life matters and I don't always have time so hanging whole plants to dry gives me 2-3 days leeway on when to trim. Once they are dry then its #1 priority.

Once in jars the flowers are likely more moist on the inside, when the jar lid closes that moisture will begin to even out inside the jar in the flowers. So yeah the outside might feel crispy but the insides are still damp and thats what the jar is for to even out the moisture so the flowers get a proper cure.

The dry/cure process is as important as the growing process. For me its extremely important. Also one of the easiest things to manage once we figure out our method.
 
Shleprock said:
It was a 6 foot tall outdoor plant, so I cut it up in large sections to dry without trimming so I could do a so-called “dry trim” on it. I didn’t realize how fast it would dry. Here’s a pic before it went into the closet to dry.
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Beauty - how I do it but whole plant. Breaking a big one down into a few sections is perfect specially if your rH in the room is lowish. You don't want to hang plants when its humid say plus 70% rH - I usually hang dry in a controlled environment (ac).
 
Bush Doctor 77 said:
Different strains also have different shelf life, with Blueberry being a long life strain.
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Funny you mention that. I have some blueberry I ran in 2013 in a can. Still good I could probably eat it and get high. There's no blueberry flavor anymore tho. lol
 
Calvados said:
Thanks. I looked into this some time ago and it seemed that people either vacuum sealed them or left them in the mason jars with Bovedas. That’s what I chose to do. One of the jars smelled pretty awful when I opened it the other week. The others were fine.

The one that smelled show RH of 70. I’m guessing the rubber seal was faulty although there was nothing visible that would indicate that. I aired it out and the eye stinging door went away. I’m not really enthusiastic about smoking any of it. Visually it looks fine. Hence the question. I’m thinking I will vacuum pack some next time for long term (over 10 months) and the rest in jars.
Click to expand...

70% RH is too high for storage. I don't think it is a faulty seal, just moist buds. If a leaky seal caused it to go up, that would mean your RH outside the jars was 70% or higher. I would be checking that one daily and continue burping until it is stable at 62% RH for 24 hours. The odor should go away with time, mine did.

I bought a Food Saver vacuum jar sealing kit from Amazon. I use a MightyVac hand vacuum pump to perform the vacuum. The kit has sealers for both regular and wide mouth jars. I've sealed some jars and left others with just a Boveda pack, as a kind of experiment to see which works best. I'm doing it for science!
 
For longer term storage it would be nice to get rid of the oxygen. O2 is actually pretty destructive stuff in lots of ways. If I could find a way to make my mason jar vac seal attachment work on gallon jars I’d probably use it. I wonder if buds would keep their colour for years instead of turning brown?

The oldest bud I have in my stash happens to be - Blueberry ha ha. 2013 I think? I haven’t checked it in quite a while,
 
Weaselcracker said:
If I could find a way to make my mason jar vac seal attachment work on gallon jars I’d probably use it.
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I vacuum-packed the 1/2 gallon mason jar with a loose lid... the mason jar just slides into the smaller size bag and, with the screw top gently on and lid turned upside down to allow air to escape, I then vacu-packed it.

vacuum pack 1/2 g mason

vacuum pack 1/2 g mason

vacuum pack 1/2 g mason with 62% boost
 
Shleprock said:
This is where I learn the cure instead of the grow, I thought the grow was a challenge. These are the growing pains i guess, i'm learning from this. I jarred them up and my rh shot up to 64, they were crispy on the outside and wet inside, I didn't hydrate after all. I think what save me was the dry trim method, I only removed the fan leaves before i hung them out to dry. For some reason the jars hold better humidity than bags, better seal?
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64%, you were almost spot on. I jarred my last one last night. This morning it was 63%. Can't complain at that. I can see how this is just something that only experience can teach.
With the little hygrometers I just left them out next to a bigger nicer one I use in my humidor. Then I just mark on them with a sharpie the + or- % . so far so good. But without those you really are just guessing, and that is too much work, time, and $ to just guess.
 

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