As I am designing my research space, I am looking at possibly recycling the waste exhaust heat for not only growing, but also curing. what would be the harm in this idea? I am looking at either a heat exchanger, that recycles the heat without using the direct air, but it's not as efficient as direct exhaust.
Recycling waste heat for cure?
- Thread starter Srilania
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Brick Top
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What is your basic plan, to have a dark area for curing jars where you can vent your exhaust air/heat through, though not directly, only after it going through a heat exchange?
What harm could there be? It would depend on the temperature and how long the curing cannabis/jar would be heated.
Adding heat would speed up the decarboxylation removing the COOH carboxyl group of atoms, which exits in the form of H20 and CO2 and changing THCA into THC. But to high of heat or lower heat for to long and THC degradation will occur and THC will be lost to unwanted CBN. After about 70% decarboxylation, the levels of THC start to fall sharply and CBN percentages rise sharply.
Low temperatures will do little to speed up decarboxylation and high temperatures risk loss of THC and also lost flavor and aroma.
Another risk is if you jar early and there is to much moisture in your herb the heat could increase risk of mold. It would drive the moisture out of the buds faster creating a high humidity atmosphere in the jars and when you combine higher humidity and increased heat you increase the chance of mold and mildew.
Other than those things I don't see a great deal of risk involved. I also don't see a great deal of gain or improvement to be had by taking the risk. But people do love to goof around and play with their pot and call it research or experimentation like they are creating some advanced sophisticated laboratory and hold PhD's in cannabis botany and horticulture. So have at it, go for it.
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- #3
Well, the idea is using waste heat to help, since I paid for the the electricity already that created the heat, might as well get my money's worth, you know. Currently, all exhaust sits at about 85 degrees. With the laws of thermodynamics, some of the heat will be lost no matter what. But, if I get a large part of this heat useable for other things, it couldn't hurt. I am already looking at direct use of the waste heat to help with seed germination.
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If you believe the possibility of very minimal speeding up of decarboxylation is worth the risks because you already paid for the electricity that creates the heat than by all means, do it. If you want to add to it if you have an attic fan that exhausts hot air from your attic you're paying for that electricity use too so you could run small duct work to your curing and or germination areas and use the free attic heat that you are paying to exhaust too. And then if you have a hood over your stove that exhausts hot air you could reroute that hot air too since you would be paying for the electricity anyway. There's a handful other things you are paying for electricity or gas to use that put off heat that you could also tap into the heat sources since you're already paying to run the items and they are putting off heat.
Why not go whole hog in your research facility?
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- #5
Well, I don't have an attic, and my stove, I don't use much. And even then, reclaiming from the stove wouldn't be wise, as it'll cost far more in materials and effort than what's saved. On the other hand, to set up a closed heat exchanger system in the ducting is actually pretty easy to put in, as most hardware stores sell them for driers.
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What do you keep your curing jars in, drawers, on shelves in a closet? It has to be somewhere dark if you want the best bud you can get. Is the location you use something you can easily run duct work to and into and then let it vent out since for air to pass through you of course know you need an intake and and exhaust/exit or it's like wrapping your lips around the opening of an empty bottle and trying to blow in, so it's something you can cut or drill holes in, like maybe use a hole saw to make a hole to stick a piece of round flexible duct-work in and then have an opening openings of equal sized area, in a location or locations that won't allow light in, for the blown in air to exit.
It's a good thing you have a flexible enough research facility to be able to have and do all the things that would be needed to do what you think will help and to do it right given the minimal gain that might be found doing it and the risks that will be involved by doing it.
Blue Skies
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I like this idea.
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If you wanted an even temperature 24-hours per day rather than a fluctuating temperature of a lights on, lights off setup you could tap into the in and the out pipes of your water heater and using small copper tubing line a line and using a tubing bender form/make a grid that would cover the floor of a closet or under if using shelves in a closet a grid-work could be under each shelf or if using a counter-top with drawers or cabinets in them to store your curing jars small holes for the copper tubing would be easier to make and not be as noticeable or take up as much space as duct-work, sp a system like that could be made for locations like those or whatever dark space you use to store your curing jars. With a small pump you would have a constant flow of hot water like is used in floor radiant heat for a house and if your indoor temperatures might change much and there could be more temperature fluctuation than you would like an inexpensive thermostat added to turn on and off the pump so the temperature always remain within a certain few degree range. Unless you use a lot of hot water the water in your water heater will sit long enough that you will pay to reheat it, to keep it hot, several times or more before using a full tanks worth and the heat loss from what would be used by a small copper tubing system would be minimal so it would not add much to what it is already costing you to keep the water hot and a small GPM pump would not use much electricity not as much as you might already be paying to keep reheating water until it's used. It would be simple, less invasive than duck-work, easy to go and provide a round the clock every day of the year even temperature, though a valve on it would be good in case you don't always have something curing and would like to turn it off during those periods of time.
We used a large scale heavier duty version of something like that in our in-ground germination beds and in germination greenhouses at our nursery. It worked great.
We used a large scale heavier duty version of something like that in our in-ground germination beds and in germination greenhouses at our nursery. It worked great.
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- #9
Actually, I am working my first plants. Living on a farm, however, gave me some useable knowledge. My general geek factor makes me dig into science for fun. But, the current grow room is in the bedroom of my 1 bedroom apartment. The landlords are 420 friendly, so I don't have that issue. But, the closet that is in the room is where most of the grow operation is, with the exception of the clones, which are in a jury rigged bucket clone chamber that's planned to be used for the LED bulb experiment. The closet's one of those installed after the fact ones, made of wood, and has a set of storage cabinets above the grow area. There is a vent hole in the upper storage area, someone spackled a paper plate in place over the hole, and currently, the exhaust runs up to the exhaust hole. But, I can get one of those drier clothes heat exchangers, as currently the cloning has a heating pad under it to keep it at 75 F, since at night, I almost decide to sleep in the grow area, because it's so bloody cold here.
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I wish I could remember the key words that found me what I was Googling for but I want to move from the South to the U.P. of Michigan and build a smaller highly efficient low maintenance home. I would like it built using hempcrete if possible but I don't know if that will possible. But to have ultra efficiency a house will be built totally air tight but there does need to be some air transference so high efficency heat/cooling transference systems have been made so what air is intentionally removed and replaced from a home does not lose any heat or cooling that has been paid for. It all goes out and cones through a system that transfers the heated or cooled air to what is being brought in to replace what is being removed/replaced.
If you Google ultra high efficiency home building and look at enough sites you will find examples of such systems that tell you what they are made of and how they work and possibly if there is enough geek in you than you will be able to build a small scale system that is very efficient.
Personally, I do not see what there is to gain in the curing process part of your plan. With the temperatures you would have at your disposal it would not speed up decarboxylation much at all, and while it could be argued that any speeding up of decarboxylation would be a good thing, even though full decarboxylation occurs when cannabis is smoked or vaporized, it has never been proven that speeding up the curing process is at all a plus when it comes to the chemical changes that take place in terpenes and phenols over time. To get ever so slightly quicker decarboxylation it might come at a loss or deterrent to the changes in terpenes and phenools, and possibly other cannabinoids not often mentioned or considered of much value but like terpens and phenols all in some way, even if only to some small degree, factor into the final results of curing, the overall potency because of how they all interact when smoked and the taste and the aroma. They might very sell suffer all to try to attempt to turn THCA into THC at a very slightly faster pace during curing.
I can see the use for germination. People have used various sources of heat to help in maintaining proper conditions for germination for ages. As mentioned we used a hot water system at our nursery. That use of heat is known to work, it is proven. Lacking scientific equipment and control groups in using the amount of heat you would be dealing with, and in the way it would be available and used, during a lights on/lights off varying temperature environment, it would be impossible to actually know or prove if there was a gain or a loss or a partial gain and a partial loss or what. In the end all you would have to go by is your physical senses and they could be tricked by a crop where you have a particularly good phenotype when it comes to potency or a bad one when it comes to potency and what might be believed to be the result of your curing system could more likely be the result of something else.
That is why there are so many different methods of doing things that some swear work and others that have tried the exact same thing, virtually duplicating when someone else documented that they did, and they saw no increase, no better results and sometimes worse results. And the focus and the claims it works and the claims it doesn't work are all laid at the feet of the method when the true main factor behind success or failure, what is almost always overlooked but can be as obvious as the nose on one's face, is overlooked.
That is a large part of why I am so anti-home experimentation. There is no way to prove what is believed to be found or to factually explain why what occurred or did not occur occurred or did not occur and it creates confusion among growers and leads to arguments on sites like that about how something works, no it doesn't, yes it does, not it doesn't, I know it does because I did it, I know it doesn't because I did it, etc.
When a true research center with a highly controlled environment and multiple control groups and advanced scientific equipment and people with the title/letters PhD after their name says something works and this is why it works or this does not work and this is why it does not work, then I believe it.
Anything short of that can be something that is misconstrued, something wrongly attributed to one or several things when it really is the result or one or more other things .... or it can be a once in a lifetime lightning strikes thing and the next thing you know sites like this are all abuzz about it and then soon the arguments about it actually working or not follow.
But if someone wants to tinker then they are going to tinker. But one does not often learn about how some true advancement or improvement or creation came from home tinkering.
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- #11
Ahhh, now THAT is an interesting idea........the upper cabinets already sit at about 85F, constant temp, checked hourly over the course of 2 weeks. the idea I had was to use the heated air to dry, since it'll help draw the moisture out, from the drop in relative humidly from thermal loading of the air. But, prewarming water for chlorine evaporation should be a pretty good use of the heat till it gets to about the end of September, beginning of October, where I plan to actually use all that heat inside my living space when the grow room is finished using it, instead of blasting waste heat outside and then getting the old double whammy.
Perfect Sun LED
Well-Known Member
I do it the easy way. I put my bud in a box, and put the box in my grow room. The bud is in the dark, and it is almost perfect temp and humidity. Grow room stays 50% humidity or lower. Temp stays around 75-78.
Brick Top
New Member
That sounds simple, the temperature is good ans the humidity isn't bad. How often on average do you burp your curing jars?
Perfect Sun LED
Well-Known Member
For the first three days, I place the lids on the jars but don't seal them. I just place the lids on. Then I close the lid for a day. After that I open them again, with the lids set on top, but not tightened for 2-3 days. Then I close the lid, and open every day or two just to be sure they are curing well.
