Harvesting/Drying/Curing

[RangerDanger]

Ok, you've done your best and grown buds and now you are ready for the next step.
Before I start I clear off a table, and I'm gonna harvest a lot I'll invite friends over for a manicure party, which is sorta like a quilting bee but with dope.

Part I Harvesting:
I find it easier to cut branches off a standing plant, so I never cut the plant itself down when I harvest.
I transport the branches to the table in plastic trash bags. Around the table are supermarket-type paper bags.
We get like an assembly-line going. Person A. will cut the buds off the branches. Person B. will remove the fans leaves. The branches and fan leaves go in the first bag for composting.
Person C. will remove the medium leaves. They go in bag 2 for cooking.
We take off the fan & medium leaves with our hands. Out come the scissors.
The smallest leaves we remove go into a third bag, for oil/hash.
I like to manicure down to nice trim buds, leaving the tiny sparkly leaves still on, all the other leaves are removed.
Manicuring Tip: When manicuring good weed, your hands will soon cake up with resin and become useless claw-like appendages. Here's a great way to remove this: Some folks can rub their hands together to make finger hash. I've never been able to do this. I use a small sprayer bottle filled with olive/vegatable oil. I spray my hands, rub them together to get most of the resin off, then use Dawn dishwahing soap to take off the oil.

Part II Drying:
What you want is to dry slowly so the buds smoke cool, but not so slowly that they get moldy. Lots of people hang their buds to dry. I did that for 25 years then a friend turned me onto a better way.
Get some supermarket-type paper bags; the slightly heavy-duty ones with the paper handles work best.
I fill the bags 1/3 full of buds, then crimp the top. I keep them in a well-ventilated room.
Everyday I open the bags and very gently "comb" the buds with my fingers, turning/mixing them up for even drying. The buds next to the bag dry faster than the buds in the center. This also allows me to judge when they're dry enough for curing.
How long this takes is dependant on ambient humidity. With low humidity it might take as little as 5 days, high humidity might take 10 or 11 (or more).
You NEVER want to dry until they're "crispy". You want to get them to the point of a humidor cigar, still a bit moist--barely dry enough to smoke in a pipe.

Part III The Cure:
Gently take the buds out of the bags and place them into sealable containers. Some folks use Mason/canning jars. I like to use empty 1-gal. plastic containers I get from the local deli/fast food place. They used to contain condiments like mayo, relish, etc.
Close tightly and keep in a cool dark place.
EVERYDAY I open the jars. I leave the top off for about 10 minutes. Then I reseal.
The min. time for the curing process should be about 2 weeks--the longer the better.
When the buds are dry enough for the stems to bend slightly before breaking I tighten the lid and put them into storage until I need them, although I open the jars every 2 or so weeks just to check that they aren't molding.

Notes:
The reason I bag dry--it allows the buds to dry evenly at the proper rate. And the buds, in contact with other buds, allows ferementing to begin (which is good). Bag drying allows you to get a head start on curing
Also, when you hang dry, the outer part of the buds get crispy-dry while the stem still contains lots of moisture. If you put them into jars in this condition you'll end up with a gooey moldy mess.
And, hang drying is soooo conspicious and takes up a lot of room.

Why cure?
If you've smoked quick-dried, uncured weed (and what grower hasn't?) you know it smokes harsh, burns hot, and tastes like hay.
Slow-dryed/cured weed smokes cooler, tastes and smells better, and is approx. 30% more potent than flash-dried/uncured weed.

Warning:
If at anytime during the drying/curing process you detect an ammonia (dirty diaper) odor, IMMEDIENTLY remove the buds and dry them on a table-top (or hang dry). I've never heard of this happening but it may happen if you live in an area of super-high humidity.

Finely:
Some people say "hey dude I can't wait 3 weeks to smoke my pot."
Me too.
So when I finish manicuring I always set some buds aside, about 3 weeks worth. I let them dry on a table-top (1--2 days) or in a drawer (2--3 days) so I have something to smoke in the meantime.

Give this method a try, and much thanks to Herr Baron for telling me about it.

[OldSkoool]

Good read, although I hadn't read, or seen anything on fermentation before reading your piece. I'm a few weeks away from harvesting my single plant, and was wondering if you could you explain the process, and benefits for this new grower? Thanks in advance.

[Urdedpal]

Try scraping your hands with a dull knife for the hash then clean your hands with rubbing alcohol. Cleans hands quickly. Just a suggestion.

[RangerDanger]

Originally Posted by OldSkoool

Good read, although I hadn't read, or seen anything on fermentation before reading your piece. I'm a few weeks away from harvesting my single plant, and was wondering if you could you explain the process, and benefits for this new grower? Thanks in advance.

Fermentation is basically what curing is.
Fermentation of beer for example converts sugar into alcohol (yeasts eat sugar and shit alcohol).
When you "age" meat that's allowing a fermantation/digestion process to occur which tenderize's the meat and makes it taste better.

Columbian Gold was one of my all-time fave's (haven't seen it since the late 70's). I grew bag seeds from it but they didn't turn gold. For years I wondered how they got the weed that beautiful gold color.
Then I read about how it was done.
When harvested, the branches would get tossed into a big pile outside to sun-dry. Every day the pile would get turned, just like you do when you make compost. Drying in the sun in those fermenting piles turned the weed gold. When it was dry they'd pack it into bales.

When you cure, chlorophyll breaks down and there is a coversion of sugars and starches. Curing is fermentation or you can call it decomposition or digestion, under controlled conditions. When enough moisture is removed, the process stops.

Curing makes the weed smoke cooler & evenly leaving a fine white ash, it greatly improves taste & aroma, and increases potency by approx 30%.

[OldSkoool]

Excellent description Ranger, thank you. Columbian Gold, and Panama Red among others were real treats.

[krashdoobs]

Found this on another site.Some good info about keeping buds in a dark spot to retain its potency.

[RangerDanger]

Hey now we have a curing/prep forum!
I reposted my tutorial there.

[Frank_Dawson6]

I was wondering, couldnt you dry your weed in like a dehydrater or an oven???

[RangerDanger]

Originally Posted by Frank_Dawson6

I was wondering, couldnt you dry your weed in like a dehydrater or an oven???

Yeah, if you want harsh hay-tasting weed.
The goal isn't to dry your weed as fast as possible; it's to dry it in a way that improves taste & aroma.
The way I look at it is: if you spent months to grow buds, why not spend a week to slow-dry and bring the buds to their full potential?
Flash drying ruins pot, imo.

[Frank_Dawson6]

O oh ok, i see now, thank you, you making everthing seem so easy!

[DankCloset]

good one ranger, about time i seen someone put up a secret. i didnt feel like typin that much lol....

[GreenThumbsUp]

Don't wait long enough to smell amonia or dirty diaper. From experience, that is too late. :( I lost a whole jar that way (luckily I do a bunch of small jars!).

When should I have jumped back a step? When it started smelling "earthy" like good soil, LOL. Even a friend commented that my bud (i took one out and that is when I realized mold was there) had an earthy granola smell. I thought that was cool, a week later, it was really just the first sign of trouble. :(

The rest did fine though! :)