Cure trouble

[Evergreen89]

So I have probly 10 harvest under my belt but can’t seem to get the cure right. I have hung for two weeks at 65% rh then in jars and smell is nothing like it was when growing am I over expecting or does it seem like something’s not right. Bought bud is way tastier but not as potent. So any advice is welcome thanks in advance guys/gals.

 

[bluter]

So I have probly 10 harvest under my belt but can’t seem to get the cure right. I have hung for two weeks at 65% rh then in jars and smell is nothing like it was when growing am I over expecting or does it seem like something’s not right. Bought bud is way tastier but not as potent. So any advice is welcome thanks in advance guys/gals.

burp it down in the jars to between 60 - 62%. going in at 65 may be a bit high as it will creep up. 62 is considered optimum. i'm not that finicky.. this can take some time. i burp / cure for up to 2 months easy before seal.

once in the jars, burp until it's stable at approx 62%, seal it up for at least a month before trying. if it take 2 months to get stable that means it's ready at month 3 after seal.

you can use a boveda pack to help it get stable. not everyone likes them. but they are really useful if you store long term, or are new to curing.

i use some cheap hygrometers to get a ballpark idea of where the jar rh is at as well. they can really help.

once sealed it will get more mellow and better for up to 2 yrs, so long as you have decent storage conditions. past that it stays super stable for up to 4 yrs. it will degrade after 4yrs, but again, you can back stop that with proper storage conditions. it's a lot like wine.

 

[Evergreen89]

burp it down in the jars to between 60 - 62%. going in at 65 may be a bit high as it will creep up. 62 is considered optimum. i'm not that finicky.. this can take some time. i burp / cure for up to 2 months easy before seal.

once in the jars, burp until it's stable at approx 62%, seal it up for at least a month before trying. if it take 2 months to get stable that means it's ready at month 3 after seal.

you can use a boveda pack to help it get stable. not everyone likes them. but they are really useful if you store long term, or are new to curing.

i use some cheap hygrometers to get a ballpark idea of where the jar rh is at as well. they can really help.

once sealed it will get more mellow and better for up to 2 yrs, so long as you have decent storage conditions. past that it stays super stable for up to 4 yrs. it will degrade after 4yrs, but again, you can back stop that with proper storage conditions. it's a lot like wine.

Thank you I was thinking maybe they were a little damp but I have dried a lower rh and still it seems to all have same smell I will give it more time and see buds are dry to the touch after being in jar for two days my jar hygros went out on me and recently being fired for calling my company out for charging for water new ones are not in the future.

 

[bluter]

Thank you I was thinking maybe they were a little damp but I have dried a lower rh and still it seems to all have same smell I will give it more time and see buds are dry to the touch after being in jar for two days

you want the buds going in the jars a bit over 62%, and then burp down over time to a stable 62%, then seal for a month.

if the buds go in to the jars under 62%, then don't climb above so you can properly burp, you are SCREWED.

you can work it if too wet to a certain point - but not too wet. you can't come back from too dry.

 

[Phytoplankton]

Mine go into jars at 70-75% or so, but there is twice daily burping, sometimes even leaving the jar open for half an hour or so until it gets down around 65% (in a week or two), then daily burping, then twice a week, etc, until it hits around 62%. I takes a while to do it right, You're trying to get biological action in the plant to break down the chlorophyll, but not mold, once it breaks down you'll lose that fresh cut grass smell, and the terpene smell will take over.

 

[Emilya Green]

I move mine in and out of a big jar, spending time in a flat cardboard tray under a ceiling fan for half hour to 2 hour stints, until I can get it down to 65 steady in the jar. This process can take days.

The initial drying is done in stages. I bud wash, so my product gets VERY wet. To dry it back to normal, I hang it overnight in the bathroom I wash it in, with a fan blowing air around but not directly at the product hanging on clothes hangers. After that, I move it all to a small 2x2 drying tent, for as long as the environment will allow it. When the RH is low in the wintertime, I can barely get 5 days in there if I am lucky, and then I am below 70%. In the high humidity summertime, I can sometimes get more than a week in a slow dry.

Then I move to paper grocery sacks, rolled down 3 times, shaken and hand mixed a couple of times a day. There is a crispy feel I am looking for, and it is this stage where I slowly bring it down to 65, with a hygrometer in the sack with the product. Again, depending on the RH, this stage can take several days.

I am extremely careful in this drying stage, because it is very easy to ruin an entire crop by taking your eyes off of the ball for just a day or two. After a while, a hygrometer isn't even needed, once you know the feel of the crispy 65% RH bud, but it takes quite a few harvests to get to that point. The same skill needs to be learned earlier on, when the decision is made to remove the buds from the stem. "When the branch snaps, but doesn't break", they say... but learning where that is took me a while to learn.

Good luck with your cure. Surely half of the skill of producing Grade A pot, is in the skill of drying and curing... Growing it is the easy part!

 

[TorturedSoul]

Long, slow dry. The process begins on day one; treat drying/curing as two parts of one whole, not two separate and unrelated things. If you're not worried about mold, lol, you're drying it too quickly (not quite, but...).

When the chlorophyll has been converted to sugars, and there's barely any green left... you won.

I'll bite - did your boss install a quarter slot on the water fountain, or refuse to buy bottled water for you?

 

[stardawg17]

you can't come back from too dry.

I've read in other threads that you can...and...I have actually done this. If you over-dry you can put a flour tortilla in your jar and it will re-hydrate.

I'm no expert here, but, check out the last 2 links in my signature. I tried 2 different methods on my last harvest and both turned out great...just depends on when you want to trim. Normally, I would follow the method @InTheShed uses, but, I just had neck surgery and couldn't physically perform the trim before drying so I used @Auggie 's method. Today was day 7 with the plant hung upside down in the dark tent with fans blowing. Tomorrow she should be ready for snipping into 6" strips and into paper sacks for a month.

Wednesday 07/13

Tuesday 07/19

 

[bluter]

I've read in other threads that you can...and...I have actually done this. If you over-dry you can put a flour tortilla in your jar and it will re-hydrate.

it'll put moisture back in to the bud but the curing process has likely already been killed by that point. using bread or a tortilla is an age old way to rehydrate poorly handled weed. it dates back to the baggie days.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Yeah, when - if the dealer was a little sketchy - you didn't call ahead to tell him you were stopping by to pick up a lid, because if you did and he was a couple grams short... he'd have the full ounce by the time you got there - but it would be suspiciously damp .

 

[bluter]

Yeah, when - if the dealer was a little sketchy - you didn't call ahead to tell him you were stopping by to pick up a lid, because if you did and he was a couple grams short... he'd have the full ounce by the time you got there - but it would be suspiciously damp

i caught one cheap bastard spreading it out on newspapers and soaking the bud down with a spray bottle. he sorta got blacklisted eventually.

 

[Evergreen89]

Long, slow dry. The process begins on day one; treat drying/curing as two parts of one whole, not two separate and unrelated things. If you're not worried about mold, lol, you're drying it too quickly (not quite, but...).

When the chlorophyll has been converted to sugars, and there's barely any green left... you won.

I'll bite - did your boss install a quarter slot on the water fountain, or refuse to buy bottled water for you?

Gotcha No he didn’t provide a water cooler to fill up and then charged everybody 5 bucks for water and legally companies have to provide clean potable water for employees. So I spoke up and got fired.