Phantom’s RDWC Cherry Cookies Grow Journal

[Anthony Suszko]

"What’s all of your steps from the point of harvest to smoke?"

Doing this for the first time and with only 3 plants to dry up my plan is simple.. it's to booth dry them using 2 grow flood light bulbs that generate a nice amount of even low heat and a fan to circulate the warm air around them hanging the plants upside down to dry out, then go to burping jars.. For you this is where the 3rd tent comes in handy when you are not dick'N around in it lol.. .. suspend a bungee cargo net from 4 corners of the tent, hang your plants up and use the same method or come up with something MacGyver'ish like reversing the tents exhaust air circulation unit? .. This way your plants wont get that nasty alfalfa odor attached to their taste profile. This is me just thinking out of the box tho..

 

[Greenthumbs42019]

"What’s all of your steps from the point of harvest to smoke?"

Doing this for the first time and with only 3 plants to dry up my plan is simple.. it's to booth dry them using 2 grow flood light bulbs that generate a nice amount of even low heat and a fan to circulate the warm air around them hanging the plants upside down to dry out, then go to burping jars.. For you this is where the 3rd tent comes in handy when you are not dick'N around in it lol.. .. suspend a bungee cargo net from 4 corners, hang your plants up and use the same method or come up with something MacGyver'ish like reversing the tents exhaust air circulation unit? .. This way your plants wont get that nasty alfalfa odor attached to their taste profile..

Pretty sure drying & curing under a light isn’t good for them, believe it degrades the quality of the trichomes. Best to do it in the dark with some air movement around them but not directly on the buds.

 

[Anthony Suszko]

Pretty sure drying & curing under a light isn’t good for them, believe it degrades the quality of the trichomes. Best to do it in the dark with some air movement around them but not directly on the buds.

OK, disregard the bulbs then.. thanks for the info..still a newbie at this, I'll go dark with air circulation..

 

[The Phantom]

Pretty solid way of drying with a tent and cargo next, also darkness does seem to be key, along with the right humidity. I’ll definitely use one of my tents to dry in, while I break down my rdwc for my guests arrival. I’m really hoping for the extractor this fall so I can just rough trim wet, freeze, and extract.

Are you all doing a wet trim of theleaves before hanging upside down for the initial dry and then coming back to manicure the buds? I’m guessing then you go to jars or bags to be burped every so often? Does anybody do a mandatory cure for a month after burping?

Finally, anyone have experience with bud washing? Been seeing a lot about that on here.

Sorry I wake and baked this morning and the mind is just a racing with this purple punch vape cart.

 

[FatBeaverBuds]

I chop and trim. Then put everything into my drying rack. Drying rack gets hung in a cool dry dark place. Usually my veg tent.


I dry till the buds are almost crispy. At that point everything gets transferred into Ziploc mega bags for burping.



I keep a humidity gauge in the bag and try to keep things high 50's to low 60's. Sometimes it takes the buds a few days to come back up to the right humidity after drying. I burp the bag once a day. I'll keep everything in the burp bag a solid 2 weeks before moving to Mason jars.

Hay smell is inevitable. It's a temporary phase. It goes away. Sometimes it Hays up while drying sometimes in the burp bags. It will pass and once it does you will get your dank smell back.

 

[Greenthumbs42019]

I did bud washing (1st time) with my last harvest, it’s ok but I’m not sold on it yet. Not sure if it took away some of the surface terps, ie smell. Buds did smell ok but much better when cracked open. I’m thinking I won’t do it this time or maybe just some to see if there’s a difference.

I think a good 4-6 weeks is needed for a good cure, but I do smoke some of it before that. Can def tell the difference between cured and just dried.

 

[The Phantom]

Yeah the hay smell is definitely from the leaves getting crispy I think. I know the hay smell I used to have was because it was dried in the hayloft. You’re right it seems like once the initial dry is done the dankess comes creeping out.

I may have to wash one of the four plants when it comes time just to see. I’m pretty hesitant to be dipping freshly harvested buds in water.

 

[FatBeaverBuds]

I've had two harvests destroyed due to mold growing during my curing process so I tend to error on the side of too dry vs too damp.

 

[Modest Grower]

I like to chop my plants and then cut off the main fan leaves. If I can I hang the plant whole, If it is too big I will half or quarter and hang in my tent. That way, I can still control temp and humidity and have my carbon filter scrubbing the smell.

Currently, I jar but as these jars continue to pile up I am considering using 5gal buckets with air tight lids and maybe a bag of some sort inside.

I too ran into a mould issu in a few jars and am now looking to go dryer next run. I also put too much in each jar. Just some things to consider.

Hope all is well.

 

[The Phantom]

5 gallon pails of weed get out of here with that nonsense! Haha

All good advice, thanks everyone.

Late lunch today so I went to check on the roots and was able to snap a photo without killing something.

I’m seriously afraid of the growth spurt that will happen once they hit the water. Some roots on all of the plants are already touching the water and the rest are within a half inch to an inch touching.

 

[Modest Grower]

5 gallon pails of weed get out of here with that nonsense! Haha

All good advice, thanks everyone.

Late lunch today so I went to check on the roots and was able to snap a photo without killing something.

I’m seriously afraid of the growth spurt that will happen once they hit the water. Some roots on all of the plants are already touching the water and the rest are within a half inch to an inch touching.

That root growth is amazing! Super white and looks like fishbone forming.

I can't wait to see this grow with MC and your set up. The final straw to get me to pull the trigger. Thanks for the cost breakdown you provided as well. I have a lot to learn first though.

 

[The Phantom]

The root growth doesn’t surprise me as much knowing first hand that each of those clones have about 12-16” of root mass coiled up on the bottom of those net pots. I still wish I was able to feed some of them through the pots to get into the water right away. Lesson learned, don’t slack building when you have one foot tall clones waiting to go. I’m just really glad the roots are finding their way out and are healthy. I was afraid I was going to have a lot die off on me initially but this growth suggests otherwise.

Off to sit outside with the Ginger Sisters I have growing. We’re on the second day of 20/4. They go in the tent at night with the Cherry Cookies and in the outside in the afternoon. They get about 4 hours of rest inside the tent from 10am when the lights go out to 2pm when I take them outside. I’m running the Cookies on 18/6 (4pm-10am) lighting. I’m also considering turning up the power on the LEDs tomorrow before lights on, I have them at 20-22” and 50% power right. I think tomorrow we got up to 60-80% at the same height.

 

[The Phantom]

I won’t give out the name of the place or YouTube channel but if you Google “Legalize tomatoes” you’ll find their website and then their blog with the YouTube channel.

@HunterNitro did you ever go down the rabbit hole and find the YouTube channel I was talking about? Just search YouTube for CannaCribs, that’s the son from the local hydroponics store. Episode 1 they go the Glasshouse Greenhouse in Cali, at that time they said during their high season they are putting out 1,200lbs of product a month and they operate multiple facilities like that one.

Some of the simple amazing things/solutions they have with their grow ops but on a large scale is awesome. I want the grow buckets they created and use. Also using a boiler to heat pipes laid out around the bottom of the grow buckets, then using the CO₂ rich exhaust from the boiler piped around the plants, genius.

 

[The Phantom]

Found some leftover foil bubble wrap stuff from one of my remodeling projects around the house and did some customizing. Still can’t get pictures to turn out well with the lighting.

Here’s one with the lights off and the camera flash on:

This is pretty close (somewhat darker) to the plant’s actual in real life color, somewhere between light and dark green.

With the lights on:

You can see it looks dark. Tent looks like a spaceship now.

 

[BigDannel]

Hopping in here, love the setup!

 

[The Phantom]

Welcome @BigDannel, this is all 100% new to me. Never indoors, hydro, LEDs, or Mega Crop. It’s always been outdoors, a hole in the ground, sunshine, and co-op vegetable garden fertilizer for me.

 

[BigDannel]

Welcome @BigDannel, this is all 100% new to me. Never indoors, hydro, LEDs, or Mega Crop. It’s always been outdoors, a hole in the ground, sunshine, and co-op vegetable garden fertilizer for me.

Re-creating nature indoors is a challenge, for sure, but it seems like you have a great handle on things. I'm looking forward to this!

 

[The Phantom]

Me too, I’m out of live sauce and down to my last few hits of a Blue Star “full spectrum” oil vape cartridge left. Looks like I’m taking another drive this weekend to restock one last time, hopefully. It’s good because I think I have a $30 off waiting for me there, I’m sure going to miss my dispensary friends. I’m sure they will miss my business.

 

[HunterHunt]

I did find it! Thanks for that. Really cool operations they have. Im watching other episodes as well as im typing this. Pretty cool stuff!

 

[Modest Grower]

I'm going to have to check out that channel you mentioned. Quick comment regarding the curing discussion - I decided since there are a few plants growing outdoors and my tent going perpetual I would do a little more digging into the 5 gallon bucket option for curing.

I'm ordering Gamma 2 sealing lids and turkey bags. Dried bud goes into the bag and then the bucket. Burp same as you would for jars.

Edit: having trouble finding a lid with reviews that leave me confident but the search continues