Trouble with drying box humidity: tips?

[Cwmoore577]

I’ve made a drying box as I had to do a sequential harvest and couldn’t use my grow tent to hang dry while lowering the odor.


It’s just a plastic bin from Walmart with wire for hanging. I have two humidity gauges in the lid with one showing temp and I put two computer cooling fans with a speed controller, one blowing in and one blowing out. Covered the outflow with charcoal sheet air filters to try an reduce the smell.

Here’s the pics..

I chopped half of my two plants last night and hung them in it. The humidity is about 20% too high at 70% RH. Temp is fine at 70°F.

I threw two 62% integra boost regulators in there as well as put shredded brown bag pieces as well.

Is there anything else I could do to bring it down? Don’t want to risk this batch molding.

 

[Old Salt]

What is the room temperature and humidity?

 

[Bush Doctor 77]

Add a small incandescent light bulb.

 

[shottafire]

Honestly with a box like that it is going to be hard to control what’s in the box. Need tot try and control the room that the box is in. 70percent won’t be horrible as long as it’s not 70percent day and night for days on end

 

[Billpopy79]

I have a similar issue, the room where I'm drying is low humidity 35% but low temps also
I have lined a box with plastic but now I have my buds hanging in there it's sitting around 68%
I've just put a bowl of dry rice grains in there.
I don't know if it will work but I know they are known for pulling moisture from the air.

 

[Greenlizard]

First of all. Hats off to your ingenuity. I love DYI.
Let's just step back and look at the big picture. If you had a 10X10 sealed room with ventilation and filled that room's cubic space by approximately 30% with fresh cut bud that would be a ton of bud. Even with a great extraction fan that room would likely still sweat with that high of a ratio of moist material. I see you have what looks like a paper bag laying in the bottom. That is a good idea but how about lining the bottom and sides with cardboard instead? The cardboard would help absorb the moisture rather than condense it and sweat. I would also line the lid with cardboard. If you find the cardboard get's too moist you can change it out for fresh stuff as needed. At least that's what I would try.
Also that little boost pack you have in there isn't going to do anything. You would need about 25 of them to help with the issue. That size would be ok for a 1 Liter jar for storage.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I suspect that what you have there is probably fine, and probably if anything it’s drying a bit too fast. But you’ll just have to see how it goes by trial and error. I made a drying box too. If you take a box and you put a whole bunch of moist stuff in it, that humidity is going to spike for a while. Using your air vents, RH in the box will drop over time to meet the humidity of the main room that the box is in.

What is the RH of your main room?

You’ll just have to keep a close eye that your bud isn’t drying too fast or too slow.
The humidity in my main room is about 65%- meaning that my bud will not dry beyond 65% humidity -which is about what I want. I don’t use fans on my box, just some holes which I often half cover to regulate the drying speed.
A slow dry is preferable - aim for around 5 days as a decent minimum. Good luck.


Edit - also you’ll find that the drying time varies greatly depending how much bud is in the box.
When I put lots of bud in, I open up all the holes for more air flow. Once it dries out a little bit I close off most of the holes and things slow right down. You’ll just have to play with it and see how it works in your environment. It can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
But if your main room humidity is decent then that will be a big help.

 

[Cwmoore577]

What is the room temperature and humidity?

Room temp is right at 70°F and humidity is around 50% but I had my meter in the box so unsure of exact current percentage.
Good news is that I assume now that the nugs have dried a bit the Rh has dropped in the box to right at 55-60%.

Honestly with a box like that it is going to be hard to control what’s in the box. Need tot try and control the room that the box is in. 70percent won’t be horrible as long as it’s not 70percent day and night for days on end

It’s dropped to 55-60% today.

First of all. Hats off to your ingenuity. I love DYI.
Let's just step back and look at the big picture. If you had a 10X10 sealed room with ventilation and filled that room's cubic space by approximately 30% with fresh cut bud that would be a ton of bud. Even with a great extraction fan that room would likely still sweat with that high of a ratio of moist material. I see you have what looks like a paper bag laying in the bottom. That is a good idea but how about lining the bottom and sides with cardboard instead? The cardboard would help absorb the moisture rather than condense it and sweat. I would also line the lid with cardboard. If you find the cardboard get's too moist you can change it out for fresh stuff as needed. At least that's what I would try.
Also that little boost pack you have in there isn't going to do anything. You would need about 25 of them to help with the issue. That size would be ok for a 1 Liter jar for storage.

Thank you! I will keep that in mind. I’ll likely need a bigger storage container in order to line it with cardboard. It’s dropped to 55-60% today so that’s good.

I suspect that what you have there is probably fine, and probably if anything it’s drying a bit too fast. But you’ll just have to see how it goes by trial and error. I made a drying box too. If you take a box and you put a whole bunch of moist stuff in it, that humidity is going to spike for a while. Using your air vents, RH in the box will drop over time to meet the humidity of the main room that the box is in.

What is the RH of your main room?

You’ll just have to keep a close eye that your bud isn’t drying too fast or too slow.
The humidity in my main room is about 65%- meaning that my bud will not dry beyond 65% humidity -which is about what I want. I don’t use fans on my box, just some holes which I often half cover to regulate the drying speed.
A slow dry is preferable - aim for around 5 days as a decent minimum. Good luck.


Edit - also you’ll find that the drying time varies greatly depending how much bud is in the box.
When I put lots of bud in, I open up all the holes for more air flow. Once it dries out a little bit I close off most of the holes and things slow right down. You’ll just have to play with it and see how it works in your environment. It can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
But if your main room humidity is decent then that will be a big help.

What are the signs that the bud is drying too quickly?
my room is around 50% right now.

 

[Old Salt]

The room's humidity is perfect for drying. Although a little high, the temp is OK for drying. The high humidity you had in the box was due to insufficient air moving through it. Now that some of the moisture is gone from the buds it should stabilize quickly.

 

[Cwmoore577]

The room's humidity is perfect for drying. Although a little high, the temp is OK for drying. The high humidity you had in the box was due to insufficient air moving through it. Now that some of the moisture is gone from the buds it should stabilize quickly.

Actually after letting my meter settle for a bit longer it’s closer to 40% humidity. Also the box is now reading 43-44%.
What are my options if it drops below 40%?

Better to jar a tad early and repeatedly burp then too late correct?

 

[BeanTownFan420]

45% relative humidity is perfect for drying.

 

[BeanTownFan420]

I lets buds dry to touch then cut off stem into jar leave jar open for a day then start the burp.

 

[Havocsm1]

I am harvesting soon also. I have about 12 large air tight containers and mini hygrometers. Everyday I plan to take a bud from each strain and place them in the container. After I let it sit for an hour or two I'll check the humidity. If it's around 65% I will jar the rest up and begin burping. Each container will have a hygrometer and 62% boveda packs. The less guesswork the better for me.

 

[Weaselcracker]

What are the signs that the bud is drying too quickly?

Again you’ll just have to keep an eye on them. It’s pretty common for the outside to become quite dry after two or three days, but the stems should still be flexible. If after 2 or 3 days everything is looking like crispy critters including the stems, to me that would be too fast.
I aim for about a week drying before the stems get to a point where they hinge 90° when bent (aka ‘snap’ - but don’t break) which is the usual sign to start jarring.

 

[Havocsm1]

Think of it this way. Drying mainly dries the outside. Curing spreads the inner moisture back to the outside. Or redistributes. You're not looking to dry the whole bud. Just kinda flash dry the outside (in terms of growing, flash could mean like 5 to 10 days). Like what @Weaselcracker said stems snapping is the 'crude' indicator...

 

[Cwmoore577]

Think of it this way. Drying mainly dries the outside. Curing spreads the inner moisture back to the outside. Or redistributes. You're not looking to dry the whole bud. Just kinda flash dry the outside (in terms of growing, flash could mean like 5 to 10 days). Like what @Weaselcracker said stems snapping is the 'crude' indicator...

Again you’ll just have to keep an eye on them. It’s pretty common for the outside to become quite dry after two or three days, but the stems should still be flexible. If after 2 or 3 days everything is looking like crispy critters including the stems, to me that would be too fast.
I aim for about a week drying before the stems get to a point where they hinge 90° when bent (aka ‘snap’ - but don’t break) which is the usual sign to start jarring.

Ok. Two last questions...
I assume the smaller buds will dry quicker and should be jarred sooner?
And when it comes to the trim, should you dry then stick in the freezer or stick directly into the freezer after trimming?

 

[Havocsm1]

I don't use a freezer so I can't answer that but yeah probably a good idea to check different size buds . For the most part they'll be the same.