Finished buds curing have a dry hay smell?

[James427]

So I finished up my first grow with the unknown bagseed and I'm very pleased with the results. After almost 7 months (I know that's longer than it should have taken) I have cut dryed and now am pop curing the bud. I have about 118 grams and I'm on my 7th day poping the jars. Now they do have a very strong sweet sour smell that comes after poping these jars but the buds still have a hay kind of smell masking the sweet almost sour diesel smell when broken apart. After trying it a few times with several people it seems the only thing we could think of is a sour diesel plant (or something in that potency range) cross pollinated by some random male likely a Reggie strain. Could this just be the way these buds smell? Or should I go another week of more? They have a good snap already when breaking apart. Can this musty kind of hay smell mean something wrong with the buds?
Thanks for any advice.
Peace

 

[Major PITA]

I think the hay smell will go away with a proper cure. Seven days isn't very long. Do you have a hygrometer in the jar to see how wet they are?

 

[Dwight Monk]

How long did they dry before you put into jars for curing?

 

[James427]

I think the hay smell will go away with a proper cure. Seven days isn't very long. Do you have a hygrometer in the jar to see how wet they are?

How long did they dry before you put into jars for curing?

No unfortunately I didn't get a hygrometer but I do have boveda 62% humidi pack in each jar. I read that as long as the boveda packs are still working they will work well enough to keep the buds from getting mouldy or anything but still cure pretty well. I'm really thinking about investing in a few.

They all hung and dryed for about 6 days. Where actually crumbly when I took them down because I let humidifier alone like an idiot for 2 days going non stop dropped the humidity way to low. Thanks to the boveda packs they are looking pretty good now.

 

[Dwight Monk]

I could be wrong as fairly new to all this, but thought I read that the humidi packs will bring the humidity up if too low but they don't help it go down very much if you are over the 62%. But same as everything you can find opposing points of view on it I imagine, just pretty sure I read that somewhere that they not designed to bring humidity down very much or very well.

As ones I'm currently curing (my first go round) they felt pretty dry to me by touch but one of them I can't get below 65% yet, been leaving top off for hours multiple times a day, but then humidity high here as been raining a lot lately (though it lower in house than outside). The other one I started around 63% when put into jar, so I can keep it around 61-63% range which is in that 60-65% range that supposed to be sweet spot for curing. I got a couple Hygrometers on Amazon that tell me humidity and the temperature for around $25, and it's slim so fits right in jar well, they have some like it cheaper but I went for the one that had better reviews.

 

[James427]

I could be wrong as fairly new to all this, but thought I read that the humidi packs will bring the humidity up if too low but they don't help it go down very much if you are over the 62%. But same as everything you can find opposing points of view on it I imagine, just pretty sure I read that somewhere that they not designed to bring humidity down very much or very well.

As ones I'm currently curing (my first go round) they felt pretty dry to me by touch but one of them I can't get below 65% yet, been leaving top off for hours multiple times a day, but then humidity high here as been raining a lot lately (though it lower in house than outside). The other one I started around 63% when put into jar, so I can keep it around 61-63% range which is in that 60-65% range that supposed to be sweet spot for curing. I got a couple Hygrometers on Amazon that tell me humidity and the temperature for around $25, and it's slim so fits right in jar well, they have some like it cheaper but I went for the one that had better reviews.

It says on the humidi packs it's supposed to keep it at 62% and absorb Anything above and release for anything below but now that you mention it I'm gonna definitely look further into that. I'm actually letting the jars air for about 40 minutes each day and the buds seem pretty dry by now. I'm gonna say IMO they are just a bit more moist than being crumbly and too dry on some buds. I think the smell is because I have basically grown a severely hermied plant. The bud it came from had like 12 seeds in 3 grams now I only see a few tiny extremely under developed seed "pods" looking almost like bananas sticking out and nothing fully formed.

 

[Major PITA]

The Boveda packs work both ways. They will add and remove moisture as needed (over a limited range).
I think you will be fine. Just give it a little time.

 

[Kalimaki420]

Happens some time and curing helps a bit.

I think it happens if rh swings to much and some strains get it easier.
Dried some Blue Dream and Carnival right to each other and BD had a hay smell and Carnival don't.

Havened complete figured out but I think if rh is low and rise to much after 2 days of drying.

 

[jhfhklsnhfldk]

a very healthy plant with few issues always seems to cure better. A plant that was unhealthy for a portion of its life will have a harder cure. If the buds got to below 55%, the cure will stop. As far as I know, there is no way to restart it. Overfed plants, especially phosphorus, will NOT cure well at all. Being a hermie will not prevent a good cure, I hermie all the time. I recently chopped 3 Jack Herrer auto. The first tastes like orange peels after 1 week dry + 1.5 weeks in a jar. The other 2 are going to take 2 months or so. This is my guess, but I've done enough to know which will cure best and quickest.

 

[jhfhklsnhfldk]

 

[James427]

Happens some time and curing helps a bit.

I think it happens if rh swings to much and some strains get it easier.
Dried some Blue Dream and Carnival right to each other and BD had a hay smell and Carnival don't.

Havened complete figured out but I think if rh is low and rise to much after 2 days of drying.

a very healthy plant with few issues always seems to cure better. A plant that was unhealthy for a portion of its life will have a harder cure. If the buds got to below 55%, the cure will stop. As far as I know, there is no way to restart it. Overfed plants, especially phosphorus, will NOT cure well at all. Being a hermie will not prevent a good cure, I hermie all the time. I recently chopped 3 Jack Herrer auto. The first tastes like orange peels after 1 week dry + 1.5 weeks in a jar. The other 2 are going to take 2 months or so. This is my guess, but I've done enough to know which will cure best and quickest.

Thanks for the replies. I'm definitely gonna admit that being a first time grow and in a small tent there where most certainly stressors causing problems. She had light intensity from short tent on top buds the light was only about 18 inches away from the canopy and cause serious heat and lumen burn in my leaves and I assume my buds at the top a bit. There was serious temp fluctuations because my central air thermostat was being messed with a lot while I wasn't home. So on top of all these stressors I was still trying to learn how to ph my FFOF soil properly because it was ALWAYS acidic. I really think I need to just go all organic with FFOF or Roots next time but that's basically how my grow went. Nothing too serious but bad enough to cause these buds to be not so perfect. Anyways getting back on subject I'm really thinking with how smooth they smoke now that there probably about as good as their gonna get. I'm of course gonna give them about another week or so but from the aroma while growing I know this is basically it's true smell now. Def gonna get myself a hygrometer being only 30 bucks I could really use one being a newb.

 

[Bigvin]

I do a wet trim at harvest then I usually hang dry for about a week, keeping humidity around 50-60%. I also keep the temp around 65f. Then I cut the buds off the stem and then place in paper bags (grocery sacks), roll them up and place in a cool dry place for a few days, opening once a day. The grocery sack will help absorb more of the moisture. Then, when the buds are ready, I manicure and place in turkey bags, which trap the smell and texture....just my 2c


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[Major PITA]

@james-
$30 for a hygrometer is WAY too much $$$. I have a bunch and they were just a few bucks each.

 

[jhfhklsnhfldk]

@James-
$30 for a hygrometer is WAY too much $$$. I have a bunch and they were just a few bucks each.

I agree. I bought an Oregon Scientific (brand) weather station. It came with 3 remote sensors that you can place anywhere plus a central monitor, which I keep in my office, that receives the data from all 3 sensors. During cure times, I have 3 sensors that I can put in my jars and watch them from afar.

 

[hardboiled]

I feel like the OP.....I've trimmed and dried and jarred and burped and such. But, the curing takes as long as the growth imho. 2nd time around, I dried fully in paper bags then jarred and used boveda 63's. still burping 2 weeks later at less intervals to check for nose. it's gonna take another 5 months i guesstimate.

it sucks. be patient is what ive learned.

 

[Blew Hiller]

So here is a question. I dried my recent harvest in our root cellar which is a constant 64-66F and 63/64% RH (I have a hygrometer in there).

I was drying the buds on a screen (from our beehives) for 5 days and they felt dry enough to jar. This is our first grow. Is the main purpose of jarring to maintain a consistent RH? If so, why couldn't I just leave my harvest in paper bags in this dark, cool, RH controlled environment...minus the jar?

Thoughts appreciated.

 

[Scientific]

Just to give credit where credit is due, this graphic was borrowed from Nebula Haze's excellent growweedeasy.com website.

 

[Scientific]

I got a couple Hygrometers on Amazon that tell me humidity and the temperature for around $25, and it's slim so fits right in jar well, they have some like it cheaper but I went for the one that had better reviews.

I got one of the Caliber Mark IV hygrometers from Amazon, feeling guilty for buying yet another gadget, but I love the thing. It gives very accurate temperature and humidity readings, and it responds very quickly. In a curing jar, it gives you the confidence that you have the humidity just right. Same thing for the grow room. Great little instrument.

 

[Scientific]

Is the main purpose of jarring to maintain a consistent RH? If so, why couldn't I just leave my harvest in paper bags in this dark, cool, RH controlled environment...minus the jar?

I suspect that curing is a very subtle and complex process that combines drying, degradation of complex organic molecules into simpler forms through oxidation, fermentation (itself very complex), off-gassing of volatile components, and probably a bunch of other stuff as well.

Lacking a lab and the time to try to learn more about the actual biological and chemical process, I just follow the accumulated folk wisdom of fellow growers and curers and hope for the best.

I don't think that any of biochemical curing processes are going to affect the inorganic fertilizer salts that we add so much of to flog the plant into maximum production, which might explain the earlier poster's claim that overfertilized plants don't cure as well as well and why many flush their plants before harvesting.

I suspect that at some ag school down in tobacco country there is someone who has a pretty good understanding of the curing process, and that there might be a college agronomy textbook for tobacco growers that explains a lot of what happens--starches breaking down into sugars or what have you.

I'd love to know more, but like I said, until I do, I track humidity and burp my jars daily like I've been told to do.

 

[Scientific]

We're not the first pot growers to have this discussion. Googling "cannabis smells like hay" brings up a whole lot of results (but not a lot of good answers, as far as I can see).