I keep humidity on point by sealing them up at the perfect humidity, no boveda needed and I don’t like what boveda does to buds in long term storage, makes them darker than buds not stored with boveda and tastes better without boveda.
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@Hellraiser. I’ve painted myself into a corner and without further explanation I’m stuck relying on Grove bags for my soon to be next harvest. Their procedure requires drying full plant to 60-62% RH for a slow drying period then clipping buds leaving them on stems to a size that will fit into brown paper bags. Leaving stems on in bag is to keep from fast over dry plus helps separation in the bag. After the paper bag is loosely full you put a second bag down over it. At 12 hour intervals you turn the bag over and remove the cover bag to burp then recover as the buds on top dry out faster. Leaving the stem on helps the sweating process. So every 12 hours you flip burp cover. They say on average this is done 4-5 times which tells me the sweating only takes 2-2 1/2 days then remove from stem finish trim and seal in the Grove bag. According to them by sweating in a short period you dont risk getting brown bag smell in the buds. Before risking my entire harvest I’d really appreciate your feedback on this. I’ve seen plenty of videos of folks saying these bags work and do what they claim I’m just a bit nervous this being my first try lol.
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Should be fine as long as you don’t overly dry the buds first, seems the grove bags have some kind of moisture/gas release barrier film that keeps the humidity at 58-62RH which is great, just don’t put the buds in there already drier that that.
I do that by not using paper bags at all, only glass or stainless steel (CVault) for my buds.
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Thanks for the wicked reply @Hellraiser
Ugh loved it!
Yes I agree see everything I’ve done and read mostly says to do the way you explain and that’s what ive been doing.
I just can’t dry trim, I didn’t mean you can’t do a good job I meant I can’t dry trim it seems so much harder and labouris. I tried but I need someone who does it to show me how they do it I think lol.
I do have a question about your process though, when you say you drop the humidty by two points a day why? Don’t you worry about high humidity in the container? That’s my fear so I have always burped it until it drops to 60% and wait for it to climb back up and do it over again. Anytime I see it above 62% I burp it.
Once it’s stable I put in my boost packs.
I will agree with you long term they will take the green away from your bud.
I grow different strains every grow so I think the amount of cvaults I would need would be very costly and I may do thst one day but for now it’s the 1.9L tall wide mouth Mason jars.
Although I’m considering screw lid small food grade plastic buckets that I can put a humidity sensor in (silicone it in the lid after cutting a hole with a hole saw bit)
As my Mason jars allow light in and even though they are in a closet I still don’t like it, also hard to stack Mason jars. Need some sort of Mason jar wine rack.
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Don’t think I’m allowed to link that…the piece I posted come from his book …Marijuana Botany…
Go search the 420 mag page…they have excerpts from his books …hope this helps…
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I’m going to raise another issue here…some do, some don’t…to each his own…I do a bud wash before I hang to dry, and I believe it ads anything up to 4 days onto the dry time (obviously dependent on certain factors)…
Here’s my 4 stage setup…
The next issue here is I do a hybrid trim, in other words, I remove the big stuff first, before I dry, then dry and then I do a final dry trim…you will notice the bigger leaves on the buds…
For those that are wondering why I do a bud wash…zoom in and notice, even stage 4 on the right, has a lot of ‘stuff’ in it…
Soon as I do the final trim, I insert into jars with 62% boveda packs. These packs I use as a control in conjunction with my hygrometers, to get to 62% ( burping as per normal )
…as soon as I’m stable at 62% for +/- a week, ( this process normally takes 3 weeks ) I’ll remove the bovedas from the jar, insert the jars into ice cream containers and put the bovedas into the ice cream container
…thus creating a double 'barrier ’ at a 62% rh. These containers now go into the freezer. If your containers seal properly, the bovedas will remain in a liquid state for some years…also notice…I believe there is also nothing wrong with my buds…
Hopefully this helps someone…
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Ive heard that but havnt experienced it imo. The trade off wasnt worth it again imo. But do keep in mind im in Chicago and its middle of winter. Keeping it fresh and not too dry is way worth the possible negative affects of turning the buds darker or have an unpleasant taste (which again ive never really noticed)
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With rubber gloves on just bend the bud a bit, and snip right at the base of the leave/sugar leave.
Personally i think (hanvnt tried) that dry trimming will help preserve the terpene profile and trichomes due to the fact the outside drys first; if the outside are just leaves/mostly leaves it leaves nothing but the the bud itself to be potent and pungeant smelling.
Will be doing the dry trim metgod this go round.
All good stuff dude. I’m out of likes again.
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Do you perform flushing before water curing? Yes, that is alot of “stuff” choraphyll I’m guessing. Hence the green. That and possibly starches/fertilizer…
That final product looks nice. Whats that strain?
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I don’t flush…period .i think its bs…there you go…let’s get this conversation going…
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It sounds easier than it is… If you ask lost people here the wet trim lol
I do organics…
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I don’t flush…no need to…
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Yeah let me expand on that. I don’t seal up my plants til the RH is under 70. Under 70, I no longer have to worry about mold or ammonia smell coming so I prolong the dry time by bringing them from 70 to 60 slowly, I feel the more time spent in the 60’s RH, the better the curing and smoothness and taste of the end product. During the dry trim, I’ll get a good feel for how moist the buds are as I trim them and chop into smaller pieces that’ll fit in the cvaults. I can tell RH by feel these days, so if the buds feel too moist I’ll leave the top off the cvault until I feel the buds are dry enough to seal up. Then I close them up and check in 12 hours or so and the RH is usually around 68-70, Then I’ll open them and air them out everyday with shorter open times as I get closer to 60-62. The whole process from chop down to getting to 60-62RH takes me near 3 weeks on average. I have never seen a moldy bud or smelled ammonia with my method.
One of my jar storage devices, holds about 40 quart size mason jars.
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Thanks for sharing that @Hellraiser
I don’t have the experience to feel the buds and know the humidity.
I only had mold once and it’s because I forgot to put the humidity packs in the jars and the RH climbed on me because I forgot about them. Oh well live and learn.
I definitely feel that curing is the art form that I need more experience in, I mean my method works and I get really good bud but I know I can do better. My dad is 78 and he loves my bud as does my girlfriend and the few friends I’ve given some to for xmass or whatever but I have had some really amazing jars and some jars that just smell gassy to me like meh maybe that’s the weed but I find gassy and sometimes cheesy is boring.
I want citrus or skunky, i had some lemon ak 46 and boy did it smell like lemons, my blackberry and lsd 25 both smell amazing, and this latest mephisto smells really crazy sour pungent in a good way. Definitely want more citrus and skunk though. It’s hard when there is no real quality to compare it to. Even the black market Commerical stuff here it’s lacking terps and often over dried.
I chop my plants after their 48hr darkness, within seconds of unzipping my tent. Then I hang the plant and cut branch by branch, wet trim, re hang in tent with humidity controller set to 50%. I check the buds and wait for them to almost snap but not quite, I find if they snap they are to dry and you don’t end up burping anything anyways because the RH is already lower than 62%.
Then I put them in a 5 gallon bucket because I want it to all cure evenly. I burp it and try to get the bucket to stabilize at 62% once it does then I jar it with a main jar. I put a humidity pack on the bottom of the jar and one on the top of the jar I use boost packs. Boost doesn’t seem to effect the favor or smell like others seem to.
I ussualy need to still burp those jars a bit not much though and they are good. Then I keep the hygrometer inside them just to be sure for the next month or so before I take it out.
My. Jars are all in a closet but I fear they may be getting some light from a window in the room even though blind are closed they are white blinds.
My biggest issue is I don’t have a single device I trust the RH sensor on lol they are all different… AC infity, inkbird, thermapro, accucheck, no name circle ones from Amazon, two different cure corks… They are all way different idk what to trust wish I could I had a for sure humidity so I could test them all and find out what all my devices are out +/- wise.
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You’ll get the feel for the humidity, it’s all in the response to the bud pinch test, if you pinch a bud and it goes flat and stays flat - way too wet, looking for a certain amount of spring back. It’s like checking a steak for doneness by touch like the pro chefs do, which I also do - I cook a mean steak as well LOL.But try things, switch some stuff around and see what is an improvement and what isn’t, like my mama always said “seek to improve and you will improve”.
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Here you go…these are case study’s…I will tag you over to a fellow cultivators thread…where you will find the case study that I quoted on …
Such a dope setup
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. I love learning
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