I have only a handful of drys under my belt. I’ve had the dry that smelled like hay and a dry that the smell went away after curing. I’ve had the time where some lost their smell and some kept their dank aroma.
My dry room fluctuate s between 50-60 humidity. Temp is usually 65-72.
I have always wet trimmed in the past.
When seeking advice I get people telling me 50 rh others 60. Some people tell me that wet triming is bad while others say that wet trim is the way to go.
I have a large harvest coming up. Plants look and smell great.
Please ILGM experts, what is your process, what temps and rh give you the best results. Do you wet or dry trim? I have to do my best to get the best outcome from this large harvest the end of this week. I cannot risk having the grassy smell off if multiple GSC extreme plants that I have nurtured for almost three months!
I rough trim wet and then do a polishing trim once dry and dry at ~60RH and 65 to 70 degrees F. They usually smell like hay until the last couple of days drying. Usually takes a week to 10 days.
Those drying conditions sound right on to me. Maybe a little higher rh to slow the process down a bit. Can you correlate conditions or treatment between the dries you felt were successful and the one that were less successful? How small do you cut the plant down to dry? Do you leave whole branches or down to the bud? And how about overall drying time. These are just questions that would run through my head to evaluate what I did, what worked and what didn’t.
I probably approach it similar to @MidwestGuy. I keep the stems and branches as large as I can handle. Trim / pull off fan leaves, and long stems stuff in the the bud. Then hang to dry leaving sugar leaves on.
This is some after a couple days of drying. I broke it down further into single stems or large buds. And put it back in the dry box.
Thanks @beardless
I hang each branch separately. Sometimes I have cut branches in half and hung on string if buds are really large on that specific branch. In my few drys they have usually hung for about 5-6 days before jarring. I have lost the smell everytime, but have had the smell return on one of the dries after curing for a week.
I think if you slow the drying process down it does a better job of retaining the terpenes. The one pictured dried for eight days and had the best aroma of any before. Mine would usually dry like yours 5-6 days.
This time I actually started out drying the whole plant for two days, then cut it down into sections to fit in the box, hung for a couple of days, and then what you see was cut down further, A lot of work but it was worth it.
I will try to harvest them in bigger portions this time then. I don’t use a box, I just hang them in a dark room with a couple fans, not pointing at them directly. U think this could also be an issue ?
Some air movement is recommended to avoid mold.
@beardless I’m thinking of just hanging whole plant at first. When you break them down early. I feel they dry to fast then you don’t get the terps and smell. then break them down further if needed while drying. I’m going to need a few days of sun before I cut as we are getting lots of rain. They are under a fan in the shed now.
That makes sense.
I break the bulk up to random sized buds, and dry my weed on screens. You can see the temperature and RH in the fan controller.
Oh and I remove all the fan leaves and anything without sugar. Ecerything else I leave to trim over a kief screen.
Also using this method, I have various stages of drying taking place so I need to judge done by feel. The weed smells very nice! Should improve over time as the chlorophyll goes away and the terpines come forward.