Hey, all. Curious what you all use as your method of trimming and drying. I’ve researched all the major difference in the two, but wanted to get some experienced opinions.
My drying room will be kept around 70°-75° and I can hold about 45% RH. I’m really thinking about dry trimming as I hear it allows the flavors to develop better by drying slower and prevents the hay smell. As I first time grower though, I hear it’s better to wet trim since it’s easier. Thoughts?
Also, any major preferences on hanging the whole plant versus individual branches considering the drying environment I’ll have?
Ive done both, wet and dry. I prefer a wet trim when it’s lots of cannabis as for me it’s easier. Then once dried I will clean the buds up and start the cure. I believe trimming is a personal preference and no value added by waiting for a dry trim
@ArmoredGoat Not a huge concern for me as I only have one plant. Im inclined to trim then hang. Biggest concern is drying the plant too quickly with wet trimming.
I get that, but just so we’re clear the hay smell is because it was recently harvested and still has chlorophyll in it. Once the plant dries out completely the chlorophyll will break down and the hay smell will naturally go away.
Leaving the leaf on there to dry with your buds will definitely slow down the drying process. Still believe this is a personal preference & does not impact the end result. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t tell the difference between the two other than longer drying periods.
My rule of thumb for drying - Harvest cannabis in a dark room/space with temperatures kept within the 60-70°F range and humidity between 45-55%, with a small fan to gently circulate the air throughout not pointing directly on your buds. I use a small oscillating fan in the floor and hang the buds about 16-24 inches above that. I also hang colas individually not hanging the whole plant.
I have done both. In terms of time, I find dry to be much faster. With dry I also tend to leave more of the sugar leaves on. You do have to be more careful handling it dry. I place everything in and trim over large stainless bowls so I don’t lose trichomes. It also slows down dry time. So, if in low rh situation hang more of the plant and trim when dry. Scissors don’t get nearly as gunked up either.
If you prefer pristine clean buds then wet is the way to go. At least for me, I have to break down the plant further in order to do a good job wet trimming. Large stems with multiple buds are just harder to handle.
I usually don’t do this but thought I would give it a try - hung the whole plant in the tent
That should fine. Have light indirect air movement. This is a little strange but I put the dry boxes in our small camper trailer to dry. Cranked up the AC and put a dehumidifier in there. Easier for me to control temp and rh in it than in my grow space.
I’ve done both, did wet trim mostly for the last few years so I could freeze the fresh trim to make bubble hash. But wet trimming a couple pounds of really sticky bud can make you want to end your life as the trimmers get full of sticky resin and need to cleaned every few minutes and it seems like the job will never be over.
So on the recent harvest - went back to dry trimming, just a more pleasant experience for me - trimmers don’t get sticky and need cleaning so often and just goes much faster.
I prefer the slower dry time of dry trimming as well.
Oh its pure Hell trimming my girls. I tend to smoke thr sugsr leaves as its easier to do that than literally trim every single leaf. I will take a hard pass in that.
just watched an interesting cast on Youtoob from a scientist that is studying terpines and the drying/ curing methods. Apparently, slow drying helps to preserve terpines, fast drying some are lost. The temperature and humidity during drying can effect the order if magnitude of terpines in relation to other terpines an cannibinoids/ flavinoids. An example would be more myrcine than pinene or if dried the slower rather than fast, the other may be more present? As for storage he did arfon gas, CO2, vacuum packing, and nitrogen packing, it did seem to change the order a bit and there was minor, mostly negligible CBN production in the course of a few months. Refrigeration wasnt discussed.
The method of drying may be a matter of convenience and necessity than superiority, an example would be, how easy would it be to hang a 12 foot plant whole? In a barn maybe ? The jostling of the buds in handling would likely result un loss of trichomes
I prefer wet trimming as I think I do a better job wet.I just bought a trimmer bowl for this next harvest as I should have somewhere between 3-4 pounds and the thoughts of trimming all that makes me tired just thinking about it.I tried it out on some roughly trimmed dry stuff and it works great. Best thing I’ve seen in awhile.Does 2 oz.wet at a time,in about 1 minute.Seriously cuts down on harvest time and labor.
Brilliant. I only have one plant. I initiated flower about 3-4 weeks earlier than I wanted because I’m supposed to be moving to Australia. So it’s a bit on the smaller side. Will probably only yield around 2 Oz or so. I think I’ve decided to wet trim the vast majority and leave behind some choice sugar leaves to slow the drying a bit. I’ll dry trim the rest of those. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Thanks for all the input guys!
