bigredneck

looking for some different ways to dry and cure my buds. usually i put them on a screen and leave em upstairs till i think they are dry, but the either get too dry or i have thought they were dry, and put them in the fridge too soon, I'm looking for a different way to dry cure and store. I've put alot of work and time into this years crop and want to get the best quality buds that will be quality well into next year. there's nothin like smokin last falls buds in september.

IamTheChronic

why dont you hang them upside down to dry?The moisture and chloryphyll leaves slower,and since theyre upside down,the last of the plants energy goes into saving the buds.To cure just get some atlas jars and put your bud in there.Burp them once a day by opening the jars and stirring around the bud for maximum oxygen exposure,then leave the jar open for ten minutes to let all the moisture out for about a month,Its a quality smoke found nowhere else but in homegrown.Oh yeah,put a fan wherever you hand them up at,and keep them in the dark.also check on them every day and bend the stem,if it snaps,theyre ready for curing.If they bend,keep them in there another day or so.
Hope this helps

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mattdreads

so I scanned in the harvesting method I read in soft secrets. figured you might find it an interesting read. it was a bit of a trick to figure out how I could take a scanned in picture and coppy and paste the text...but, I've done it.

that took me 25 minutes...

I'm off the smoke a bowl

sorry it's cut up like that...I'm not willing to take the time to make it fit right. now I just need to find the thread where someone asked me to tell them why I thought it was so important to keep as much liquids in the plant as possible... you'll have to weed through the beginner lesson crap...it is meant for morons as well. but there are some valuable points.
enjoy the read
-Matt

Soft Secrets 53
Grow your own
The end is approaching, and hopefully I
have helped contribute to your gardens
being filled with many wonderfully
green babes. In any case, all of you
now have the ability to grow top quality
cannabis, even if as a beginner your first
time will contain some mistakes which
will inevitably impact the size and to
some extent the quality of your harvest.
If things have gone really tits up along
the way, learn from your mistake(s)
and try to eliminate them next time. At
the end of the day it is usually stupid
mistakes that are made, so keep getting
your hands on as much information as
you can; information is power!
If everything has gone pretty smoothly
for the last 8-10 weeks of blooming,
which most varieties need to properly
finish their blossoming, so it’s now
harvest time. As long as you have
not managed to give an overdose of
nutrients, then some cracking good
buds should be visible on all your
plants. Overdoing things can cause
damage, and it is better to give too little
than too much. The closer and closer
you get to the end of the blooming
period, the more you can reduce the
strength of your feed water, and even
stop feeding completely for the last
week(s). It can’t do any damage to your
crop if the plants turn a nice yellow,
in fact it is a good sign. The plants are
sucking out every last drop of nutrient
from their own leaves, which means
that there will less nutrient residue
left in your buds. The result is a nicer
smoke.
Trimming “wet”
There are various methods by which
you can harvest your beloved plants.
Which one you use depends largely
on the number of plants you have and
the size of them. The most common
method and the one that gets my nod is
“wet” trimming the buds. We proceed
by immediately trimming the plants one
by one the moment they finish ripening.
We take a ripened plant and cut off the
branches one by one and remove the
leaves around the buds. This leafage
contains a lot of THC and so we keep
this to one side so that later we can
make water hash or ‘skuff’ out of it. In
order to improve the eventual quality of
your hash, try to avoid mixing in large
leaves with little or no THC crystals
visible on them with the leaf trim.
The large cover leaves can actually be
removed 2-3 days before you start the
actual trimming, or even earlier. By
doing this you will make the trimming
a bit easier and also quicker, since you
would only have to remove the big
leaves during the trimming anyway.
You can decide for yourself if you want
to do this or not.
One advantage of removing the large
leaves a little earlier, like a week before
the harvest, is that the lower-most buds
on your plant will be far smaller than
the top buds thanks to having been
deprived of light. With the sudden
increase in available light these can
shoot up in size quite a bit in this last
week, and ripen more fully.
By trimming the plants wet you can
trim much shorter and neater than
you can with dried buds, and this will
present the buds to their best. The first
time does take a bit of getting used to
as you figure out the best way to trim
them. But after ten minutes or so you
will have usually found the technique
that is quickest and at the same time
neatest. In itself, trimming is not hard,
but the best technique will give you the
loveliest end results. Women’s hands
are more suitable for trimming since
they are slimmer and can work with
more refinement.
Make sure too that you always have
some reserve sheers handy when you
start the job for real. There are various
types of trimming sheers on the market,
and I would say it’s best to try out
several of them since everyone has
their own preferences. Once you have
decided which your favourite is then in
future trimming sessions you can start
straight away with this model. Cheap
sheers and scissors that are not sharp
enough or are soon knackered are less
suitable if you want to get really stuck
in. These just cause more trouble than
they are worth in the long run – as well
as making the trimming longer.
After just a short while trimming
you will get a huge quantity of THC
sticking all over your sheers. If you
don’t have some sort of product with
you that removes the sticky hairs it
can be pretty difficult to get the sheers
clean again. A poor set will quickly
break if the hinge is impeded by too
much THC. So if you’re working with
cheap sheers, then it is especially
important to have a spare to hand
so you can switch over as soon as a
problem with the first pair rears its
head.
Dry trimming
A second method you can use is
trimming the plants dry. In this
technique, you first let the plants dry
out before actually getting down to
trimming them. The branches are
snipped off and hung or placed in the
drying room. Drying the plants out first
in this way does take a bit longer than
when your buds have been trimmed wet.
It’s a method used mainly when there is
a larger number of plants and a shortage
of time. Dried buds are less easy to
trim and end up less neat. There is a
relatively larger loss of THC since this
is more easily shaken off by movement
when dry. This is very relative; there
is still a huge amount present on both
the buds and plant material. The drier
this plant material, the easier it shakes
free. This method is also mainly used on
outdoor-grown cannabis. The enormous
outdoor plants are hung upside down in
a drying space and then systematically
harvested. When growing a large
number of smaller plants indoors this
method – hanging whole plants upside
down - is also used. There is no bad
way of trimming, it just depends on the
growing system which method suits you
more than another.
Trimming space
Try and get a room that is suitably
ventilated when you’re choosing where
to harvest. If your growing space is
big enough, you’re best off doing it
in here while you run the ventilator
continuously. If you have to do it in a
different room you will find that the
plants give off quite a bit of odour,
and you might find keeping the door
shut and only opening it to go get the
next plant for trimming helps. Try to
make sure that whatever you do, don’t
annoy the neighbours. Even though the
smell of fresh cannabis smells divine
to smokers, many civilians think the
strong stench revolting. Using a small
vacuum pump fitted with a carbon
filter will help keep the smell down
during trimming, or else do it in a place
where there is no danger of causing a
nuisance. Mostly you’ll find that you
pretty soon don’t notice the penetrating
cannabis smell yourself because you get
used to it. This underestimation of just
how big an impact you’re making can
end in tears.
Harvest time! By Bart B.
Growing for Dummies Part 10
One advantage of removing the large leaves a
little earlier is that the lower-most buds on your
plant will be far smaller than the top buds thanks
to having been deprived of light. With the sudden
increase in available light these can shoot up in size
quite a bit in this last week, and ripen more fully.
This lady is ready, judging from the brown
hais
More than 80% of her hairs is brown, this
lady is more than ready too
Orange Bud ready for the chop
54 Soft Secrets
Drying room
It is also important to bring the harvest
to a good conclusion because after so
many months of work it would be a
crying shame to watch your buds turn
mouldy. The ideal place in which to
leave your buds to dry is in a cool and
dark room kept somewhere between
15-22 degrees. It is not important to
ensure that the room is very warm
because the active ingredients need
a bit of time to mature properly so
that you get a decent effect when you
smoke the cannabis. It is better to dry
the buds slowly over two weeks then
stick them in a warm room to get them
into a smokeable condition as soon
as possible. This certainly does not
improve the quality. Trying to quickly
dry out your buds by sticking them in
the microwave or in an oven because
you happen to be temporarily out of
smoke makes no sense at all. Not
only will it taste very sharp and bad,
you only get a weak high that’s not
particularly enjoyable. Cannabis needs
time to come to its full strength, shall we
say. It is not just because it is dry that it
is ready for consumption.
When you lay out your buds to dry in
their room make sure that they have a
good circulation of air under and over
them. Laying them down on newspaper
or something else that is not aerated is
not advisable. There are special drying
racks you can buy and I recommend
them highly for drying your cannabis on.
These are racks with tensioned threads
across them thanks to which the buds
get plenty of air from underneath. When
you just stick your buds on a piece of
cardboard then the side of the bud that
comes into contact with the cardboard
loses its moisture with more difficulty,
which increases the chances of it
developing mould considerably. You are
better off laying harvested buds next to
each other rather than piling them on
top of each other. If mould does take
hold it will spread less easily from bud
to bud. A good 75% of the harvested
bud is made up of water that has to be
removed. When this moisture has trouble
being removed is when we get the risk
of mould. If you start with 500 grams of
wet buds then you will end up about 125
grams of dry smokeables.
Too low a temperature can also mean
that the buds spend too long damp, and
again this increases your mould risk.
There are always mould spores floating
in the air, but only when you create the
poor conditions they like do they get
a foothold on your buds. Insufficient
ventilation thanks to putting the
harvested buds in too small or to
closed off a space, or by leaving them
to dry on a hard surface rather than on
an aerated surface is one of the most
common causes of mould. The fear of
mould is pretty unwarranted so long as
you bear these factors in mind.
Ripening
There is a big difference between
ripening and drying cannabis. After
just one week the small buds are
usually dry, while the medium to large
buds will need two weeks. If you have
some really huge buggers in your
garden, they could use a few more
days than that even. You can always
choose whether to dry any enormous
buds as a whole or to break them up
first, because the structure of huge
buds is made up of smaller ones that
have grown together. Smaller buds dry
out quicker so if time is an important
factor you’re better off breaking them
up.
The trick to telling whether your
cannabis is indeed good and dry is to
take a large bud and try to break its
twig. When the twig snaps easily the
bud is good and dry. Don’t try and
convince yourself they’re ready by
taking a small bud twig and breaking
that. All your buds need to be properly
dry before you can ripen them. The
dried buds will be nicely smokeable
after two weeks. They are not yet at
their absolute peak, but they will do
the business. Finally it is time to test
them out, in the knowledge that they
will only get better in the future.
Once your buds are well and truly
dry we can take care of the storage.
In order to keep the quality of your
cannabis high you will need to store it
in a cool, dark space. So just put it in
a light-proof plastic container or glass
beaker in a dark place. Light destroys
THC. If a few of your buds aren’t dry
enough and you store them with others,
then they will all end up damp again,
even the ones that were actually dry.
Now you have to leave the buds
where they are for another two weeks
to ripen, which will put us a month
on from the harvest. Thanks to the
ripening process the buds will taste
better, and the high will be better. As
I said, cannabis needs time. After this
month the taste will be fairly well
developed, although some varieties
do need a little more time than others
in order to become a top smoke.
Naturally, the buds will be good, but
they can still be just a tad better...
So all’s well that ends well, now we’re
left with a large volume of leaf trim
over, dripping with THC, with which
we have plans to make something
wonderful out of. So not only do
we have a good supply of smoking
material but we can yet make a good
water hash or hash oil, try out cannabis
recipes when we cook, and more...
But more about that in the next issue,
in the very last edition of Growing for
Dummies...
This series was
made in cooperation
with
Plagron; visit them
at Plagron

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smokin' cheeeeeeba!

bigredneck

wow thats gonna take some time to read. i'll have to roll one first.
thanks alot for all the work you put into it, definately gonna help out alot of people.

mattdreads

happy to help, felt a bit dumb once I figured out how to do it. it's wan't that hard.

happy drying

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Bandicoot

In that essay it says that it is beneficial to cut off the larger fan leaves before even cutting the plant down in order to increase the light given to the smaller buds. I always thought that the fan leaves were the 'power plants', and supplied energy to the growing buds.
I remember previous threads stating that trimming too much will diminish growth.

Is there something that changes last week, allowing direct light to be more efficient on smaller buds?, or maybe it's some sort of self-defense, one last chance at reproduction?

mattdreads

good point yes, the leaves are the power supply, but in the last week, they don't do anything anymore. the large leaves if everything is going how it's supposed to should be sending all their nutes to the budsites as it is and yellowing horribly. I don't personally do everything this guy does in here, I only cut the large fan leaves that are yellow, the rest I leave. it does give your lower buds a bit more firmness too them if you can find a way to get the light down there, thats why tucking leaves is good practice during flowering.

the plant that's in the last week before the chop is doing everything it can to survive, so if all the sudden it get's a boost of light to the areas that it hasn't had, then I think yes, it would indeed put more effort it to making something out of those areas then it would in the start of flowering. but that's jsut my idea, I don't have anything to back it up.

I do however know that large yellowed fan leaves can be clipped in the last week without detriment.

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mattdreads

cobs. also known as Malawi Cobs, is sun dryed weed, wrapped up in a corn husk reeeeeeaaaalllly tight and buried deep under where their cattle grazes. I don't remember how long it's buried, the urine never actually gets deep enough to get to the weed. it does something as far as protecting it from bacteria and has an effect on the curing process somehow. a lot of people say "man, that's third world way of curing, just get a glass jar" but that's not true. something changes about the weed, and I don't know why, but this shit becomes just about hallucinogenic, a seriously heady stoned. and the next complaint is that it's dirty or the weed might taste like crap from the corn. o' contraire, this stuff develops a wonderful smell and taste that cannot be compared. it's ROCK hard when you take it out of the ground, so a grinder is pretty handy. I think something about the starch of the corn husk sweetens with fermetation and that combined with the THC...woo. you'll have a crazy night.

this was bob marely's favorite type of smoke. I can see why, it's definitely got something about it.

this year a good portion of my harvest is getting buried. I know it takes a large amount of MJ, and you have to wrap that shit tighter then you thought was possible.

I don't remember exactly how deep you're suppose to bury it, or exactly how long it needs to be underground...I think it was 2 or 3 months, and about a meter and a half deep. you can leave the cow urine out of the equation.

I'll make sure that's right and post later to confirm.

you wanted something different eh?

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Bandicoot

Yea, I figured during the last week, a healthy plant wouldn't really lose anything from a haircut. I am currently on my last week, so i was just wondering. I think i'll try this on one or 2 of them. I try to tuck the leaves, but after a while with the fans on they go back to where they were.

That corn husk technique sounds interesting. It kind of reminds me of people putting a piece of gum into a banana peel and hallucinating: Mellow Yellow. I'm pretty sure that don't work though.

mattdreads

no but you can stick a hole bunch of tooth picks in an orange or a lemon, set it away and let it rot. then take the toothpicks out and suck on them and you'll trip balls. never done it myself, but a trusted source told me. so be careful, don't know how many toothpicks to take before enoughis enough.

about the cobs, I do indeed think there's something about the firmentation that creates a low grade hallucanigen. because if you just puff away a blunt of this stuff in one sitting you are really not just your average stoned. maybe not something you want to smoke too often I don't know....I like it.

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