Lol....slow day at the office I hope! I'm sure they have the overhead to handle it! But honestly good on you for going through it all, I hope it was worth your time! TBH, I'm not sure if I ran them at full strength, I'm sure I did at one point. What I remember doing is never exceeding 40% of my base nutes. JJ told me its important to never use over 40% in your mix. I would usually use 3ml of each base/L of water, I'd calculate the amount of base multiply that by .4 then divide that number by the number of additives I'm using st that stage of growth. So if you follow the chart I posted you'll see what I was using at the time of an 8 week flower. I used overdrive for the last 10 days and I'm pretty sure with my method out works out to be full strength or dam near close to. I always count from the day of flip, never when I see change.
Hey GG, thanks for dropping in and thanks for the compliment! Sent from my iPod touch using Grasscity Forum mobile
Yo @[member="Hortila"], are Jake's words of wisdom regarding curing in this thread or another one? I know how to harvest and dry and cure and all that. But I remember seeing where you were curing monitoring RH in your jars. I've never done that. I've always cured but just gone by feel, smell, and eyes. I want to do this one right and was wondering where I could find what he advised you. Meaning as far as what your RH needs to be when it goes into the jar, what you want it at, and what you do to get it there. Does that make sense? I also need to find a small enough humidity meter. I've got a small one that's analog in my old humidor but it's a piece of shit and not accurate at all. Probably chopping in the next week or so! Thanks brother.
Hey no worries bud....post #2115, dated October 3rd 2013 is where he breaks down his new method. I've used both and I like them but the latest (post 2115) is what I like the best so far. The reason is I hung dry my plants whole for a good 5 days this last run (density wasn't there), then I place the entire plant as is into the monster leaf/compost paper bags. That's when you're supposed to then open the bags up daily and vent till you get the desired rh as posted. Because they were all pretty dry by then I didn't vent. Now I chopped my shit February 23rd, by the 28th they all went into those huge bags, and I started to jar them one by one. So the first few plants I got into the jars needed daily burps to really just vent the gases so the smell turns dank, the rh in the jar was like 45% give or take so for me it's good. I did this for 2 Weeks as per usual, but only with the first few jars of meds that went from hung dry to bag to jar with less then 2 Weeks of drying total. I have been real lazy and still to date I have a plant needing to be jarred that's in a bag, that's 5+ Weeks and the shit smells dank going into the jars. I haven't sampled that shit yet but I bet it'll smoke real nice, the buds are super sticky and the scent is there (smells just it did while growing... sweet) . So the reason really why you put the plants in the bag is to slowly get the desired rh in the bud and you're slowly curing it while it's in the bag. The jar now is your mini humidor for storage. JJ stores his gear for long term at 30%, 40% if its moving out the door. Personally I've got stuff from my first harvest at around 50% & no mold. A lot of ppl here and on YouTube like to store it @ 62%, they buy the 62 bovida humidi packs and burp daily for 2 or so Weeks and keep the pack in the jar. Not sure if that's got the long haul storage, but I've seen a bud vault vid that did just that. Being in Canada we don't have 62's but I'm good with the 50% rh give or take range with my bud. Feels crisp but still rolls some tasty one papers!
Yea the humidipaks make it easy work for me. Dry the buds till the stalks are close to snapping, put em in jars with humidipaks, burp every other day..in 2 weeks you have the dankity dank.
^^^ Yeah I know you and CD are all about those packs, best I could find was a 68 I believe. Considering all the buds you've been harvesting, how's the long term storage at 62 doing for you? Like are the buds mold free and soft?
@[member="Hortila"], thanks for the heads up. Just read through your explanation here and went back and read Snake's. Then c&p'd and printed that shit! Couple of questions... Once you went from hanging to the bags, at that point you put the hygrometer in the bags with the buds and kept changing bags every other day until you got the RH you wanted? Then...once you had the RH you wanted in the bags, you moved to jars, right? Then I get kind of confused. Once it's in the jars you put a hygrometer in the jars to monitor it there too and burp, how often? I guess bottom line is I know hanging it, and I know the bags and getting the RH in there. Then I get confused when it goes from bags to jars. Like how often to burp it in jars, when do I know it's good to no longer burp, etc etc. Thanks for any help. I think you're kind of like me in that you like to have all your ducks in a row before kicking something off. I like to have a precise plan of attack before germination, veg, flower, chop, cure, all that shit. And even though this definitely isn't my first grow, it's my first REAL legit grow, in hydro, with genetics, good lights, etc., i.e., I want to do the cure right and get the best smoke possible.
In theory that's what JJ suggested, my first attempt I was going to do this but by day 8 of hanging my gear was dry. I didn't move it into the bag soon enough to have to switch up the bags. To do that you have to get it into the bags before the stalk snaps, my shit snapped going in....oops! The reason for this method it actually to cure in the bags and the jars are simply for storage. The way he suggested was hang dry for 8-10 days, de bone the buds and place in bags and roll the bag all the way down to the bud. Every other day you remove the top layer of bud to its half way point, place that into a dry bag and dump the rest on top of that. You keep doing this until you get your desired RH in the bag. Now the 8-10 day hang dry he suggests is relative to density. We all know how chunky his stuff is so for me I should have pulled it at about 6 days then moved onto the bag rotation. As for the jar burp in general you do this until your rh in the jar stays at a stable number for a 24hr period. That number is up to you depending on long or short term storage.......ya feel me cuz!?
Now I feel ya, bra! Thanks for laying that out. In the past when I used to grow bullshit bagseed under CFLs, I would always dry it until it snapped and then go in jars and burp daily or so. Problem was, growing shit genetics under shit lights, all of my buds were fluffy as shit. This will be the first time I've grown anything with any density to it. I just don't know how dense before I start chopping. So I'm not sure how long it'll take. I guess I'll shoot for 8-ish days and check them daily. I'll probably either hang them in my tent and leave my inline fan pulling air in (but dialed back a bit). Or I may hang them in my old dual chamber CFL box I built. At least one side still has two PC fans on it that can pull air through. Also, you and someone else mentioned the Bovada packs. My boss is a big cigar smoker and keeps those packs around for his humidor. But I just checked his and they're the 72 packs. I definitely don't want to put a damn 72 in my jar! I think I am going to shoot for 50% like you do. But I'm not sure because I've never really monitored the RH while drying/curing. I've always gone by feel. And the last few grows didn't matter much. I just used it when I was out of funk nuggz or I have a buddy who comes and buys a half-8 and geebs the whole damn thing. Here is another problem...if this was July or August in my neck of the woods, the humidity would be through the damn roof. But right now, it ain't. I think when I opened up my tent last night the RH was around 37-40%. It's just low right now and I'm not buying a damn humidifier or anything. Now, I do have a close friend who lives nearby and owns a humidifier. But I don't know if it's worth the trouble of going to get that and borrowing it for a few days, etc. If I do go get the humidifier, I've never used one so I guess I'll need to figure out the best way to run it. BOTTOM LINE: do you think I should just roll with it being that my house RH is like 40% MAX, or is it really worth it to go borrow that humidifer? Can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. If/when I make it up to your hood we gonna have to burn one down! ETA: You mentioned earlier about how you didn't have the density you wanted so you hung the plant whole, basically. Stupid question: did this increase density post-chop? Or did you do it just so it wouldn't dry as quickly (since they weren't as dense as you wanted)?
No worries Jay......when I did my last chop end of Feb my humidity was pretty much the same, 45%.This does make for a quicker dry something not desired. In that post I sent you to in here I believe Jake made reference to a humidifier, setting it to like 58% no higher because the plants are at like 85% rh when freshly cut down. The humidifier set to 58% will get your bud down to that rh eventually, thus slowing down your dry. That's why I hang mine whole keeping all the sugar leaves to slow the dry. I find it works perfectly when rh is low, gives us a longer dry. When I was talking about density it's just that my plants weren't as chunky as they should have been like yours. Hanging it won't increase the size of the buds. Not sure where you're at in the world but if in the USA you're able to find those 62% bovedas at local head shops. Ppl really like them and they seam to do the trick looking online and hearing from others like CD and Green gun. Maybe order some online and try both methods? Edit: realized you made reference to pulling air out of the dry space? I've always known it best to have a fan blowing on low below the plants to move the air, never have air blowing directly on them.
@[member="Hortila"], last thing...did you run AN Final Phase your last week? I could have sworn you did. I'm getting such conflicting info on how to run it.
I always run it for minimum 3 days, then un pH'd water for another 3-4 days. That's my flush Sent from my iPod touch using Grasscity Forum mobile
Not sure if I had answered this or not. The humipaks have about a 7-8 month life on em. Then they will turn hard and let you know they are done. But they work just fine all the way to the end. I'm always looking for the *easiest/laziest* way possible to do things without losing quality
Maybe one of these days I'll bother with ordering some in. We just don't have those up here in Canada.....just the 68-72.
Oh Canada Actually, I just heard that Canada's middle class now is stronger than America's.. Maybe it's time to move North. BC bud here I come!
Only just now......no offense but I'd a thought it would have been for some time now but what do I know. Our housing market it's still doing well too. If you were to move that should would be a great place, somewhere on the island for me or Montreal!
Hey Middy....nice to see ya you limey bastard! Looks like you've got some nice weather your way in them pics!