Hey GC, looking for a bit of direction on drying my recent harvest. I have my plants trimmed and hanging in my grow cab, in the dark, with the vent fan on. The cabinet is well ventilated, but it draws air from inside the house. I'm in a higher-than-average RH area, and currently its like 60% RH (outside), and about 65-68% RH inside the box. Temps inside are just around 70F. I'm not impatient, so I can let them hang and dry as long as they need to, but my major concern is mold. Should I be worried? My guess is they will have to dry for about 2 weeks before I can get them in jars for curing. A dehumidifier is out of the question, and I don't know that I can lower the RH anytime soon. Thoughts? Advice?
Get a short flat tuppaware tub that can be put at the bottom of your cabinet, fill it with salt it should take some water out of the air. (make sure bud doesnt fall into it. salty bud might be bad)
Awesome suggestion. I've also read about rice which also works as a desiccant, however I don't have enough standing air in there for a desiccant to work any moisture out. If it stayed say 60-70RH for a day, would I be majorly risking bud rot? Should I be in emergency mode here or what?
I just checked in the medical marijuana growers bible and it says that ideal RH is between 45-55% with temps between 65-75. If RH is a little high make sure that there is sufficient air movement to discourage mold, but otherwise will only affected drying time by a day or two. RH above 80% is more of a problem and bud mold is imminent. You could try to raise the temp in order to lower RH, but if that's not an option either then I wouldnt worry about it. Maybe just put in another fan trained on the buds to ensure good air movement. yeah, thats all I got. Good luck!
You might be able to try to hang it inside a box with some paper in the bottom to bring the humidity down. Best to get you humidity down soon or your bud wont cure properly (gets left with a nasty homegrown smell). I'm not sure if that humidity will make it cure that bad but when I dried some in to high of humidity that's what happened no me. Didn't get mold either.
Thanks man. The past two days have been better as far as RH is concerned. I'm at around 50-55RH right now and holding. My first batch was chopped about a week ago and the stems still do not snap. They have that god awful hay smell to them and are relatively dry. Wondering if this particular plant is ready for the jars or should I wait for dry, snapping stems? The other 3 plants were chopped last weekend and far from dry. Buds are still damp and stems bending and wet. I'll keep those hanging for a bit more. I think I don't have much to worry about in regards to mold. I have plenty of air moving and they are in total darkness.
You should wait till its dry to the touch but the stem doesn't snap yet (should be wet inside some). Then bottle it and come back a few hours later and check just to make sure it isn't to wet. If it is you can just remove it for a day and then put it back in tomorrow. Better to be early then late as long as you check on it after a few hours and don't just leave it over night.
wait for stems to snap. can you run a window ac unit cool dry air just run it for 10 / 15 min three our four times a day
Waiting for stems to snap is for noobs that don't want to check after an hour or two to make sure it is the correct dryness to make sure its not going to mold. In my opinion if you waited till the stems snap you waited to long. It's better to be ahead then late. There is a fine line between dry and to dry is what I'm trying to say and you don't wanna risk crossing it. All this information is from personal experience (I've allowed it to dry it to much and jar to early never have had a mold problem as i check it before mold would become an issue)
Found this to be a very useful coversation here as well. I have just finished about my sixth plant, not a rookie, but I am learning. This however, was my first time having a humidity problem. Even though we are prone to humidity in this area during the April-June period. But I Harvested my El Alquimista about a week ago, and a bunch of branches are not ready, a couple leaves here and there are green, I cut about half that was ready, up. I just prefer to let nature work, and save one of my first grows have not had mold, I figured it out that was my growing method, so I switched it. So I have Bud for now, But the ones with a couple green leaves, or wet stem is still hanging. so even though I see that salt can be an option, I am going to opt to check it every few hours until it is done although it may be a couple more days.