Help Needed Regarding Drying & Curing (In hot climate) (Spanishfly?)

hmmm that is bad...Normally you would hang dry them atleast a week till the stems snap when you bend them and them throw them in jars. Drying them in jars might be an interesting experiment but I would think you would have to open them for like 10 mins every few hours or else the moisture has nohere to go and you get mold. you might try putting them in a carboard shoe box or a folded closed brown paper shopping bag which will alow the escape of moisture but slower than air drying... if all you have is jars with screw on lids, you might try poking a few holes in one of the lids and try drying in that, still opening the jar to atleast check what is going on. Just ideas I would try...

Edit: Maybe get some cheese cloth across the open jar, held with a rubber band. perhaps even better you could use a peice of papper bag instead of cheescloth. You basically don't want wet bud sealed in jars as the bud will mold so the idea is to put them in something that still allows them to "breathe" but slows the moisture loss to the point where it takes aleast 5 days to dry to around 80% dry. Then you put them in sealed jars and open them twice a day for 15 mins.

 

It is easy to overdry, as you have found out, the bud then tends to go to powder at a touch, not good.

This is one reason why I do not cut off individual branches, I chop down the whole plant (TIMBERRR!!!!!!) and hang her upside down from a hook in the roof of my garden shed, it is easier to monitor her very closely, and she does not dry so fast. Usually after about 5 days she is in the right state of dryness to be quickly manicured and put into airtight containers.

As you have done, if you do get too dry you can reverse the situation by putting bud in a container with orange peel (or slices of potato). That can easily go too far on the moist side again though, and I have found that putting equal amounts of overdry and remoistened bud, in alternate layers, in the final airtight container, gives a product that is just right - you don´t want any mould in those containers.

Previously I have used mason jars as the airtight container to cure the bud - but last year I had to buy 25 of the mothers. Heavy and fragile things to have so many about. I opened the jars for 10 minutes every day, and after a month they were cured to perfection. This year I might try ziplock bags, airtight and easy to open and handle, and a lot cheaper and lighter. I never like to count chickens, but the yield this year looks as if it will be as good as if not better than last year, God willing.