How do you cure your buds?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by MarriedToMaryJ, Apr 26, 2017.

  1. I'll probably be harvesting in about another month. So I just want to know what is the best/your preferred way of curing. How long is the process of curing. I want to make sure I get the full smell and taste out of my buds. I don't want to put all this time and effort and they smell like hay or grass lol


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  2. #2 Diatt, Apr 26, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
    My advice read as much as you can. Complete Drying & Curing Marijuana Tutorial - Increase Potency & Density! | Grow Weed Easy

    My self, I trim before I hang. I mean I leave them on their stems, but I cut them so they make like a hook for me to hang them on a line. Then I trim(keep trim) and hang them.

    If you have mason jars great. You should also have the humidifer meters to go in them. I like to see what my room humidity is in the room. If I have 50%, I know I should have around 5 days + maybe 1 more day to that. So every 10% is one day. And you can add another day on top of that as well. Look for the smaller stems to sort of snap. This tells you the water has mostly left.

    When drying, have a fan going (no need for a dehumidifer). Do not place the fan direct on the buds, just want slight air movement to prevent mold.

    Then I trim them, pop them into a jar. I check my humidity in the jars, if I am higher then 68%, I will leave jars open. Or remove the bud 100% for more air to them. I get it to 68%, then I leave the lids on. I burp every few hours and slowly bring my humidity in my jars to 61%. When I am there I leave the jars in a cool dark place. Light and air will degrade THC. Theres also a nice process that happens when you get to 61%(takes 1-2 weeks) and leave them for six months.

    Any thing higher, you won't get the cure process started. Going lower then 58%, your buds are too dry and won't cure(You can try orange peel or tossing fresh bud on top or RH packets).
     
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  3. I trim all my buds of the stem into bite sized pieces. I'm not a fan of big buds with big stems in them, so I usually trim and top buds bigger then a golf ball. I place the trimmed buds onto a flat card board tray..much like a monopoly box lid or other low profile cardboard box.

    I leave the box out for a day. Then after a day or so I 'roll' the box around to rotate the buds. This ensures that they are drying evenly and it helps to round them off a bit. After about 3 days of shaking the box a little bit, they should feel dry to the touch. I then put them in a sealed tupperware/plastic container for a few hours. After those few hours they will most likely be a little moist or squishy(this is the moisture leaching out from the center of the buds and stems). I then put them back out onto a tray until they feel dry to the touch again. While in boxes, buds are sitting in about 20-40% ambient humidity with light airflow in the room.

    I rinse and repeat the step with the tupperware container and putting them back out for a few hours until they feel dry to the touch after sitting in the sealed container for 3-4 hours. After that, the buds get put into sealed glass jars. I still make sure to check on them daily to make sure they don't get moist again. Each time I open the jar I feel the buds to make sure they still feel dry. I also stick my nose in the jar and take a big smell...this is just to refresh the air inside the jar to help the cure. Taking a big smell is easier then dumping out the jar and re-jarring it imo. Also, blowing into the jar instead, would create moisture from your breath.

    Total process take about 5-6 days. You can also 'cheat' and use a humidity gauge right in the jar/container with the buds. Proper humidity for curing inside the jar is about 55%(imo! some like their buds drier or more moist, this part is personal preference). It takes a few hours in a jar to get an accurate humidity reading.

    If I ever have to leave my buds out in a box, and I might be gone all day, I put another box on top like a loose lid to help slow down the drying till I can attend to them.

    If buds ever get too dry and get kinda crispy, I just put em in a sealed container with a single decent sized fresh weed leaf. In a few hours the moisture will leach back into the buds. I tend to use about 1 decent sized leaf per oz. Buds that get over-dried tend to lose some flavor and smell, so that happens rarely...like if I pass out early and forget about em :)

    My end product usually feels kinda spongy, but dry. It will tear apart easily, but not crumble.

    *edits for clarity
     
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  4. Thanks good info
    Have you ever used this humidity packs? They start with a b I forget the name.


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  5. Curing is a tough one. Everyone's personal situation is different. But this is how we cure ours. The whole point is to slowly remove the moisture from the buds. You definitely don't want to seal it up for very long without air circulation for very long or you'll end up with moldy buds. We hang ours for around 36-48 hrs after the initial harvest in a dry cabinet we made from an old armoir. It has a small 6" desk fan in there circulating air that barely blows at all. I just want a little bit of air moving around them while they hang. There is a point they need to get to when hanging them before you take them down and the best way I know to describe it is that the outside of the bud will feel dryer but there is obviously moisture still in the buds. The stems should be just almost to the point of where they will snap...but don't. After they hang for that initial period of time, I cut them down and put them into Mason jars....1/2 to 3/4 full since you want to leave plenty of room around the buds for air circulation down in the jar, and leave the lids off and put them in our spot we store them. I'll go in 2 or 3 times for the first 2 or 3 days after putting them in jars...leaving lids off, and move the buds around. They tend to collapse because of gravity over time and will squash down together, so moving them around makes sure that air gets to all sides of all buds in the jars. I do this less as time goes on, but with the days you'll start to see and feel the buds beginning to slowly become more solid. Once they get to a point where I'm not concerned about mold and the buds are good and solid, I'll fill the jar up loosely, put a lid on it and store it away. But honestly, until you do it yourself, there's really no definitive method or way of getting it done. The main thing is just don't seal your buds up with a ton of moisture still in them. That moisture needs to be able to slowly evaporate out until the buds are cured. Good luck. TWW
     
  6. #6 Diatt, Apr 27, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2017
    Yep love them. If I make a mistake in the curing processes say I go too low, they can help bring them back up. But their use is more for "Long Term" storage imo. If you plan to lock them away for a while because you have a good stock, you put one of them in there, and it will keep that humidity.

    Also no need to toss them when done. Just toss them into an empty jar.
     
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