I really need some advice from anyone who can help me. I am a new outdoor grower in Colorado and I have received help from many friends who are professionals on the growing aspect. I grew some absolutely beautiful ladies and now I am faced with disaster! I harvested 7 days ago and prepared my outdoor shed to be the drying room. Blacked out windows ect. But it's already so dry in Colorado with no humidity at all and on top of it the temperatures have been cold and going below 37 degrees many of the 7 nights the buds have been hanging. My friend said it would definitely be 7-10 days of drying but now my buds are completely dry, brittle and have no weight. And worse off I haven't completely trimmed these buds because I was told to wait 7 days, then trim and cure. I am afraid to trim with them this dry as they will completely shred. Is there anyway to pull them down and out in tune to re hydrate them and then finish trimming. I am totally bummed out as these plants were Given 5 months of love and attention and now I may have ruined everything. Please Help
too dry? ..................add them to a jar with a slice of apple or a damp towel leave over night for a prefect trim in the morning good luck
Drying pot in arid climate takes planning, knowledge, and creativity. I'm south of you in NM so I'm familiar with over drying pot, I did it for many years. After I heard about drying in a controlled conditions my harvests have turned out 100% better. Like you, I also dry in an outside storage room, the same one I used to grow in. My storage room has no windows, has a concrete floor, and is well insulated. When it's time to set it up for drying I start raising the storage room humidity by dumping water on the concrete floor and running a fan. To control the humidity I use a dehumidifier set at 70%. Simple, easy, cheap, and effective. After a week or so, all but the big colas should be about ready to jar but I leave most of them hanging anyway plus I've learned to break up the big colas for safety. At 70% humidity the buds go from drying to curing as they hang. Eventually they go in jars or 5 gallon buckets with sealed lids. Your buds are not ruined although they'll never be the pot they could have been. The potency is still there even though the flavor may be fucked. If you need to rehydrate them for whatever reason, add humidity to your storage room. If your storage room temps are getting down to 37F then you need to work on insulation and sealing but you can do that whenever time allows, just get it done before next year's harvest. This may be a good time to try converting your too dry harvest into oil for capsules. Making oil works good with dry buds. Maybe try a pound to start and rehydrate some of the best buds and see how they smoke. If you're growing to sell, and since you're concerned about weight you probably are, then I have no suggestions as I've never sold pot in my life although I have shared countless times.
A lot depends on your local humidity. If your not drying at 70% humidity extra steps are needed to stay in range as the dry is the most critical step. Blow the dry and no cure can happen. I only take down off the plant what I can trim up in 10 minutes as longer then that and it wilts and makes trimming that much harder. A jar of denatured Alcohol to dip and clean the scissors in keeps them from gumming up. Hang until the smallest popcorn buds firm back up. In my local low 12 % humidity this can happen in just hours. Strip all the buds from the major branches, cut into thumb sized nugs and bag them. A pair of grape scissors works best for this. Stack bags in new clean closed trashcan overnight. Set back out during the day. They'll spend less time out and exposed as the days progress. Stir the bag contents a few times a day. This slows the dry and made all the difference in how my end product started to come out. Soft and squishy = needs more time exposed. Stiff and almost crunchy = needs more can time. At the end of 7 to 10 days you want to be at 65-62% when the can is first opened in the morning as that is your best read. I suspended a humidity gauge at the top of the can. At that point it is perfectly dried and can be placed in jars with no pesky burping needed. Half gallon mason jars with a 60 gram size 62% Boveda humidity pack for insurance and a 60 day cure will give you as good as it gets. This works in low humidity zones and will get you a can of mold in Florida hurricane season. BNW