All my friends trim their buds fresh, I've always trimmed my buds fresh, and everyone I know who's tried trimming dry says it's a PITA and don't do it. Now I'm seeing a lot of people advocating just removing fan leaves and hanging, then trimming the sugar leaves after the initial drying and before curing. Some say the taste and smell are better in dry trimmed buds. 2 cents anyone?
It's a thousand times easier to do your trimming when you first cut the plant. Letting it dry causes all those little tiny leaves...many that may need trimmed, to suck up into the bud and make it much more difficult to get a good clean trim on it. The resin on the plant acts like glue and it's just a bigger chore than it has to be if you wait. As for changing the taste...that's just crazy. Once you cut that plant down, you've done about all you can do as far as influencing the taste of the product other than a proper curing. If you don't have a whole lot to trim and it's more fun than work, do it however you want to. But when you have 20+ plants to trim, you're looking for the absolute quickest and easiest way possible...which would be to trim as you harvest. TWW
I don't ever have a great deal to trim as I have small grows. I like to trim the fan leaves and some smaller leaves, but leave the tiny sugar leaves on the bud until I'm ready to use them (of course this is after they dry and are ready to cure, then store). When ready to use I then do a close crop of the bud, saving all the trim from the buds to cook or use however I like. I'm really small time personal grower. I feel like the sugar leaves keep the bud fresher and protects it somewhat. My stuff doesn't get any handling to speak of so this is probably not necessary, but it works for me. I know some of the smallest leaves contract into the bud, but this hasn't bothered me.
Thats what I always thought. Then I was listening to the "grow show" podcast yesterday with Kyle Kushman and he said that dry trimming makes a better product with more taste and aroma and recommended removing only fan leaves before drying. Maybe if you only have 1 or 2 plants it's practical. I live in a very humid area as well so leaving trim leaves on the buds seems like an invitation to mold. I was just curious if anyone else thinks dry trimming makes better tasting buds.
Best to trim right after cutting the branches off while the leaves are still stiff and sticking straight out. I hate it when the growers chop a whole bunch of plats and make a pile... the ones at the bottom with limp leaves makes it harder to trim. I would prefer to trim sugar leaves after they are dry and can be collected easily, but the growers only want to trim once, so thats what I have to do...
I only take down the plant as fast as I can trim in 5 minutes.. Longer it'll wilt and be a pain in the ass to trim.. The whole leave the sugars or dry trim is an attempt to correct bad drying techniques.. Enough research will find the 777 of drying.. ( 7 days at 70 degrees @ 70% humidity ) A good wet trim and care taken not to dry to fast or to deep will give you a fine mid 60%s dry and 60 days in a jar with a 62% Boveda humidity pack will insure your harvest is cured to perfection.. My 2 cents.. BNW
I normally dry at 65% and 65 degrees F for about a week or until the stems snap, then cut them down into turkey bags in 5 gallon buckets. Sometimes I have to re-hydrate it a little bit. It's so humid where I live that opening the jar or bag re-hydrates the bud instead of drying it, so I have to get it quite dry before I cure it or it will mold unless I put it into a container with a desiccant pouch. I'd like to try those Boveda things. Would one large pack be enough for a half pound in a turkey bag?
AFA as drying too deep, if the stems snap do you think that's too dry for a proper cure? There's a lot of mold around here and I've had problems with PM in the past so my tendency is to over-dry my buds out of extreme caution.
I use a 60 gram size pack in each half gallon jar but that's just how I started doing it.. If I wait till the stems snap it's way to late.. The general idea is to get it down out of the mold zones of the 90s and 80s and then slow it way down as you get to the 70s and high 60s It's super low humidity here most time so over drying can happen in just a couple of hours and that is what I constantly battle against.. My friend in south Mississippi has a totally different approach to his dry as he's in near 100% humidity.. A real bitch to dry in as well.. Try not to drop below 55% as curing stops at that point and won't recover even if you try and re-hydrate.. It's a 1 shot deal.. ========================================= Taken off my thread.. ____________https://www.icmag.co...013#post3112013 --------------------------------------------------------------------- By the time I found this thread I'd worked a lot of this out on my own but this is still my send them to thread for new growers for drycure help.. While it's is a good method and gets the job done it has some drawbacks.. When you start working with larger amounts says 2 or 3 outdoor plants all them jars gets real clumsy.. My grow is So Calif and between the temps and the very low humidity it's very easy to over dry.. Even a single day to long on the line can ruin it all.. To keep the wife happy all my work is restricted to the garage so I get to be inventive at times.. If you search long enough you'll come across the 777 of curing .. This being the 7 days @ 70 degrees @ 70% humidity.. Works well if you have a temp and humidity controlled room.. We don't so we use jars to achieve the same ends.. While I started in jars this soon proved impractical trying to unscrew all the jars over and over.. Some trial and error later I worked out a method to limit exposure to our stone dry air and still get things done in a timely way.. I take the plant a branch at a time and trim close while seconds off the living plant.. All the leafs are standing tall and you don't get a better shot at trimming.. Hang.. Depending on temp and humidity this stage can take from 24 hours to a week.. just hung bud is dead limp to the touch after 12 hours or so.... When the buds start to stiffen when slightly compressed I remove from the branches.. And the buds get placed in cut down paper shopping bags about 3 inches tall.. Next I place the bags in a air snug-tight container.. Mostly I use either an Ice Chest or a New unused Trash Can.. I try and size the container to the load.. You don't want 1 bag of buds in a trash can.. While I did use several hygrometers early on for this stage I've since found I can do it all just by feel now.. Leave bags in can till limp to the touch again.. This first day that won't take very long. a couple of hours... Once limp remove from container and set bags out till stiff when compressed slightly.. I'll flip the contents of the bags to a third bag to get the lowest buds up on top.. I'll continue this rotation of the bags into and out of the container gradually spending less and less time exposed.. the last few days the bags will only be out an hour or so.. This takes me about 7 days.. This is where I do use the Hygrometers.. The can is now acting like a large jar.. Your best readings come in the morning after the can has had 12 hours or more to stabilize and will tell you how much exposure your product will need that day.. Combined with a hygrometer telling me what is outside helps.. A full can requiring a single meter as well as being able to get the product in and out rapidly made this a much more practical way at least in the extremely dry SW USA.. Once the can has reached 65% and 7 to 10 days have elapsed It gets jarred in Half Gallon mason jars with a 62% Boveda 60 gram and I'm done.. 60 days minimum cure time for me.. Longer is better but you'll have a very respectable smoke in 2 months.. Caution this may get you a large container of mold in a less dry area.. Just what I've worked out in my smoking hot and extremely dry garage.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I shamelessly copy my own work here... Ask on this Subject all you want as it's my pet peeve That whole first week or two is a squeeze the Charmin kind of thing.. Edit:: If anything I've slowed this even more in the early stages.. Getting it off the line and in the bags soon enough insures the small stuff doesn't over dry bringing harshness to the overall plant.. You really have to control the speed at which it dries BNW
Thank you for the detailed info on curing, I really appreciate it. I live in the temperate rainforest zone on the northwest pacific coast of Alaska where temperatures average 30-40 in the winter with 99% humidity as the standard. So if I under-dry my buds I can't dry them further by just opening the container. I'd have to lay them on screens with a dehumidifier in the room or they'll never get dry enough to smoke. So I might try your paper bag trick, back when I was growing 20 years ago that was the standard way of drying buds. If I put a dehumidifier in the room with the buds in paper bags it might do the trick. Thanks again for the advice and ideas, happy gardening
With that high humidity you'll need an approach more like what my buddy in Mississippi uses with lots of sawhorses and screens.. Tons of fans, the AC up high and several de-humidifiers as well.. Was a real ball breakers to get it dry but he managed.. Early on he learned to chop it all up to thumb sized nugs as them big colas mold overnight.. Even I've been known to drag down a window screen when I bagged it up to soon and it was dead wet limp the next day.. BNW
The last time I dried I ran a dehumidifier and a couple of fans in the room, but I think it was too much wind blowing on them because the outsides got crispy before the insides were even close. The buds were hung from a high ceiling above a large grow tent in full operation with all of the intake and exhaust blowers moving a lot of air around, which seemed like a good idea at the time... This time I'm going to dedicate an 8x4 tent for drying. I'll leave the intake and exhaust fans on for airflow, but I'll turn off all the circulating fans and put the dehumidifier in front of the intake filter to avoid too much wind on the buds. Thanks again, I'll let you know how it works out. Happy gardening