OldMedUser's - 3 Strain - DWC - Soilless - ScroG - ExtravaGanja!

OldMedUser;2654223 said:

jojo677;2644913 said:

Those are some amazing looking buds OMU! It's always nice to have an object for scale too, as I didn't realize how big they actually were!

So it appears that you trim wet/fresh vs dry?

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Thanks Jojo

I do trim wet right off the plant, I only chop enough that I can do in an hour or so at a time then the leaves stay nice and firm for easier snipping out of all the sugar leaf. I hold the colas by the stem in my left hand and work my way up from the bottom cutting the cola apart and taking out all leaf as I go. Very fussy and time consuming but I don't have to do it all that often and I only grow for my own use so it's worth the effort for a superior product.

The finished buds go into small boxes. I found out about this method years ago from here when I used to lurk and tried it out. Couldn't believe how tasty and smooth the pot smoked after the longer drying time and slow cure. Compared to street pot and some I tried from the couple of growers I knew around here it was way better. I've done the hanging to dry then trimming but find it a lot harder than doing it fresh and the finished buds always ended up harsher with more of that "green" taste from the chlorophyll. After reading all sorts of stuff all over the web I figured out why.

When buds are first cut off the plant various things happen as the leaf material starts to decompose. Chlorophyll and starches break down into simple sugars and other things as long as the material stays moist. Once it dries out you can re-moisten it but those biological processes won't restart. So once the outer half of your buds gets dry in a few days the center of the buds is still wet and slowly wicks out until the whole bud is uniformly dry all over. This tends to end up with buds that get crunchy dry and easily fall apart into powder unless stored in sealed jars at a certain humidity level. Not unlike fine cigars. Good tobacco is slowly dried in pressed bricks to make a much smother and tastier smoke so why not pot. Not that I press the trimmed buds into bricks but just enclose them in a space that allows very slow release of the moisture so the buds dry very slowly and uniformly with the outside as wet as the inside.

I use these small boxes that I line with wax paper. The boxes have holes poked in the top, front and backs. The wax paper is folded twice then poked full of holes to allow a bit of air to pass through. I just use my Fiskars to do the holes and that seems to work really well. I found when I poked holes in the ends of the boxes the buds close to the ends would dry out too fast as they aren't covered with the wax paper. 100g of buds fills them right up and I get about 25g of dry buds from each once it's all been dried and cured to a good smoking level. I open the boxes twice a day for the first 3 or 4 days then once a day after that. After about 10 days I start weighing the boxes and once they are only losing about 2g/day they are ready to go into jars for curing. My tobacco habit has given me the perfect jars for that using the plastic cans my tobacco comes in. They are smooth inside with no shoulders like inside Mason jars so the buds slide right out if they are still a bit damp and clump up. That way I don't have to handle the buds any more than needed. They make a big mass in the boxes but I just pull up the wax paper and shake the box around a bit to break up the clumps and loosen it. Then wave the box around a bit to air it out before closing it up.

I also keep it as cool as I can. Right now it's 57F in my basement tho I prefer 50F then I can prolong the drying for a full 3 weeks tho 2 weeks works good. At a higher temp they also do their biological thing at a faster rate so it seems to be the same. The empty boxes get a a sticky note attached with the strain info, date/time and the Tare weight before loading up. Mould is always a concern so a close eye has to be kept on the process but I've had a few years practice at it now. I did have some mould start on one of my boxes this run but was planning on using that one for edibles in a tincture form with lecithin anyways so no big deal. I also plan on using parchment paper instead of wax paper next time too. Great stuff as nothing sticks to it. Always just put a sheet of newspaper on my trimming surface and it would get covered in trichomes but now cover that with the parchment paper and it stays smooth and clean. Roll it up and put it away for the next use.

For the smart non-smokers among you that want to try this those cardboard boxes that are use to store collector cards would probably work really well for this too.

That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh . . .

L8r

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