DrZiggy's Low And Slow Drying: Maximizing Your Harvest

In an attempt to raise humidity I have placed a bowl of water on the bottom shelf and I’ve placed the weed on a rack in the fridge. 84% humidity in jar after 4+ weeks. I’m surprised it’s not mouldy.
It’s preserved it very well however. Smells amazing, better than at harvest


Edit: The water bowl is a great way to raise humidity. It’s been steady at 40% since I put it in the fridge.
Good tip for others with low RH fridge
 
I hang dry in the fridge. Takes 11-13 days, depending how much I have in there.

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@Trala
@TysonOG
@SweetSue
Apologies for tagging you :) I would appreciate your advice.

I have tried drying by just hanging the buds, but they do get extremely dry, brittle to touch.
I have a frost free fridge.
When I have tried drying in a paper bag, the bud doesnt become super dry, but just as intended.

Why does drying in open space in frost free fridge make my buds super dry after 2 weeks?

Thanks
I have found a possible explanation
"
I think what you are referring to is a fridge that uses a compressor, yeah those will dry the weed out quick snap if u can’t find a way of partially shielding the buds from the air in the fridge. But you can use jars with screen lids or even just jars or bags that you periodically burp the excess moisture out of and into the fridge. yes the compressor in the fridge will work tirelessly to strip away the moisture from your bud, by constantly allowing the space to warm and cool and draining the condensate each time. This is negated by using containers ( either almost airtight or porous)"


Is this true and we shouldnt dry in open air FF fridge, but put the buds in bags/jars?
And if this is true, why do many people get good results by just hanging whole branches?
 
kreikrei said:
@Trala
@TysonOG
@SweetSue
Apologies for tagging you :) I would appreciate your advice.

I have tried drying by just hanging the buds, but they do get extremely dry, brittle to touch.
I have a frost free fridge.
When I have tried drying in a paper bag, the bud doesnt become super dry, but just as intended.

Why does drying in open space in frost free fridge make my buds super dry after 2 weeks?

Thanks
I have found a possible explanation
"
I think what you are referring to is a fridge that uses a compressor, yeah those will dry the weed out quick snap if u can’t find a way of partially shielding the buds from the air in the fridge. But you can use jars with screen lids or even just jars or bags that you periodically burp the excess moisture out of and into the fridge. yes the compressor in the fridge will work tirelessly to strip away the moisture from your bud, by constantly allowing the space to warm and cool and draining the condensate each time. This is negated by using containers ( either almost airtight or porous)"


Is this true and we shouldnt dry in open air FF fridge, but put the buds in bags/jars?
And if this is true, why do many people get good results by just hanging whole branches?
Click to expand...
Hi there

And I’m super happy to help if I can.

So it’s a bit of trial and error finding your fridge dry groove that’s fo sho, well it was for me.

It was Shed (who is a bit of a go to grow guru in here) who made me realise I was fucking it up.

So the idea is to go from fridge to jar and cure and sit at 62% humidity. The feeling of the super dry cold buds would make me fearful I’d overdried (which I’ve done) so I would take them out of the fridge then jar dry (lid off) till I got to that 62%. This would take time because my buds would heat to 70%. As Shed shared, this defeats the fridge dry purpose.

I’ve since learned how to dry in my fridge to the point I’m bang on 61%-63% once they are removed.

I think it’s about understanding your individual fridge settings and environment. For me my smaller buds take approx 8 days to dry and my larger 10-12 days. I don’t even touch them for a week. No checking or flipping of bags.

I personally take my bud off the branches and put it in paper bags. But I know granddaddy black uses jars.

The thing is everyone will have an opinion, a guide. The secret is to use this information and find your own groove. Everyone’s environment is different. Mine is hot and humid/dry. On the wrong day my bud can dry in a day. Not even joking.

Just let me know if you need any help. This place is brimming with great grow minds.
 
Trala said:
This would take time because my buds would heat to 70%. As Shed shared, this defeats the fridge dry purpose.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for lessening the "too much info" anxiety! :D
I quoted the only part I didnt quite get - it would be great if you elaborated on that.

If I understood you correctly.... you can mess up the fridge dry by taking the buds and checking the humidity too often?

Lets say, day 10 of fridge dry have passed.
1) take some buds out , let them warm up for an hour, put them in jars, test humidity. Too high - back in the fridge
2) day 12,repeat the same, still too high RH, back in fridge.

If I repeat these steps too often (letting the bud to warm up etc), can it mess up the drying process? Or the risk of testing/handling drying buds isnt that big?>

I guess, it is as you said - every environment is different and only experience (and failures) will let me find the sweet spot.

Thank you again!
 
Why do we dry with 40% RH? If we were drying traditionally we’d want 50-60% and around 20c.
The fridge should be around 5c. At low temps the moisture in the air is much dryer. 50% RH 5c is much dryer than 50% at 20c because warm air holds onto moisture.
So my question, if we want to dry this stuff as slow as possible, why aren’t we doing it at a higher RH?
A higher RH will effectively slow the dry, and retain more terpenes?

That’s my thoughts. Can anyone add?
 
Irelandguerilla said:
Why do we dry with 40% RH?
Click to expand...
I don't know if there's a definitive answer to this other than that's the RH of a frost free fridge. Anyone who wants to test different ranges of RH and time (and/or temperature) is certainly welcome to!
 
Irelandguerilla said:
Why do we dry with 40% RH? If we were drying traditionally we’d want 50-60% and around 20c.
The fridge should be around 5c. At low temps the moisture in the air is much dryer. 50% RH 5c is much dryer than 50% at 20c because warm air holds onto moisture.
So my question, if we want to dry this stuff as slow as possible, why aren’t we doing it at a higher RH?
A higher RH will effectively slow the dry, and retain more terpenes?

That’s my thoughts. Can anyone add
Click to expand...
My thoughts, I think the issue is mostly related to the fact that, as you said, cold air holds less moisture, if you add too much moisture to the fridge (or any cold space) it will condense. The cold air greatly slows evaporation, so the buds lose moisture at a much slower rate, which extends the drying time (low and slow). In a fridge at low temps terpene loss is minimal. Terps are mostly oils, and react more to temp than humidity, they don't volatilize much at low temps.
 
Thank you for that explanation! I didn’t know they were more reactive to temp than humidity. I do remember a few telling me not to worry much about RH, and I was wondering why. I guess that would be the answer.
I’m a beginner and don’t know a lot around the science behind it but fun to experiment and theorise though!
Thanks again for clearing that up for me
 
Irelandguerilla said:
I do remember a few telling me not to worry much about RH, and I was wondering why.
Click to expand...
I don't dry low and slow any more, but RH is more important to drying generally. Relative humidity is relative to temperature, so whether my temps are 80 or 65, I want my air drying RH in the 55-65% range.
 
I’m backtracking again lol. A higher RH will slow the dry regardless if temps are high or low.
Saying that, @Phytoplankton points out that high RH with low temps can cause water to condense which wouldn’t be good. (Is this referred to as ‘Dew point’ or is that an entirely different thing?)
Also the fact that low temps already stop terps from volatilising.

So it’s low temps that retain the terpenes. Rather than the duration of the dry? The slow part is obvs inevitable at low temps.
My thinking before was the slower the dry, the more terpenes retained. But it’s down to temp, not time.
Thanks for the help :)

I love good tasting weed, I’ll be trying the low and slow again next year.
I wasted my smoke this first year trying to dry sift with a bad screen, ended up with green dust to smoke
 
Irelandguerilla said:
So it’s low temps that retain the terpenes.
Click to expand...
Yes. The volatile terpenes are sensitive to temps and then exposure to air, which is why the OG instructions did not include burping after removal from the fridge.
Irelandguerilla said:
Is this referred to as ‘Dew point’
Click to expand...
Yes. The dew point is the temp at which the moisture will condense out of the air at that humidity.
 
Hi Guys! Happy new year and appreciate everyones existing hard work in this thread!

I am about to buy a dedicated fridge or fridge freezer or wine cooler and looking for some advice! I live on the equator, temps are 30c+ day and night and RH is 80-90% and looking for drying and curing solution.

After reading through the thread I have a few Qs:

1) When the buds are removed from the fridge and cured in jars for 1 month, what is the ideal temp and RH of the room the jars are stored in for this period?

2) After finished curing for 1 month in the jars i want to vacuum seal and store in either the fridge or freezer or wine cooler (rather not buy one), but which is best and what is the ideal temp? I m about to buy a fridge for drying so better to have the curing stage planned in advance and maybe buy a fridge/freezer combo if using the freezer for example for mid-long storage?

3) Is there a comment on why a fridge is better than a wine cooler? Could i just dry in brown bags and cure in jars in a wine cooler instead? Maybe achieving the low temps required harder in some wine coolers vs fridges?

4) It mentions to hang dry the buds for 4hrs after washing, what temps and RH for this stage?
 
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