Dude I absolutely cannot wait until she's ready to smoke! HahaLove the frost!
DrZiggy's Low And Slow Drying: Maximizing Your Harvest
I've dried a few times in my outdoor mini fridge. It smells like dank weed for months.
Congrats on the harvest!
It's nerve wracking for sure.Thanks homie!!
Now to trust the process! Haha
I've found that after 11 or 12 days in the fridge, airy buds are dry enough for jars. Chunky nuggets may go 14 days. The stick test helps. Buds will initially look and feel like you over-dried, but after a day or two in jars the RH goes back up. If it goes over 68% I put mine back in the paper bag in the fridge for another 24-36 hours.
Tip: leave some small popcorn buds on the plant for an additional 3-4 days and place those in a small bag in the fridge as well. If you accidentally over-dry you can add a few of those "fresher" buds to your jars to easily raise the RH.
For me, I've found the nice smell dissipates after 12 days in a paper bag in the fridge. After a few days in the jar it returns. Sometimes it takes 2 weeks or more to return so don't freak out. If the aroma in the jars is grassy, or if the lid kind of "pops" when I open it (indicates off-gassing), I burp more often. If the jar smells nice and / or no "pop" I burp less. I've found that with fridge dry you really don't need to burp much at all - maybe just the first 2-3 days to check RH then leave it sealed. Check again in a week.
Good luck!
If the buds feel like they have gotten too dry I like to close the bag back up and put it on the kitchen table for a couple of hours. As it comes back up to room temperatures they tend to feel moist again. Back in the fridge for another day or two.
Eventually, they will come up to room temp and feel just right so time to put into the jars.
It took quite a few dries for me to hit the sweet spot. I used to check daily, and flip the bags. Now I put it in, and check in 8- 10 days. 8 for airy bud, 10 for nugs.
I took some out yesterday. Climbed to 63% humidity and sat between 61%-63%. Now they will sit jarred and undisturbed for two weeks.
You will get a fright when you initially feel perfectly fridge dried. It’s crispier than a chip. It feels ruined. Literally scares the fuck outta me ever. single. time! Lolling!
I took some out yesterday. Climbed to 63% humidity and sat between 61%-63%. Now they will sit jarred and undisturbed for two weeks.
You will get a fright when you initially feel perfectly fridge dried. It’s crispier than a chip. It feels ruined. Literally scares the fuck outta me ever. single. time! Lolling!
johnnyappleseed
Well-Known Member
Hey all, just wanted to confirm a few things.
I just got the Frigidaire EFMIS155 fridge. Chop the fan leaves, leave the sugar leaves, place ~20g of bud in brown paper lunch bags, throw them in fridge, set the fridge to 40 degrees f.
How do you know when they are dry and ready for curing?
I see that some people place a hygrometer (govee) in the fridge to monitor RH. Why? Should the fridge temp be adjusted to keep RH at a certain level? I thought it was just set to 40d and forget.
Thanks
I just got the Frigidaire EFMIS155 fridge. Chop the fan leaves, leave the sugar leaves, place ~20g of bud in brown paper lunch bags, throw them in fridge, set the fridge to 40 degrees f.
How do you know when they are dry and ready for curing?
I see that some people place a hygrometer (govee) in the fridge to monitor RH. Why? Should the fridge temp be adjusted to keep RH at a certain level? I thought it was just set to 40d and forget.
Thanks
Hey Johnny, and
to the site! Most folks have they're favorite low and slow summary and since I got here first, here's mine (courtesy of @MrSauga):Low and Slo: In The Bag
Basic points:
- Paper bags will help speed the process by about a week.
- You’ll get better than 25% back, so loading the bags at 28 grams wet means every four bags’ll bring you very close to an ounce dry.
- 28 grams to a lunch bag is a good volume for smooth drying.
- Save most trimming for later to retain even more terpenes. I only take off fans.
- Laying the bags on their side increases surface area facilitating the drying process.
After three days open the bags, reach in and gently bounce the buds apart. Close up and put them back in place.
Do this again at least one more time, about 3 days later. After that you can forget about them.
In two weeks I pull them and finish drying with rice balls to 62-65%. Then into a jar with a Boveda.
NEW ADDITIONS
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The process is a simple one. You want humidity levels at around 45-50% and temperatures at 40-45 degrees F.
* Harvest and wash buds, if that's your inclination. I will tell you, that washing the buds will fascilitate a more even and faster dry. Most of us let the branches hang to dry for around 4 hours. This is completely arbitrary. You're going to dry them nonetheless.
* Trim the buds from the branches small enough that they won't take forever to dry. It'll take a round or two to find your personal sweet spot, but everyone has their own comfort zone.
* Place the buds in jars that'll be gently tumbled daily or every three days, or into paper bags. In either case keep in mind that you're trying to create maximum surface area, so avoid overloading the storage container.
* Occasionally tumble, separate, or do whatever floats your boat to keep the buds from forming a big, sticky ball. I find that I have great luck with the bags if about every three days I stick a hand in and move things around.
* Once a week let the buds air dry in a room with reasonable humidity to help drop the levels a little faster. I usually don't start doing this until the second week. Larger buds can take up to three weeks to get down to below 70% humidity, but in bags, most material is ready to work the rest of the humidity out in jars, and the cure begins at the two-week mark. I use rice to help with this.
* When you have them stable in the jars, begin curing as per your favorite method.
I should note that she skipped the step where you take them out of the bags after a week and put them in a sealed jar for a few hours with a hygrometer to check the process.
johnnyappleseed
Well-Known Member
This is great. Thank you. As far as checking for doneness, put in a sealed mason jar with a hygrometer. How long should I wait to check the rh? And at what rh should I put them back in the fridge? Thanks!
I'd stick with those instructions in terms of a timeline, and wait about 12 hours for the RH in the jar to settle with the hygrometer.
In terms of when they're ready to jar for good, that really depends on your intention. If it's just to keep them from overdrying in your environment, you can pull them in the high 60s - 70% RH range and burp them down to wherever you normally close your jars for curing.
If your intention is to preserve the terpenes as Sweet Sue's original post suggests, then wait for mid 60s RH and use the rice ball technique in my signature to lower the RH quickly (could be less than an hour). At that point you can seal them for curing. With the rice ball method there's no burping that will let the terpenes drift off.
Can someone help me out. I fridge cured a batch of autoflower and went for around 23 days until when it was Jarred up for a few hours it stayed around 61-63% humidity and then I went into grove bags. But it had a hay smell to it that didn’t get better after two months in the sealed grove bag. My question is this hygrometer has been in my tall standard kitchen fridge that really doesn’t get open but you can see the humidity frequently swings from 90% humidity to 25%. Granted the brown bags of bud isn’t t in yet as harvest is in a few weeks but I think the crazy swing of humidity didn’t let my stuff slow dry properly. Are these swings normal?
@happychef I don't want to talk about your fridge so much as let you know that a few hours isn't enough time to know what RH your buds are. Not only do they need time to get completely back to room temperature, you want to make sure the moisture in the flowers has evened out in the are of the jar. It's better to leave them in the jar for 12 hours next time to get a more accurate reading.
Personally I would pull them out of the grove bag and put them in a jar with a hygrometer and see what they're currently reading.
Thank you, I will do that next time as it was an auto grown as a tester for how to dry. Is the fridge humidity supposed to jump all around like mine in the photo throughout the day? I think it’s when the fan turns on as I low and slow dried the auto in a mini fridge and it jumped all over the place also. I’m seeing a lot of posts on here of people’s RH being around 50% which is great, but with this data of going from high to low rh it may have dried them out too fast?
I've never tested the RH in my fridge so I don't know what's happening when it's closed. can you put the meter in your kitchen fridge since it probably doesn't get opened overnight. Then you can compare.
Is yours a frost-free fridge?
Also, mini fridges work better for low and slow if they're opened a few times a day since they're not frost free.
johnnyappleseed
Well-Known Member
Guys, something I wasn't prepared for - or at least I didn't see it - THE SMELL! MY ENTIRE BASEMENT STINKS! So far I can't really smell it upstairs, but I'm probably nose blind. 
Any thoughts?
It's day 2. I'm nervous! Of course this was my best harvest with the most thickest nugs ever lol. I took an entire branch off and put it in my drying tent just so all my nugs weren't in one basket.....
It says to load up 28 grams into a lunch bag. How crucial is this? All I could find locally was "jumbo" lunch bags. 6 1/8 x 4 x 12 3/8 In
Any thoughts?It's day 2. I'm nervous! Of course this was my best harvest with the most thickest nugs ever lol. I took an entire branch off and put it in my drying tent just so all my nugs weren't in one basket.....
It says to load up 28 grams into a lunch bag. How crucial is this? All I could find locally was "jumbo" lunch bags. 6 1/8 x 4 x 12 3/8 In
Nothing you can do about that that I know of. When I did low and slow my entire kitchen smelled like weed every time anyone went into the fridge!Guys, something I wasn't prepared for - or at least I didn't see it - THE SMELL! MY ENTIRE BASEMENT STINKS! So far I can't really smell it upstairs, but I'm probably nose blind.
It's crucial not to overstuff the bags so there's a good paper to damp flower ratio, and I suggest you take the fans off to lower the moisture content in the bags.
The first step of low and slow is listed below:
johnnyappleseed
Well-Known Member
Thanks. I'll trim the fans. From your response it sounds like you don't use this method anymore. Can I ask why?