The crucial art of drying your cannabis
The drying of your freshly harvested cannabis plant is one of the most crucial steps to having the best effects from your bud. Learning proper drying techniques is very important so that you do not lose out on the months of hard work that you put in when you were growing.
Once you determine that it is time to cut your plant and begin the drying process, you need to figure out if you are going to wet trim or dry trim. I have tried wet trimming and I actually preferred it for a while, but once I learned how to dry my cannabis better, I switched to dry trimming.
I found that when I was wet trimming, my plant dried way too fast. You want to aim for 5-10 days of drying. If your bud dries too fast, the plant will retain more chlorophyl, which can lead to bad taste and a harsh smoke. A slower dry time helps the plant to release gases and chemicals at a constant rate, giving you a more pure flavor and smoke.
Some people trim off all the branches and hang them individually, but I like to cut the main stalk and hang my plant upside down as one piece for it to dry. Doing it like that helps to slow down the drying process and that is what I am aiming for. You also want to keep the drying area cold and at about 60% humidity.
A cold and somewhat humid room for drying helps to maintain the perfect setting for a long and slow dry which really improves the quality of your end product. I have tried drying single branches at a time, or even trimming the buds and laying them on a drying rack, but those methods have always made my cannabis dry way too fast. Plus each time you cut the plant while it is wet, you release different chemicals from the plant that fall onto the buds which can affect flavor.
Let's talk about airflow. You never want air flowing directly across your drying plant. This will cause the plant to dry way too fast. Another reason I like to hang the plant as a whole and trim it when it is dry is that the larger leaves kind of wrap around your buds, kind of making a protective cocoon that helps your buds dry more evenly. You dont want the outside of your buds to dry and the insides still be really wet when you begin the curing process because that can lead to mold forming on your buds and that will make it so all that work goes right down the drain.
The last thing I want to talk about when it comes to drying is that you want your bud to hang in complete darkness. UV light can degrade your cannabis and it can even convert the THC to CBN, which reduces the psychoactive properties.
This is something that interested me because I like to have a god mixture of amber trichomes on my buds when I choose to harvest. The amber trichomes have naturally converted THC to CBN. The CBN is something I like because it gives a more body high and not as much of a head high.
So for the first day of drying, I hung my plant to dry in the growing tent where my GDP is. That gave the plant about 12 hours of light before I removed it and placed it in a dark room for the remainder of the drying process. I am wondering if this extra time in the light will have done anything to produce some CBN because this plant did not really have as many amber trichomes when I harvested it. It will be a cool experiment if it works and I have manually increased the amount of CBN without having to wait too much longer before harvest.
Hopefully this post helped answer any questions you may have had about the drying process of cannabis. It is a very important part of the growing process that too many new growers dont take the time to do correctly. A lot of the smaller things like wet trim vs dry trim comes down to preference, but one thing you never want to do when growing cannabis is to rush steps in the process.
Harvesting too early, drying too fast and improper curing can be detrimental to your efforts, so it is important to master these seemingly small steps so that you get the best effects out of your plants.
Great post dude! I really dig your grow, and respect your skills. Now I just need to get my hands on some lol
Thanks man. I couldn't have gotten to this point without the help from you and others in the cannabis community.
I dry my cannabis the way you do now, always have, it was the way I was taught, and I am so thankful for that. I need to get this space cleared out so I can start growing again. Decided it wasn't smart to grow in our bedroom (though we have the space for our tents in here) in case of an emergency, (in an illegal state) and I been so busy my spare room that is more of a storage unit, I start getting cleared out then something happens, and it starts to become the dump space again, and it starts all over. That is what I should do today, try to tackle that room.
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Ya, I really like the way that my bud has turned out with this drying method. Hopefully you can get the new room set up and start growing in it.
I will eventually and was gonna go start on it, but then had to run a last minute errand then decided since I was in my hometown to stop and surprise my mom and spend some time with her. My dad died last December so I know she gets lonely all by herself. Normally because I am the one that runs her to all her doctors appointments I only get over there when she has one. But when it is an hour round trip finding extra time to visit for an hour when you only have an hour of free time can be hard. But today I procrasted that room again to spend time with her, because hell we are not guaranteed tomorrow. I ended up leaving with another family heirloom she wanted me to have. LOL
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Great job, man! You explained it so well and in such detail that even I could grow hemp. Oh wait I can't because it's illegal lol. Anyway this is my first cannabis harvest and the plant looks very healthy to my eyes. Like everything else, this is something you will master with practice. I hope you get better harvests every time man!
Hopefully it doesn't stay illegal in your country. Makes no sense why a plant like this with so many benefits is illegal while alcohol is legal and kills so many people each year.
One blog, and a thousand pieces of information! 💚
I always prefer dry trimming and recently bought a dry trimming machine as well.
I can't wait to see how well the trimming machine you got works out. I really need something like that for the GDP I have growing and probably any photoperiods that I grow in the future.
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Thanks for sharing with us. I will try this next harvest.
Nice man. Hope it helps you.
Mastering the small steps is key to most processes.
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Whooooo harvest time. Your cannabis looks perfect.
This plant is so useful that in most countries of the world, prohibitions are spoken more than its benefits. It's a sad situation.
You have been growing this plant for a long time. I came across most of your posts. I especially love macro shots.
I really liked the hemp growing and drying posts. Wow :)