dense buds and dry process

I am trying to make my buds more dense and thinking at this point it might be due to my drying. I normally cut the plant at the base and hang upside down AFTER taking all the leafs off other than obvious sugar leaves and then line dry for about 5 days then do a semi-wet trim and put on a dry rack for about 2 days then jar up and burp. Recently someone suggested letting it line dry for 7 days WITH all the leaves on to make the buds more compact (weight of leaves basically compressing buds?). Can anyone elaborate or correct me? thanks.

Once youve got to the point you are burping your jars,....
Whats that schedule?

Heres a pic of two different strains. ..

The two buds on the left were properly dry kinda fast in about two weeks.

The bud on the far right was dried and cured properly in about 8 weeks...

:the middle bud and the right bud are the same strain. Remember far right was cured 3x longer

BRANDON77 said:

I am trying to make my buds more dense and thinking at this point it might be due to my drying. I normally cut the plant at the base and hang upside down AFTER taking all the leafs off other than obvious sugar leaves and then line dry for about 5 days then do a semi-wet trim and put on a dry rack for about 2 days then jar up and burp. Recently someone suggested letting it line dry for 7 days WITH all the leaves on to make the buds more compact (weight of leaves basically compressing buds?). Can anyone elaborate or correct me? thanks.

Click to expand...

yep, making your buds dense begins with strain selection and correct management/control of your grow space, including proper lights, air circulation, c02, RH, temperatures, water quality, grow style and nutrient selection/delivery...not after harvest.

manually compressing buds to make them dense? could stack in a sack and put a rock on it too?
like brick weed I remember that stuff....

I've hung them exactly like you and got dense tight buds. I now cut the buds off the stems roughly and they dry in a rack, in a controlled room, of course, and in a couple weeks it wont get better or denser. no jars, no burps, no mold no ferment, no tricks.
If grown according to package directions there is no off flavor to be rid of, no excess nutrients to be concerned with, just pure potent herb to be dried and enjoyed. Time, fermentation, mold, light, heat, degrades thc and marijuana.

but its foolish to put wet vegetable material in a jar two days after you cut it, where did you learn that process of cannabis fermentation and fungi production?

I dont completely agree as time goes on and moisture continues to release from buds they do get tighter. And smaller due to shrinking. Then more dense. All three buds in my pic were the same in size and weight. The two on the right were from the same plant. You can tell just by looking at it how much tighter and compact a long cure did for it. But yes, how its grown is more critical and the better bet to go by absolutely.

When they're close to dry but still pliable I just put them on a sheet of parchment and wrap it around them in a ball, like round lollipop wrappers but without the stick. So I twist the top part up like that and just generally compress the ball quite hard, like as hard as I can with my hands while keeping it in a round shape. I spray a little water on the parchment first to make resin stick to it less and make it a little more flexible. That's all it takes and then I break it up and continue drying.

It doesn't look like compressed buds, just more nicely rounded and no little bits sticking out, also takes up less volume. If you compressed it straight down then it would be visible that it was compressed, because the buds would be flattened. But when compressed spherically you really can't tell. You could probably even just leave it wrapped up like that with a twist tie or something on it and let it gradually dry through the parchment (plain paper kind). It would probably create a curing effect, like the corn cob thing. On the other hand the core could mold, I never tried it.

I know someone who had a press and mould to make "ball buds". he'd pack every bit of material into them and people seemed to love the uniformity.

chemphlegm said:

yep, making your buds dense begins with strain selection and correct management/control of your grow space, including proper lights, air circulation, c02, RH, temperatures, water quality, grow style and nutrient selection/delivery...not after harvest.

manually compressing buds to make them dense? could stack in a sack and put a rock on it too?
like brick weed I remember that stuff....

I've hung them exactly like you and got dense tight buds. I now cut the buds off the stems roughly and they dry in a rack, in a controlled room, of course, and in a couple weeks it wont get better or denser. no jars, no burps, no mold no ferment, no tricks.
If grown according to package directions there is no off flavor to be rid of, no excess nutrients to be concerned with, just pure potent herb to be dried and enjoyed. Time, fermentation, mold, light, heat, degrades thc and marijuana.

but its foolish to put wet vegetable material in a jar two days after you cut it, where did you learn that process of cannabis fermentation and fungi production?

Click to expand...

I normally jar after about 7 days of drying then jar and burp daily until humidity is around 60-62% (I have a humidity reader in each 64 oz mason jar).

im happy with how my buds turn out other than being a bit whispy but Ive only harvested autoflowers up to this point and so that may be part of the problem. I have my first photoperiod plants coming into about week 7 of flower currently and the buds do look quite a bit better. This will definitly be my best harvest yet...so I just want to tighten up my harvest/dry/cure routine to be better.

autoflowers produce tight dense buds in the same fashion as photo period plants albeit more plentiful usually

1. Select indica heavy strain.
2. Provide lots of light.
3. Remove bottom branches just prior to flowering.

This will give you ultra-tight nugs.

As for drying, whatever difference you achieve through keeping or removing leaves will be minuscule.

chemphlegm said:

I know someone who had a press and mould to make "ball buds". he'd pack every bit of material into them and people seemed to love the uniformity.

Click to expand...

Thinks I ran across some of that in Co. What's with all this bending to the customer nonsense? Growers need to say no, your wrong, every once in a while... If somone told you they were getting stickier bud, from somone spraying it with honey, would you do the same, or straighten them out with some real sticky?

PS space bags are a good tool to have on hand for curing. The only good way to shape buds without total molestation. Suck the chlorophyll through the port when the gases expand. No clue why people don't do this.

Trichometry101 said:

Thinks I ran across some of that in Co. What's with all this bending to the customer nonsense? Growers need to say no, your wrong, every once in a while... If somone told you they were getting stickier bud, from somone spraying it with honey, would you do the same, or straighten them out with some real sticky?

PS space bags are a good tool to have on hand for curing. The only good way to shape buds without total molestation. Suck the chlorophyll through the port when the gases expand. No clue why people don't do this.

Click to expand...

yeah, I was like 22 when I saw i decades ago. I got no idea why people do the things they do. I dont use bags or jars, but instead have a whole walk in atmosphere controlled tent for drying. Like a big bag I guess? people do spray their weed with sugars, they do crush buds , they spray miticides fungicides insecticides too, which are much more detrimental.
I wouldnt share my produce with patients unless it was sticky and potent. Integrity is strong with this one.

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Cure-Cap-Wide-Mouth/dp/B00LOSQT9I
i like those