Drying advice - 7 days in

My first grow and my first harvest. 2 Critical mass plants from a 4x4 scrog.

I cut, wet trim and hung my branches nearly 7 days ago. They're in my 4x4 tent with one fan on the floor pushing air around. It's been about 68* and 55% RH most of the time. I had the exhaust fan on the first few days and then turned it off once the initial smell dissipated.

After 3 days the tent smelled like a horse stable, but today it's nice and spicy, super peppery and lemon. I smoked a tiny popcorn bud last night, it was nice It's nice to I can confirm from the smell and taste that they are indeed Critical Mass, fits the profile perfectly.

So I think I'm out of the woods for drying too fast but I have a range of bud sizes in there and don't want any to dry out too much before bottling.
Should I bottle the smaller stuff as its dry? Or just wait the two weeks and bottle them all then?

I know the general advice is when the stems snap, but where? I have some where the stem snaps at the ends but half way down they're still bendy. Should the whole stem be bone dry?

Is there a way to tell the bud is ready to bottle that's more empirical? Like if I put some bud in a container with a hygrometer and it's in the low 60's would that be considered dry enough and ready to cure?

After the initial trim:

Well I decided to jar it all.. even though the stems still bend. I have a RH of 55% in the jar, so I may have over shot the drying time. Meh, smells great and tastes great so I won't sweat it for my first grow. Got 18 oz out of it.

I put about 22g in each quart mason jar and a boveda pack. Hopefully it’ll help get the RH up a bit.

Sounds like you may have waited a bit to long before jarring, but maybe not.
I would give it a few days and then see what the RH in the jars looks like.
There may still be moisture in the center of the buds that is being redistributed.
Everything I have read on curing says that the window is from 55 and above, not to exceed 70.

In my limited experience, I have found that I could wet trim, hang branches till the buds started to feel dry to the touch, then place the buds in large paper sacks loosely closed with a hydrometer in the sack. (shaking or stirring daily) When the reading reached 62-64 range I would move them to the jars and continue to monitor.

Good Luck with them curing out for you!
WillieP

So ive been dealing with this issue for years and after not being able to improve my climate i did the following.
I dry the whole plant with fan leaves n all. i have an INKBIRD humidity controller connected to a 6inch extractor fan (pulls air out of the tent) on the dehumidity function set to 68 the first 2 days, after day 2 i lower the inkbird to 62 and keep it there.
Next step will bring tons of controversy but.. i bag my whole plants on day 4, if it feels slightly dry to the touch, in food grade clear bags and tie the bottoms. 24hours later i open the bottom of the bags and check the buds. day 5 to 6 i keep them in the bag but the bag open. day 6 to 7 i pull the bags off and let them dry more if needed. i use the bags dry cleaner style where the bottom is open and the top is secure. I do a rough dry trim on day 7 to 8 and store everything in small totes or buckets until i feel a consistent moisture level all the buds. i keep the totes covered in plastic to avoid humidity loss.
This works for me in my area where i cant keep my temps below 70 and humidity is constantly in the 40s. This would not be ideal in humid areas and want to mention again this is the method i put together to help me get my buds to the feeling and quality i couldnt get when i followed a generic method.
Takes a few grows to figure out how to get it right. but if your unhappy with your current dryness of your buds you can place a cannabis leaf or 2 for a few hours. when i use to do it i would take out half the jar place a fresh leaf and put the buds back and place a leaf on top and close the jar. Check the jars after 6 hours and pull the leaves out then you get the feel you are looking for. This is also not ideal but it helps bring back the life of those dry buds. good lcuk

Yeah, I think I overdried.

The jar RH never went beyond 57% after 24 hours so I'm at the limit of the cure window. I'll just leave the bottles sealed for a few more days and see if it changes, maybe throw in a boveda for good measure. It's not terrible, but hope it continues to improve over the next couple of weeks.

Upon reflection, with the extraction fan on, the tent may have been 55-60% the whole time but I would have been pulling in 48-50% RH from outside of it. I guess I've learned what not to do for next time.

My method now is to hang the plant to dry, whole plant if it's smaller, or whole branches if it is bigger. I try to keep RH around or just above 65%. Temperature around 18C. Then when I'm about 5-6 days hanging, just before they are actually ready, that's when I dry trim and throw into brown paper bags for a few more days. Then after another 3-5days in the bag it is ready to smoke or jar. Done this the past three harvests and I'm super happy with the results.