drying cabinet issues..ugh!

sadie

Active Member
So I have made it this far using alot of patience, reading up and dedication and after a decent harvest of 2 of my largest plants, I am having major issues with the drying cabinet I rigged up. I have a tall cupboard with rows of thick twine and all my buds are hanging beautifully. I have a hole fir fresh air with a very small fan in front of it to blow some fresh air in and a small heater cause this is in a garage. Everything was going great until the 3rd day of drying and now I can't keep humidity up to save my life. I even put a humidifier in there and my meter is still reading 41% humidity and 71 degrees. They r drying too fast and I am wondering if the ones that are dry should move to curing cause I don't think they r gonna slow down at this point and that may trap a little moisture back in. Any thoughts from you pro growers?:leaf:
 

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icekingrobb2

Active Member
Ive had a similar situation. The out come was my very dense heavy Buds ended up on the airy side. I'm so bummed out. I may have been a week early in cutting them & i'm pretty certain I harvested TOO SOON! The Humidity I had was between 36 & 41 with temps from 71-68.. Be careful & Mindful of the tricomes. I did mine while still clear thinking I didnt want to go too long and have a wasted crop but the other 4 plants I didnt cut yet are still going strong & doing much better and I still have'nt seen any amber trichomes. This is just some insight from a new Medical user/ grower. good luck
 

NeoAnarchist

Well-Known Member
u are blowing air in but are u sucking the air out too? i made a rubbermaid dryer and i had crispy buds within a couple days. the buds were fine, i just turned the fan off for 30 mins here and there, so the buds would dry a bit slower, worked fine for me. maybe u could put a bowl of water in there or something
 

icekingrobb2

Active Member
To elaborate on the other 4 plants that are still going I'm noticing that the trichs are way more advanced and there is many more. it's as if this extra 2 weeks have givin it time to really finish the trichome productiond. This is my first attempt @ growing and a few of my buddies have said I did great but I'm a perfectionist and sadly dont agree with them. I know I can do much better. I think I dried them in (the only area i had) too fast and cut them too soon as these other 4 are living proof that the first 3 plantd were to early to harvest. I know with more experiance I can grow to perfection.... Any other Ideas?? By the way, I grew these from seed indoors in soil. A 60-40 mix of Ocean forest & Light Warrior. 8 weeks. The strain is a hybred of Sour Diesel $ Purps. I call it Sour purple Diesel. 600 watt HPS Hortilux
 

gimley

Well-Known Member
sadie-

Don't stress too much, there are a few options.

1. If you are still using the humidifier make sure it is not the "cold mist" type because then all you will be doing is blowing around water mist that will actually wet your plants.

2. Consider switching your fan from push to pull. I have had success with pulling the air out of a drying cab and allowing a small vacuum effect to create intake flow from small pinholes you can drill in the opposite side. So instead of circulating dry outside air around the plants (essentially drying the outside and trapping moisture on the inside) you will be pulling the humid air away from the plants allowing more even evaporation from the inside out and will not be pushing in such a large volume of already dry air .

3. If the outsides are really dry but inside still moist(not wet) you can switch to paper bags to even the moisture out and then mason jar cure.

4. Since its winter and you are doing the cab in the garage you might not be able to achieve your correct humidity in the time frame you need for this harvest... you can always do a dry ice cure right now and be completely fine. When I dry ice cure I always hang dry for a few days before doing the cure so you could be in the perfect time frame to do a dry ice cure this harvest and then iron out the details of your drying box for the next harvest.

Basically you need to assess your particular scenario based upon the status of your bud and then apply one of those solutions that works with your buds current moisture levels and the appropriate time frame for what you need.

Best of luck!
 
sadie-

Don't stress too much, there are a few options.

1. If you are still using the humidifier make sure it is not the "cold mist" type because then all you will be doing is blowing around water mist that will actually wet your plants.

2. Consider switching your fan from push to pull. I have had success with pulling the air out of a drying cab and allowing a small vacuum effect to create intake flow from small pinholes you can drill in the opposite side. So instead of circulating dry outside air around the plants (essentially drying the outside and trapping moisture on the inside) you will be pulling the humid air away from the plants allowing more even evaporation from the inside out and will not be pushing in such a large volume of already dry air .

3. If the outsides are really dry but inside still moist(not wet) you can switch to paper bags to even the moisture out and then mason jar cure.

4. Since its winter and you are doing the cab in the garage you might not be able to achieve your correct humidity in the time frame you need for this harvest... you can always do a dry ice cure right now and be completely fine. When I dry ice cure I always hang dry for a few days before doing the cure so you could be in the perfect time frame to do a dry ice cure this harvest and then iron out the details of your drying box for the next harvest.

Basically you need to assess your particular scenario based upon the status of your bud and then apply one of those solutions that works with your buds current moisture levels and the appropriate time frame for what you need.

Best of luck!
I know this is an old post but I think sadie was saying that they are having it dry too quick and your post looks like it is talking about not drying fast enough. If someone else has this problem just do the opposite of this post. If you are drawing air out already and the air is too dry then start pushing the air in and add some resistance to the other side, by which I mean make the exhaust smaller then the intake and it will provide some back pressure to keep a little more moisture in then it was before. Watch out for too much moisture and too high temperatures as it will attract bud rot and try not to let it raise above 75 degrees. I try to flush for two days before I drying them for a few days and during that time I leave them under 36 hours dark and harvest right as at the end of that dark period (all this lowers dry time later and increases trichome production during its last hours). During this time they remain at night temperatures (5-10 below daylight temp). After harvest I put them in a cabinet that is pulling air out whereby drawing it in through small drilled wholes opposite the exhaust. I push air out because I dry at the lowest possible temp (70 degrees) to prevent trichomes from volatilizing and so I can use the extra low pressure to spread out some of the humidity. But I think that passing such dry fresh air over bud dries it out a little fast. It needs to flutter by.
 
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