I have had many many plants completely lose smell after hang drying and then after 10 days in the jar come back very strong. Most of the time it is because the humidity was too high when drying and then you can really fuck it up by putting them in the jar too early. It is paramount to dry and to cure in a humidity controlled room. You can get away with not doing this lots of times but there is always that bad time of the year you just happened to be harvesting at effecting the environment or just incorrectly deciding when to jar them. No smell in a jar from a plant that reeks has always been my fault if it hasnt come back in 10 days. You can usually tell by the odd changing of color on the bud to slightly/barely noticeable brown and sometimes a sourness to it. It's toast at that point and never coming back as moisture has caused it to grow molds even if you can't see it you would be able to under a scope.
Good shit! ^^
I had to learn this the hard way by fucking up close to a pound of what would have been good smoke.
Buds were put into jars too early and excess moisture overwhelmed the boveda humidity packs. I didn't notice for a few days and the jars had settled so much, the top third was void space.
I didn't actually see any mold, so I dumped everything out and dried it again before putting it in jars for the second time.
The only smell left was like a REALLY dank basement.
On the bright side...
I've made several batches of cannabutter with the fucked up weed and it's fantastic!
Seriously.
My brownies have zero cannabis smell or taste but are extra potent.