Jonny in distress - Why does my good pot burn like shit?

I grew 3 THC bomb's in 5 gallon hempy buckets using GH flora series with kool bloom during flower and sea green throughout the grow @ 75% recommended dosage on everything and my grow went great from start to finish this time.

The buds are dense, stinky, resinous, and oh so potent...but it's:

A: Not burning to a clean gray ash like my previous grows
B: Harsher to smoke even after a 1 month cure and a slow 6 day dry
C: Clumping up into a dark ball after the first 2 or 3 tokes off a fresh bowl

I'm all together very disappointed with this grow and am interested in correcting course so this shit never happens again.

What did I do different this time?

A: I ditched the dirt and began using water to waste hydro buckets (i.e. hempy's)

B: I began using 2 new products. One new product was kool bloom which is a PK booster that I now feel is completely unnecessary and will not use again. The second new product was sea green which I feel is unnecessary as well, but I don't know if it contributed at all to this current problem I'm experiencing. None the less, I'll be eliminating both of these products moving forward as I've had 5 or 6 successful grows under my belt so far without them and have had nothing but top shelf, smooth smoking, and smooth burning buds until I began using them.

C: I did not flush my plants at the end because many people have told me it's unnecessary and I now feel like I'm going to have to call bullshit from here on out. I feel this was a huge mistake on my part and I think what's happening is there are excess nutrients still stored in the tissue of my flowers which results in not only a harsh smoke but also poor burning plant matter that will never leave a beautiful gray ash as it should.

I think that any hydro cannabis grower must flush their plant tissue prior to harvest to ensure a smooth and clean burning smoke. And I've heard some douche bags suggest that hydroponically grown vegetables aren't flushed and they taste just fine, so obviously flushing is just not necessary. I will now respond with this:

When was the last time you saw somebody dry a tomato and then smoke the dried plant matter? Conversation over

What do y'all think?

set a bud outside of a jar for a day. if it smokes better, you need to increase your dry time. it takes 14+ days AROUND this time of year before I jar, only around 5-7 in the winter(where im at) ive flushed and not flushed. it had EVERYTHING to do with the dry and cure.

nutrients aren't stored in buds, it's excess sugar and starch that cause your issues.

Yeah, ditch the ridiculous additives and look into proper varieties of bacteria. Like bacillus, for instance.

Increasing k will help it to not smolder. These metal nutrients expand when hot and provide a more efficient burn and a higher ratio of oxygen. Burning anaerobically will cause this. If too much moisture is in the bud etc..

Its certainly not from a lack of flushing.

6 days is definitely not a slow dry, work on your cure.. You said it didn't go to a gray ash like previous. That's also not good, add some cal mag and it'll whiten up, nutrients play a huge role in burn qualities.

dangledo said:

set a bud outside of a jar for a day. if it smokes better, you need to increase your dry time. it takes 14+ days AROUND this time of year before I jar, only around 5-7 in the winter(where im at) ive flushed and not flushed. it had EVERYTHING to do with the dry and cure.

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These are the largest flowers I've ever produced thanks to the genetics I was working with and when I break up a large bud, it's still very moist to where I have to bang the top and bottom of my grinder together just to get the ground up bud out, so I'm thinking my buds might not be dry enough in the center to smoke yet...

I will do as you suggest and set a large bud out on my tray for a day and see if the smoke quality is any different. I'm excited about the potential result and I will report back tomorrow.

chuck estevez said:

nutrients aren't stored in buds, it's excess sugar and starch that cause your issues.

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Where does the sugar and starch come from? I did use floralicious plus 2 or 3 times during flower and I do believe it contains molasses.

UncleReemis said:

Yeah, ditch the ridiculous additives and look into proper varieties of bacteria. Like bacillus, for instance.

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Done and done.

qwizoking said:

Increasing k will help it to not smolder. These metal nutrients expand when hot and provide a more efficient burn and a higher ratio of oxygen. Burning anaerobically will cause this. If too much moisture is in the bud etc..

Its certainly not from a lack of flushing.

6 days is definitely not a slow dry, work on your cure.. You said it didn't go to a gray ash like previous. That's also not good, add some cal mag and it'll whiten up, nutrients play a huge role in burn qualities.

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It was a slow dry in regards to how high the humidity is in michigan this time of year. With my dehumidifier at full blast 24 hours a day, I barely kept it at 40%, so it was indeed a slow dry. Also, once the buds get crispy on the outside (still wet in the middle), I put them in the jar for a day to sweat them and then place them back out to dry again, so that was part of the 6 day process as well.

I think you're on point about the moisture and I think that may very well be the culprit here. I've never grown buds this big due to the previous genetics I've worked with and I simply have no experience performing a proper dry and cure on buds this large. After reading everybody's responses, it appears as though this may be a simple h20 issue. 24 hours and we'll all know for certain

jonnynobody said:

IWhere does the sugar and starch come from? I did use floralicious plus 2 or 3 times during flower and I do believe it contains molasses.

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Chuck, the question then is, why am I tasting sugar and starch now but not in my previous grows? The only biggest difference is the fact that I have larger, more dense flowers, I dried my flowers at the tail end of summer during peak humidity, and I did not flush at the end. I'm leaning towards a more thorough drying at this point and we'll know in 24 hours, but I'd like to know more about what causes a variance in sugar and starch production to the point that it could affect smoke and burn quality...

Do the sugars and starches convert to something else as the plant matter drys to a proper point?

jonnynobody said:

Chuck, the question then is, why am I tasting sugar and starch now but not in my previous grows? The only biggest difference is the fact that I have larger, more dense flowers, I dried my flowers at the tail end of summer during peak humidity, and I did not flush at the end. I'm leaning towards a more thorough drying at this point and we'll know in 24 hours, but I'd like to know more about what causes a variance in sugar and starch production to the point that it could affect smoke and burn quality...

Do the sugars and starches convert to something else as the plant matter drys?

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not dry, means not cured, which means starches aren't fully broke down. it all goes hand in hand.

think about it, there probably is something to fading your plant at the end, not flushing, just using plain phed water for the last couple weeks. the plant uses up all stored glucose, so it cures faster and tastes better, but, for me, you will sacrifice yield doing this. there are other ways to cure faster without starving the plant at the end.

chuck estevez said:

not dry, means not cured, which means starches aren't fully broke down. it all goes hand in hand.

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Ray Zalinsky: "Went a little heavy on the pine tree perfume there, kid." Tommy: "Sir, it's a taxicab air freshener." Zalinsky: "Great. You've pinpointed it. Step two is washing it off."

I personally dry for 10-14 days before I start trimming and long term storage. Congrats on the thick buds though.

Not flushing is for organic pots.
You where not organic and needed more time to remove the P and K u added with the boost.

If more curing dosn't help. Look into a "water cure ". That may leach out your problem.
Good luck

chuck estevez said:

not dry, means not cured, which means starches aren't fully broke down. it all goes hand in hand.

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I think you've got me on the right track here dude, because I just smoked a bowl that was half packed and it burned down one track and left the other side of the bowl unburned which only happens with with wet weed....so apparently I need to go crack some containers open and dry some buds.

Thanks for the help and I'll let y'all know how the smoke turns out after a more thorough drying.

- jonny

cephalopod said:

Ray Zalinsky: "Went a little heavy on the pine tree perfume there, kid." Tommy: "Sir, it's a taxicab air freshener." Zalinsky: "Great. You've pinpointed it. Step two is washing it off."

I personally dry for 10-14 days before I start trimming and long term storage. Congrats on the thick buds though.

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I'll have to rethink my drying process and throw these nugs back on the drying net for a couple days. Thanks dude.

I try to let my humidity drift up and down in my drying room in the final wee k as to help even them out. I know I could be burping jars and all that but I've found this works well and then I can put them away for the longer cure with no mold worries. I'll rip my rH down to 40 or less over night and let things creep up to near 60, rest of the time I'm looking to sit around 65-70F and 50-55%rH. Basically I try to replicate whats happening when you burp jars, but on a larger scale. On a side note, if I had the bucks I'd panel my drying room in white cedar.

flush,flush,flush

shaggydog365 said:

flush,flush,flush

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it's not a toilet, it is a plant. did you even look at the pretty pics I posted?

I had forgotten about that little test of the color of the ash.. using tincture's, butter, water pipes, I really have no ash left.. so I tried, pulled out a clean pipe.. I never did get the bowl cooked.. not before I was cooked.. have to stop and ask myself then.. if I cannot even finish a small bowl w/o seeing psychedelics when I look for a white ash, who cares about the white ash... med's seems to be working just fine.

jonnynobody said:

The buds are dense, stinky, resinous, and oh so potent...but it's:

A: Not burning to a clean gray ash like my previous grows
B: Harsher to smoke even after a 1 month cure and a slow 6 day dry
C: Clumping up into a dark ball after the first 2 or 3 tokes off a fresh bowl


B: I began using 2 new products. One new product was kool bloom which is a PK booster that I now feel is completely unnecessary and will not use again. The second new product was sea green which I feel is unnecessary as well, but I don't know if it contributed at all to this current problem I'm experiencing.


What do y'all think?

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Classic signs of too much P, especially the dark clumping ash. Can't really flush that out, so don't put it in...

If your running chemicals then flush them out or whatever you kids call it. If its tlo growing then your just giving it water, so no flush, nothing to flush.