# How come weed loses its aroma while drying?



## Redoctober (Dec 12, 2012)

Perhaps I am not drying correctly, but when the weed is freshly cut and hung to dry, it seems to lose most of its characteristic aroma, and takes on a wet hay sort of a smell instead. The pot smell doesn't seem to return until a after a week or two of curing. Any reason this happens? or does this mean I'm doing something wrong?


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## Shivaskunk (Dec 12, 2012)

Chlorophyll air.


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## Trousers (Dec 12, 2012)

Because it is a plant.


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## VitaminXxX (Dec 12, 2012)

Could be drying too fast.i dry in the low 70s temp & about 45-50 humidity.as long as its not dry in 3 days your should be fine.


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## Capitalnuk (Dec 13, 2012)

This is absolutely normal! Its the process, as long as the smell comes back when it drys all the way!


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## calicat (Dec 13, 2012)

The smell will return once it goes through its curing phase. Not unless it tries way too fast then your smell will be like hay.


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## Redoctober (Dec 14, 2012)

Oh no! I think I've been drying too fast! It IS dry in about 3-4 days. Shouldn't it really take more like 7 days? The ambient humidity in the room now that it's winter and the heat is on, ranges from about 40-55 and the temp is mid to low 60's (basement). I do have a fan blowing and I ran out of space in the room so the fan was blowing directly on the buds on a low setting (like a gentle breeze). But I should probably angle the fan away so it just circulates air in the room indirectly. Or ditch the fan altogether. I also made some drying boxes by threading string through cardboard boxes and hanging buds inside the box. Only downside is there is no airflow in the boxes, but that might slow down the drying process too. I stopped using them because they just took up too much space in my living quarters but I could get them out of storage. 

The weed aroma has been going away and not really returning fellas. I think I've blown it  I thought the error was in the curing phase or perhaps because I didn't do a final flush before harvest the last couple of times (hydro), but now from your comments I really think it's from the drying. 

EDIT: In most of the posts I've read people claim they dry for 3 days, but I also read some tutorials that say if it's dried too quickly, it will smell like hay or pine needles which is what is happening to me. Now I'm just confused


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## colonuggs (Dec 14, 2012)

if you dont let your plant flower long enough or you harvested to soon..... this also effect your smell


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## er0senin (Dec 14, 2012)

colonuggs said:


> if you dont let your plant flower long enough or you harvested to soon..... this also effect your smell


thats right! leaves your bud tasting like hay


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## er0senin (Dec 14, 2012)

Redoctober said:


> Oh no! I think I've been drying too fast! It IS dry in about 3-4 days. Shouldn't it really take more like 7 days? The ambient humidity in the room now that it's winter and the heat is on, ranges from about 40-55 and the temp is mid to low 60's (basement). I do have a fan blowing and I ran out of space in the room so the fan was blowing directly on the buds on a low setting (like a gentle breeze). But I should probably angle the fan away so it just circulates air in the room indirectly. Or ditch the fan altogether. I also made some drying boxes by threading string through cardboard boxes and hanging buds inside the box. Only downside is there is no airflow in the boxes, but that might slow down the drying process too. I stopped using them because they just took up too much space in my living quarters but I could get them out of storage.
> 
> The weed aroma has been going away and not really returning fellas. I think I've blown it  I thought the error was in the curing phase or perhaps because I didn't do a final flush before harvest the last couple of times (hydro), but now from your comments I really think it's from the drying.
> 
> EDIT: In most of the posts I've read people claim they dry for 3 days, but I also read some tutorials that say if it's dried too quickly, it will smell like hay or pine needles which is what is happening to me. Now I'm just confused


the most important is that you start drying when buds are mature alrdy. ofc it will be less harsh with more days to dry but 3 days is ok imo. the rest is fixed while cureing anyways . a Tip is to hangdry the whole plant with leaves and all and trim after its dry so that it dryes up slower . also its less time consuming and easyer to trim a dry plant. best regards


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## puffdatchronic (Dec 14, 2012)

As said above make sure you let your plants get nice and mature and don't have the fan blowing on the plants ,that will dry em out to quick.What i do is hang them in a closet on cloths hangers and have the fan on the floor of the closet just on low just to circulate the air .I also peek in now and then ,which lets out built up humidity.Also one thing that has been advised to growers to do for a long time which is actually bad advice is to wait until the buds are "stem snap" dry before jarring.I and alot of others are of the oppinion this is too dry.I wait until the buds feel dry on the outside but the stems don't quite snap ,usually 3 or 4 days .Then i jar em and burp the jar for 15 mins twice a day for a week ,rotating the jar each burp so different sides of the bud are exposed to the inner jar air.Then after that once a day for a week ,then once every other day for a week and then just once a week.I seem to keep my smell pretty nice this way.


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## ddimebag (Dec 14, 2012)

I try to dry for as long as possible...just not long enough for it to get moldy. Also in a cold room... My last harvest took 10-13 days to dry, and even then it lost much of its original aroma. The cure is bringing it back though...


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## ddimebag (Dec 14, 2012)

By "as long as possible" I mean without it getting bone dry. The buds feel rather gooey the first week in the jar...


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## Moebius (Dec 14, 2012)

Nobodies mentioned strain.

Some strains are just not so stinky whilst others hold their smell very well. I can personally testify to Lemon Skunk being stinky all through dry. Whilst you need to hold your nose close to appreciate a cured Violator kush.


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## Trousers (Dec 14, 2012)

it is dry here and my last batch dried out in less than 4 days.
it was double blueberry and is very stinky, gonna go hit some now


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## Redoctober (Dec 14, 2012)

Okay I feel a little better. Perhaps I didn't totally screw this up after all. Maybe the smell will return a bit over the course of the cure. I just need to be patient. 

I have done the method where you hang the whole plant and trim after it was dry, and my personal experience was that it was much more difficult to trim it when dry. But that's just me. 

I don't believe I'm harvesting too early. I check the trichomes with a loop, and the buds on the plant before harvest are quite fragrant. What drives me nuts is that a few harvests ago, I had an absolutely amazing result. The best, most potent smelling chemdog I've ever seen. I have been cloning the same strain, so that hasn't changed. I am trying to determine what factors were different from that grow to my current one so see what I did right back then and what I'm doing wrong now. 

The immediate differences that come to mind are: 

1. Used General Hydroponics nutes back then and have since switched to House and Garden(which I really like)
2. Switched from LED lights back then to HPS in flower now
3. Back then I dried in a slightly more humid closet with vegging plants which may have caused it to take a bit longer. But also it was in the presence of a lot of light which is a no no. Despite that, the bud turned out awesome.
4. Back then I flushed with RO water for a week before harvest. This time I didn't do a flush at all


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## kindnug (Dec 15, 2012)

I've never lost smell by hang drying whole plants. Smell the same as before I chop her down. Jar them up for 3-4 weeks makes them stronger. Mine usually hang for 10-14 days before jars, but one time I wasn't home for 3 weeks and they hung for 21 days drying. Still ended up with same taste/potency after 3 weeks in jars.
Early harvesting is the biggest problem no matter how you dry/cure it wont be good. Calyx need to be FULLY swollen!

When you open the jar> the smell smacks you in the face and fills the room.


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## kindnug (Dec 15, 2012)

I don't mind a little extra work trimming when it always turns out the same every time and i get to smoked some of the plant while i trim.(ofc. I never have leftovers from last harvest )

You don't have to trim all the sugar leaves. (I've noticed less of the trichomes end up inside the jar stuck to the glass if they have something to protect them like sugar leaves) My sugar leaves are covered in trichs anyways and don't hurt flavor/potency at all.

Sometimes i just take the tips off sugar leaves.


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## cdub5 (Dec 15, 2012)

er0senin said:


> the most important is that you start drying when buds are mature alrdy. ofc it will be less harsh with more days to dry but 3 days is ok imo. the rest is fixed while cureing anyways . a Tip is to hangdry the whole plant with leaves and all and trim after its dry so that it dryes up slower . also its less time consuming and easyer to trim a dry plant. best regards


whether bud is easier to trim dry or wet is a pretty decent debate in the growing community. Personally i think it is much easier and faster to do a wet/been drying for a day or two trim than it is to trim when the bud is completely dry. When the bud is dry, the sugar leaves just fall right off, which is nice but can also knock off a lot of trichromes, when its wet you can get a pretty close trim without knocking off any trichromes, or at least as many as you would if the bud were dry.


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## er0senin (Dec 16, 2012)

cdub5 said:


> whether bud is easier to trim dry or wet is a pretty decent debate in the growing community. Personally i think it is much easier and faster to do a wet/been drying for a day or two trim than it is to trim when the bud is completely dry. When the bud is dry, the sugar leaves just fall right off, which is nice but can also knock off a lot of trichromes, when its wet you can get a pretty close trim without knocking off any trichromes, or at least as many as you would if the bud were dry.


well no matter when you trim we can all agree it should be done with care. trimming wet u can just mush all trichomes on the scissors insted . ive tried both ways and got about same results  i just prefer doing it afterwards since it was less time consuming for the same resulut. but every man to there own


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## Redoctober (Dec 16, 2012)

er0senin said:


> well no matter when you trim we can all agree it should be done with care. trimming wet u can just mush all trichomes on the scissors insted . ive tried both ways and got about same results  i just prefer doing it afterwards since it was less time consuming for the same resulut. but every man to there own


 It honestly is probably better to trim after drying because it results in a slower, more evenly protected, uniform dry, but don't you find that everything is much stickier at that point and leaves and stuff really cling to the buds and scissors? I just find that maddening which is why I do it fresh. But if you do it dry there is also the added convenience of not having so much time pressure as when it's fresh and begins to wilt hours after harvest. If you do it fresh you basically have to chop it and trim it immediately or else it becomes limp and annoying. Who knows. 

Anyway, I turned off my fan and the next few buds I will do a much slower dry to see if that makes a difference. If the humidity gets below 45% I'll turn on a humidifier.


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## er0senin (Dec 17, 2012)

just make sure to have air flowing, just not hitting the bud


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## xmax (Dec 17, 2012)

*chopping it up into little pieces right away doesn't work well for me. I think it traps all the chlorophyll by drying too fast through all those cut points. 
By accident, I found that letting the whole plant dry at once, (two weeks) made wonderful tasting smoke. By letting it transpire naturally, the curing process isn't disturbed. I will be hanging the whole thing in the dark, so it stays green* https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/600615-whack-base-whole-plant-drying.html
View attachment 2445689


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## kindnug (Dec 17, 2012)

Tie them right side up instead of upside down when drying and leaves don't curl over the buds
^
I think the buds are stickier when wet but I know what you mean about the leaves sticking to buds


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## kindnug (Dec 17, 2012)

I disagree about it being easier to trim wet and that trichomes fall off more when dry trim
Hang them right side up and there wont be any trichome loss or leaves sticking to buds
Wet trichomes stick to everything like peoples fingers and scissors
I don't have to touch my buds at all before jarring them
I only touch them breaking it up before smoking!

If you haven't tried it> Just do it once and get back at me.


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## Redoctober (Dec 17, 2012)

xmax said:


> *chopping it up into little pieces right away doesn't work well for me. I think it traps all the chlorophyll by drying too fast through all those cut points. By accident, I found that letting the whole plant dry at once, (two weeks) made wonderful tasting smoke. By letting it transpire naturally, the curing process isn't disturbed. I will be hanging the whole thing in the dark, so it stays green* https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/600615-whack-base-whole-plant-drying.html View attachment 2445689


 Thanks for that thread xmax! I actually have a plant that is ready to harvest right now so I will try that method. I believe the basement where I dry might be a bit cold (low 60's high 50's) but hopefully that won't hurt it. Humidity seems good.


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## Redoctober (Dec 17, 2012)

kindnug said:


> I disagree about it being easier to trim wet and that trichomes fall off more when dry trim Hang them right side up and there wont be any trichome loss or leaves sticking to buds Wet trichomes stick to everything like peoples fingers and scissors I don't have to touch my buds at all before jarring them I only touch them breaking it up before smoking! If you haven't tried it> Just do it once and get back at me.


 I'm going to try this right now with my current plant. So when you hang it right side up do still have to trim it or can you just pull the leaves off with your fingers when it's dry?
Also this may sound stupid, but my plant has a shit ton of branches, what's the best way to deal with hanging this because if I only tie up a few of them, the rest will flop over and end up upside down? 

I didn't realize how important drying was until all of your comments, so thank to everyone participating in this thread! I realize that I've been drying much too quickly. I'm going to do a 7+ day dry and see what happens. I like in the other thread that one guy said that when drying the whole plant, he never gets that hay smell at all. I need to get to that point!


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## xmax (Dec 17, 2012)

The lower temps will only increase the drying time. As for the 'bump n grind' just do what this guy did with the stick.


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## xmax (Dec 17, 2012)

Redoctober ; dude i tried 'em all, and that philips retro white works the best for me. one light - whole grow - lucas - mangnetic. just add more units to expand. i keep my stuff pretty simple or i'll f'-up.


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## Redoctober (Dec 18, 2012)

okay, I just hung a whole plant right side up. Tied a few branches at the ends with string and hung it from a cross beam. Rh in the room is currently 50% and temp is 61F. Have a fan blowing on lowest setting off to the side of the plant - indirect air flow. Will see how long it takes to dry. I will not be drying to the point of stem snapping because I feel this is too much and my current strain is pretty light and fluffy anyway so it doesn't need to dry out to that point.


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## Redoctober (Dec 19, 2012)

So this is where I learned to trim and dry, and in this video, he says that he dries for 3 days with fans blowing directly on the buds. He claims that it's the lack of air flow that produces the hay smell. Now I did the same thing with the exception of drying in 80 degrees. I dried at about 60 degrees and with slightly less ambient humidity I'm guessing, though he never states what the humidity is in the bathroom, just that he is running a dehumidifier. My shit smelled like a barn at the end. WTF! How can people do the same technique and get different results?

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYUX1IHsbB0

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NCP1ZD6B5o


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## jcdws602 (Dec 19, 2012)

3 days is too short,,chlorophyll has to break down....that takes time......5-7 days even longer.....make sure you dry in a controlled environment or at least a space that you know will have the same continuous temps....80 degrees is a tad warm imho....also it varies depending on strain....but general rule of thumb is a longer dry is better than a shorter dry always......


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## Nizza (Dec 19, 2012)

dry as slow as possible without the bud being able to get moldy. always remember moisture comes out of the buds but is still in the main stalk. several methods work but always be careful not to get things packed to tight or it'll get moldy. first i hang whole plant, or if the box is too big i do large sections. after 2 days or so when i think the buds can touch eachother and they've been with an oscillating fan i get everything really close together. this helps bring out the moisture from the stems. I might at this point (3rd-5th day shut off the exhaust ffan. this is no longer needed. after about 2 days more when i think there is still a good amount of moisture in the stems i put it all in branches into paper bags. they stay in here maybe an extra day and then i put all the diff plants in paper bags, cut down the bags so theyre nice and tight and then put it all into a plastic bag. From here is when i do my trimming. it's much easier to trim when the leaves are dry so sometimes its good to trim before you put the plastic bag around it, because when the moisture comes back out of the stem they become a little more flexible. from here i decide when its best to jar and then proceed to cure


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## thinkingreen (Dec 20, 2012)

My plants lose some of their stink but never completely. One strain I grow a lot, Barneys LSD, keeps most of it's smell through drying and gets stronger week by week in cure (tops out at 3-4 weeks).
I dry 4-5 days hanging (18-20c, 50rh), 1 day on a screen, then to jars. I fully trim when wet. I've gone through a couple handfuls of harvests and the only time I can create a hay smell is when I try to dry in 5-6 hours.


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## Moldy (Dec 20, 2012)

61F is a little cool. Look at it like it's human and it needs warmth. I like to stay at 70-75f. 80F and you start to break down the Thc. RH should be min 40% max 60%, mid range 50% for normal density buds.


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## thinkingreen (Dec 20, 2012)

I read several papers on Terpene production in trichrome bearing plants and how terpene/terpenoid production has been observed to increase in low light conditions/high sleep cycle temperatures.

I like to simulate fall time for the last 2-3 weeks before harvest, cooling the room overall is one of my steps to get the plants where I want. Dark time before cut is also not a myth when it comes to smell if you ask me.
If you have problems keeping the RH up like I do, a colder room also helps extend the dry time by a couple of days as I also gradually lower the RH being careful for mould.


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## Redoctober (Dec 21, 2012)

Well I have been hanging a whole plant for a few days now and I already notice a big difference. It does not smell like hay at all this time! I hung a few snipped branches from a previous plant untrimmed for about 6 days and even that made a big difference in smell. Trimming after drying was a little annoying, but not even as bad as I thought it was going to be. I think it had perhaps dried a bit too much cause the leaves sort of flaked off and weren't sticking to the buds hardcore like the last time I remember a dry trim. The smell was vastly improved though. I am hoping it will be even more so with the entire plant intact. I really now believe that the drying phase is perhaps even more vital than curing, and plays a huge role in smell. These last couple of buds didn't even need a cure. Once they had been drying for a week and put into jars, they smelled like they had already been curing for several weeks. I am now thinking that if you dry slow enough (not so slow as to get mold) curing might not even really be necessary. It would be like the drying and curing process is one in the same. Not that it wouldn't still be good to cure though. The last few buds measured 52% Rh when put into a jar which is past the curing point anyway, but they smell terrific...didn't even need a cure. 

Thank you all for helping to correct my mistake, and I hope that this thread saves others from unnecessarily losing that sweet sweet smell after putting in months of hard work! 
I will update everyone on the whole plant drying experiment as it finishes in a few days. I'm hoping it will take 7-10 days total


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## xmax (Dec 23, 2012)

I'm gonna hang mine on Christmas and maybe drape a garbage bag around it here and there, if it starts to get crispy @ 57f 46%


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## xmax (Dec 25, 2012)

hang'n on christmas..
View attachment 2455265


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## althor (Dec 26, 2012)

Even dog shit loses the smell when it dries out.


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## Redoctober (Dec 27, 2012)

thinkingreen said:


> I read several papers on Terpene production in trichrome bearing plants and how terpene/terpenoid production has been observed to increase in low light conditions/high sleep cycle temperatures. I like to simulate fall time for the last 2-3 weeks before harvest, cooling the room overall is one of my steps to get the plants where I want. Dark time before cut is also not a myth when it comes to smell if you ask me. If you have problems keeping the RH up like I do, a colder room also helps extend the dry time by a couple of days as I also gradually lower the RH being careful for mould.


 This is quite interesting, could you add some specifics regarding "low light conditions/ high sleep cycle temperatures"

Does the high sleep cycle temp need to be all throughout flowering or just for the last week or so.

Also what is meant by low light? Do you cut the light wattage at the end of flower? Or give plants a 48 hour dark period before chopping? How does this low light manifest itself?

Wouldn't cooling the room overall be the opposite of high sleep cycle temperatures?


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## Redoctober (Dec 27, 2012)

Update: So I've completed the 7 day whole plant dry. The buds were probably a little too dry at the end (and probably really finished in 5 days), as the rh I measured in the jar after trimming and jarring was about 58. Humidity should be increased to extend drying even further I think. The really interesting part was that immediately after trimming and jarring, the buds smelled really good, exactly the way I wanted them too. However after curing for a day, I noticed that most of the smell had faded and I noticed that hay smell creeping back in. The humidity in the jar did not increase, so I'm not sure what this is all about? It was definitely an improvement over the old method of trimming and drying in 3 or 4 days, but still not quite there. Does this mean I still need to extend the drying period and raise the ambient humidity to retain more of the smell? 

What's so strange is that I remember a very successful harvest where the smell was awesome, and I trimmed and dried in my veg room which is totally lit 18 hours out of the day, but also comparatively more humid due to the presence of plants. The constant light didn't seem to matter much. It must've been this humidity that made the smell so good. I don't know, I feel like I'm clutching at straws. 

Is it the chlorophyll that's ruining the smell? Or just that the terpenes are being broken down if drying occurs too quickly?


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## medical/420 (Dec 27, 2012)

Ever since i switched to all natlral/organic growing, my SHIT stinks before harvest , at harvest, after harvest, 4 months in a jar, it only gets sweeter


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## Nay47 (Dec 27, 2012)

Like jcd said the longer the better i use to trim wet and would always get some shitty smelling bud but if you just make on cut at the base and hqng the hole thing up it should be pretty hard to dry to quick the way i see it is every cut u make on the plant is another iopening for moisture to get out and u dont want it all come out straight away gradually last time my plant took 3andd half weeks to hang dry buut it was a massiv plant like 4and a half foot tree but it smelt like fire and smoked so smooth dont go through all th effort and time of growing it and then rush the final sqtge and fuck it up


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## medical/420 (Dec 27, 2012)

i trim off ALL leaves fan/bud leafs, when it is wet, so i dont get any green smell from the leafs.


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## Whey2Sly (Dec 27, 2012)

7days of drying... you can manicure before or after depending on what ya want the mess on the floor or Your hands... (wet-->hands)Dry--->everywhere....


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## Redoctober (Dec 29, 2012)

I am currently running an experiment with my last plant where I give at 48 hours of continuous darkness before chopping. Some say it increases resin production, some say it doesn't do anything at all. I am doing it because I am hoping it will improve smell and flavor more than actually increase potency. Something about allowing the sugars to dissolve and possible some of the chlorophyll to atrophy before cutting may help the terpenes to come alive. We'll see. I figure giving two more days after all this time can't hurt anything. 

I have put a humidifier in my drying room and will hopefully maintain a constant 55-60% RH level. This may seem high but my buds are small and will dry out quickly if adequate humidity isn't maintained. I'm shooting for 7-10 days of drying before trimming. 

The one variable which no one seems to agree on is the timing of the final trim and jar. Last time around, I waited until the leaves were relatively crisp and dry and buds were dry to the touch but still had some give to them before trimming and jarring. The stems did not snap when tested, as I believe that this is going too dry unless you have some huge rocket sized buds with a lot of inner moisture content. Trimming at that point was easier than I thought....too easy in fact, which is why I think drying may have gone on too long and wasn't done slowly enough. These leaves did not stick to the buds at all, they sort of flaked off in many cases and I didn't even have to use a scissors for about 30% of them. I could just pull or flick them off. RH content in the jar over the first 24 hrs was about 58-60% which seems on the low side. 

So, should the leaves still have some moisture content when the final trim time arrives? What consistency should they be...dry, crisp, limp, droopy, sticky, gooey? There's an art to telling when buds are ready to be jarred and I have not nailed that part yet.


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## unknown1231 (Dec 29, 2012)

Redoctober said:


> Perhaps I am not drying correctly, but when the weed is freshly cut and hung to dry, it seems to lose most of its characteristic aroma, and takes on a wet hay sort of a smell instead. The pot smell doesn't seem to return until a after a week or two of curing. Any reason this happens? or does this mean I'm doing something wrong?


cutting everything down first locks in the sugars and chlorophyll. If you hang the whole plant the plant cells are able to transfer these things into the stem. Perhaps as a last ditch effort to survive? Pump all the water/food to the stem?


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## Redoctober (Dec 29, 2012)

Interesting. Maybe this is the basis for the 48 hour dark period as well. Forces the plant into survival mode and transfers sugars out of the leaves and buds, and without light, the chlorophyll may begin to break down. This is just a theory as I have not read any scientific literature on the subject. Perhaps this is why flushing is useful too, something I haven't really been doing lately, probably to my detriment.


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## unknown1231 (Dec 29, 2012)

flushing is useful to get the nutrients and any salt build up out of the soil. the theory here is that if you leech the soil the plant will start to intake only water and will eat away any stored nutrients. plants that are flushed will not have a 'chemy' taste or the taste of unused nutrients in the buds.


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## monkeybones (Dec 29, 2012)

keep the drying area as dark as possible, that is the most important factor in my opinion

if all goes well, most of the time you will get your aroma as soon as you crack open a dry bud. drying before manicuring helps also


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## cannabiscultivation (Dec 29, 2012)

Redoctober said:


> I am currently running an experiment with my last plant where I give at 48 hours of continuous darkness before chopping. Some say it increases resin production, some say it doesn't do anything at all. I am doing it because I am hoping it will improve smell and flavor more than actually increase potency. Something about allowing the sugars to dissolve and possible some of the chlorophyll to atrophy before cutting may help the terpenes to come alive. We'll see. I figure giving two more days after all this time can't hurt anything.
> 
> I have put a humidifier in my drying room and will hopefully maintain a constant 55-60% RH level. This may seem high but my buds are small and will dry out quickly if adequate humidity isn't maintained. I'm shooting for 7-10 days of drying before trimming.
> 
> ...


Left in dark for a solid week once. such a very sweet pleasing smell. plant lightened and smelled dreamy...


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## unknown1231 (Dec 29, 2012)

Redoctober said:


> Update: So I've completed the 7 day whole plant dry. The buds were probably a little too dry at the end (and probably really finished in 5 days), as the rh I measured in the jar after trimming and jarring was about 58. Humidity should be increased to extend drying even further I think. The really interesting part was that immediately after trimming and jarring, the buds smelled really good, exactly the way I wanted them too. However after curing for a day, I noticed that most of the smell had faded and I noticed that hay smell creeping back in. The humidity in the jar did not increase, so I'm not sure what this is all about? It was definitely an improvement over the old method of trimming and drying in 3 or 4 days, but still not quite there. Does this mean I still need to extend the drying period and raise the ambient humidity to retain more of the smell?
> 
> What's so strange is that I remember a very successful harvest where the smell was awesome, and I trimmed and dried in my veg room which is totally lit 18 hours out of the day, but also comparatively more humid due to the presence of plants. The constant light didn't seem to matter much. It must've been this humidity that made the smell so good. I don't know, I feel like I'm clutching at straws.
> 
> Is it the chlorophyll that's ruining the smell? Or just that the terpenes are being broken down if drying occurs too quickly?


No kidding, the exact same thing happened to me! I'm letting my next girl hang for at least 10 days, probably closer to 14 before trim and jar. My recent hang was 7 days and then trim and jar, and sure enough in 24 hrs i had the green smell :/ It IS getting better as I dry the buds more but definitely should've left it hanging longer. I just cut my next girl yesterday so will let ya know in 2 weeks how its looking!


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## ledgrowing (Dec 29, 2012)

smellsike hay you picked earley


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## Redoctober (Dec 29, 2012)

cannabiscultivation said:


> Left in dark for a solid week once. such a very sweet pleasing smell. plant lightened and smelled dreamy...


 hmmmmm.....maybe I should let them go for more than 48 hours in the dark. I'm thinking I shoud try 72 hours for my first go round


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## Redoctober (Jan 1, 2013)

Update: Last plant. Chopped the entire plant last night after 72 hours continuous darkness; hung it intact, upside down. Didn't trim any leaves. Put a humidifier in the room with a fan blowing indirect air. Humidity is about 55-58%. I'm considering even bumping it up to 60%. Trying to time it so that drying takes 10 days. When I turn on a flashlight I can see the humidity in the air which is a good thing. The leaves are already feeling a little dry after only 24 hours so I think I might need to raise the RH slightly.


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## Canibitual (Jan 1, 2013)

er0senin said:


> the most important is that you start drying when buds are mature alrdy. ofc it will be less harsh with more days to dry but 3 days is ok imo. the rest is fixed while cureing anyways . a Tip is to hangdry the whole plant with leaves and all and trim after its dry so that it dryes up slower . also its less time consuming and easyer to trim a dry plant. best regards


you hit it on the head... I suspect he didn't hang the whole plant to dry...

50% humidity is good, and a fan blowing either directly (on low) or indirectly (against a wall first) is fine... but leave the leaves on... it keeps it from drying out too fast... and Make sure it's ABSOLUTELY DRY before trimming... otherwise you'll make it smell like wet hay again... an extra day of drying will not hurt as long as the room humidity is 50%


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## uley1234 (Jan 2, 2013)

what if its been drying for weeks an now it has no smell? is it finished?


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## Redoctober (Jan 4, 2013)

ledgrowing said:


> smellsike hay you picked earley


 This is the only possible factor left that I can think of because I still have a hay smell on that one strain. It definitely looked ready though when I examined it. Mostly cloudy trichs with a few ambers and a few clears. This is when I usually harvest, but I am going to go double check right now because its still a bit spongy and I think I'll be able to tell. It's an unknown clone of a strain that I got from a friend. I think it's chemdog but I can't be sure. Do strains lose their smell over time? This clone has been perpetuated for anywhere from 2-4 years.


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## polyarcturus (Jan 5, 2013)

yo dude... you harvested too early, end of story. no genetic thing, im not saying you didnt see cloudy trichs, but that shit is deceiving(thats why i dont buy into all these "methods" to tell when a plant is done), experience is a teacher next time giver her more time.


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## Redoctober (Jan 5, 2013)

polyarcturus said:


> yo dude... you harvested too early, end of story. no genetic thing, im not saying you didnt see cloudy trichs, but that shit is deceiving(thats why i dont buy into all these "methods" to tell when a plant is done), experience is a teacher next time giver her more time.


 SONOFABITCH!!! Well, I guess that's an easy mistake to rectify...that's the good way to look at it. I honestly didn't know that harvest time affected odor that much within a reasonable window. People always focus on harvest time as it relates to overall potency, or the ratio of CBD to THC to CBN and so forth. I figured if you harvest a bit early, the worst that happens is that you would have a higher THC to CBD ratio. I wasn't intending to harvest early actually, I had just read a thread on here in which the contention was made that most people harvest too late with a much too high a number of amber trichoms. It was suggested that a 50/50 mix of clear/cloudy with as few amber as possible, or mostly cloudy with as few amber as possible was ideal. I tried this experiment and I guess I paid the price. I will try this same clone again and next time give an extra 2-3 weeks and gauge the difference because this time I really felt my drying conditions were as perfectly controlled as I wanted them to be and I still ended up with hay.


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## cannabiscultivation (Jan 6, 2013)

such a bummer


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## polyarcturus (Jan 8, 2013)

i feel it man thats how i felt my first few harvests... like wtf am i doing wrong? listen, its okay to let the hairs dry out and shrivel up on the bud, sometimes that shit means nothing, i got a chernobyl thats a real good example, alll clear trichs and bud looks almost dry on the plant, but its still growing still popping new flowers and hairs, not as much, but still not ripe.. just let them motherfuckers grow the stank only gets stronger.


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## dopeboi69 (Jan 19, 2013)

sorry to bring up an old thread but they hit the nail right on the head, every single time I've smelt that hay smell either from my crop or someone else's it was because we picked too early. I finally got it right this grow and let them go a week longer than I thought they should and I have absolutely no hay smell. AT ALL. when I open my dry room I almost get knocked over, felt up, and mugged by the smell that comes out lol


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