Drying in a fridge

Blue brother · Apr 28, 2022

Sorry I never got back to this. I smoke and I forget haha.

so this time I used the fridge for one plant only, about 7oz ish.

I filled the unit on the 3rd of April. Set it at 12c and 58-60%rh and left it for a week.

on the 10th of April I inspected it and visually it had shrank more than last time at this point, that was to be expected, I gave the buds a squeeze and could tell they weren’t ready, stiffer and dryer on the outside but still too soft inside so I left them

on the 17th of April it had been 14 days so checked and all of it was ready apart from some of the very biggest bugs which was also to be expected, in hindsight I should have broken them down more.

So I’ve left them until now and they’ll just stay as are at 58% 12c in the fridge until I’ve smoked it all.

it’s all smoking lovely today, and I feel that a greater ammount of curing has taken place compared to last time.

BUUUUUUT, might I add, and it’s a big but, the smell when breaking apart the bud isn’t as strong as I remember it from last time, and the smell when opening the door is much stronger than I remember it being last time. Which makes sense, the higher temp this time (12c) vs last time (9c) is in fact allowing the terps to volatilise at a greater rate whilst drying. I wasn’t able to distinguish if the terp profile had actually changed with my nose though. Just not as strong.

I don’t feel there was any change in flavour, only that the flavour wasn’t as strong. I was surprised at the smoothness of the smoke, burnt the same as last time, nice and creamy.

I’m not a scientist but I do feel I can replicate an experiment and make a conclusion based on what I experienced with both runs, unless I had another unit and could run side by side at the same time then I can’t really say it’s proof. But to me it is, and if you replicate it I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.

if I had the means to get it tested properly in a lab I would have done that too

I’ll probably not do this again, as it wasn’t as nice of an experience whilst handling the bud as last time, I enjoy every bit of the experience of using cannabis, and the terps are a massive part to me.

I had to give it a go it’s in my nature haha

next time I’ll try another way. Maybe 9/62 for a week then 12/58 for 10 days or something I dunno

thanks for following guys

Mont@n@ · Apr 30, 2022

Blue brother said:
Sorry I never got back to this. I smoke and I forget haha.

so this time I used the fridge for one plant only, about 7oz ish.

I filled the unit on the 3rd of April. Set it at 12c and 58-60%rh and left it for a week.

on the 10th of April I inspected it and visually it had shrank more than last time at this point, that was to be expected, I gave the buds a squeeze and could tell they weren’t ready, stiffer and dryer on the outside but still too soft inside so I left them

on the 17th of April it had been 14 days so checked and all of it was ready apart from some of the very biggest bugs which was also to be expected, in hindsight I should have broken them down more.

So I’ve left them until now and they’ll just stay as are at 58% 12c in the fridge until I’ve smoked it all.

it’s all smoking lovely today, and I feel that a greater ammount of curing has taken place compared to last time.

BUUUUUUT, might I add, and it’s a big but, the smell when breaking apart the bud isn’t as strong as I remember it from last time, and the smell when opening the door is much stronger than I remember it being last time. Which makes sense, the higher temp this time (12c) vs last time (9c) is in fact allowing the terps to volatilise at a greater rate whilst drying. I wasn’t able to distinguish if the terp profile had actually changed with my nose though. Just not as strong.

I don’t feel there was any change in flavour, only that the flavour wasn’t as strong. I was surprised at the smoothness of the smoke, burnt the same as last time, nice and creamy.

I’m not a scientist but I do feel I can replicate an experiment and make a conclusion based on what I experienced with both runs, unless I had another unit and could run side by side at the same time then I can’t really say it’s proof. But to me it is, and if you replicate it I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.

if I had the means to get it tested properly in a lab I would have done that too

I’ll probably not do this again, as it wasn’t as nice of an experience whilst handling the bud as last time, I enjoy every bit of the experience of using cannabis, and the terps are a massive part to me.

I had to give it a go it’s in my nature haha

next time I’ll try another way. Maybe 9/62 for a week then 12/58 for 10 days or something I dunno

thanks for following guys

Brown paper bags?
https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/drziggys-low-and-slow-drying-maximizing-your-harvest.366783/page-136#post-5078986

Blue brother · Apr 30, 2022

Mont@n@ said:
Brown paper bags?
https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/drziggys-low-and-slow-drying-maximizing-your-harvest.366783/page-136#post-5078986

Yeah that’s a nice piece of info.

See the thing with regular fridge freezers is the air is stripped of moisture in larger chunks. So if you leave you’re weed out in the fridge itl dry it out very quickly.

so if u wanna do it in a fridge u need to create some sort of barrier between the weed and the air in the fridge, there’s a problem with this though, you can’t just seal it up, without anywhere for the moisture to go you’ll end up with mold.

So if you use a jar or a bag you can periodically burp excess moisture out into the fridge where the compressor will take care of it and you can close up ur jar til you need to burp it again.

Mont@n@ · Apr 30, 2022

First thanks for the idea. If you read the first 15 pages and the last 10 of that thread you will find most of your answers, again thanks.

happy growing

dank'd · May 2, 2022

finally got all four plants/strains harvested and in the fridge. just keeping the tops of the bags unfurled to the shelves above and it's about 7c - 9c and 80%+ in the bags. close up are of nl5 skunk on the left at 15 days in the fridge and critical skunk at 14 days. will need another week or two

Blue brother · May 2, 2022

dank'd said:
finally got all four plants/strains harvested and in the fridge. just keeping the tops of the bags unfurled to the shelves above and it's about 7c - 9c and 80%+ in the bags. close up are of nl5 skunk on the left at 15 days in the fridge and critical skunk at 14 days. will need another week or two
View attachment 5127517
View attachment 5127518

Bravo my friend!

how u checking on the temp n humidity in the bags? If u haven’t allready got one grab urself a hygrometer with a probe most probe wires will go through a fridge door seal no problem and it means u can monitor it from outside.

excited to see how this goes

dank'd · May 2, 2022

Blue brother said:
Bravo my friend!

how u checking on the temp n humidity in the bags? If u haven’t allready got one grab urself a hygrometer with a probe most probe wires will go through a fridge door seal no problem and it means u can monitor it from outside.

excited to see how this goes

thanks to you also : ) i keep an inkbird in one of the bags, kind of trying to see if i can get a method going

when i put a newly harvested bag in the fridge the bag stays a bit warmer like up to 12c ish and if not enough ventilation high 90's rh

but in a few days the buds start to get that folded/shrouded look and are not stuck together so much etc

so far just giving the bags a fluff a few times a day. the bags that have been in the longest i think are still in the high 70's to 80's rh but again it depends on how open the bags are

i guess when they are smokeable in a joint and burn properly will be time to seal in ziploc bags for keeping in the kitchen fridge, which i hope will be when rh in a sealed bag is 70% ish?

i'm not going to bring them to room temperature ever if i can help it. will see what happens

Mont@n@ · May 7, 2022

dank'd said:
thanks to you also : ) i keep an inkbird in one of the bags, kind of trying to see if i can get a method going

when i put a newly harvested bag in the fridge the bag stays a bit warmer like up to 12c ish and if not enough ventilation high 90's rh

but in a few days the buds start to get that folded/shrouded look and are not stuck together so much etc

so far just giving the bags a fluff a few times a day. the bags that have been in the longest i think are still in the high 70's to 80's rh but again it depends on how open the bags are

i guess when they are smokeable in a joint and burn properly will be time to seal in ziploc bags for keeping in the kitchen fridge, which i hope will be when rh in a sealed bag is 70% ish?

i'm not going to bring them to room temperature ever if i can help it. will see what happens

hi there, thanks and looking good bro.
I was googling at what was the lowest temp that mold could grow?

also here is a very interesting link
https://www.reddit.com/r/microgrowery/comments/p8h9xz
happy growing

dank'd · May 7, 2022

Mont@n@ said:
hi there, thanks and looking good bro.
I was googling at what was the lowest temp that mold could grow?
View attachment 5129836
also here is a very interesting link
https://www.reddit.com/r/microgrowery/comments/p8h9xz
happy growing

hey thank you! i read that reddit thread also btw nice. the temp in the bags on the top shelf is usually 7-10 ish(?) c and the bottom bags are a few degrees higher. humidity in the bags is about the same though at anywhere from high 70's to high 80's

so far the smells have been changing, from first chopped, then after ten or more days mostly faded away to a bit of a grassy smell, which has also now faded away and i am assuming the true and/or or final smells of the dried/drying weed are setting in

still a week or two before the first harvested plants reach 70% rh sealed, but it seems this method has changed everything and for a home grow saves so much space and hassle

not any parts of the weed have so far gotten even close to crispy it has remained uniformly moist and pliable the whole time. will report back

Blue brother · May 8, 2022

dank'd said:
hey thank you! i read that reddit thread also btw nice. the temp in the bags on the top shelf is usually 7-10 ish(?) c and the bottom bags are a few degrees higher. humidity in the bags is about the same though at anywhere from high 70's to high 80's

so far the smells have been changing, from first chopped, then after ten or more days mostly faded away to a bit of a grassy smell, which has also now faded away and i am assuming the true and/or or final smells of the dried/drying weed are setting in

still a week or two before the first harvested plants reach 70% rh sealed, but it seems this method has changed everything and for a home grow saves so much space and hassle

not any parts of the weed have so far gotten even close to crispy it has remained uniformly moist and pliable the whole time. will report back

I honestly love that you’re doing this. I’m wishing you the best of luck with this technique. I still haven’t dried any buds below 9c. But I do dry my bubble hash in the fridge at 4c and it’s been taking an average of 60 hours to get fully dry. The terps from this hash are nothing short of legendary. The cold temp ensures that minimal ammounts of monoterpenes volatilise away from the product, resulting in buds that have larger ammounts of myrcene and linalool and a few others, than would generally be in warmer air dried cannabis.

fabtastic work mate, really fantastic work. Where are you based in the world?

dank'd · May 8, 2022

Blue brother said:
I honestly love that you’re doing this. I’m wishing you the best of luck with this technique. I still haven’t dried any buds below 9c. But I do dry my bubble hash in the fridge at 4c and it’s been taking an average of 60 hours to get fully dry. The terps from this hash are nothing short of legendary. The cold temp ensures that minimal ammounts of monoterpenes volatilise away from the product, resulting in buds that have larger ammounts of myrcene and linalool and a few others, than would generally be in warmer air dried cannabis.

fabtastic work mate, really fantastic work. Where are you based in the world?

thanks man! just following your lead. i'm in kitchener ontario : )

Blue brother · May 8, 2022

dank'd said:
thanks man! just following your lead. i'm in kitchener ontario : )

Haha greetings from the U.K. yeah that’s abit far for us to meet up at a service station and share our results lol

Mont@n@ · May 9, 2022

Cannatrol Cool Cure

The Cannatrol™ Cool Cure Box with patented Vaportrol™ Technology, for the first time, gives the small grower precision control over the dry/cure process from start to finish, regardless of the climate conditions. Dial in the optimal conditions and time for your dry cycle, dial in the cure...

cannatrol.myshopify.com

Blue brother · May 9, 2022

Mont@n@ said:
Cannatrol Cool Cure

The Cannatrol™ Cool Cure Box with patented Vaportrol™ Technology, for the first time, gives the small grower precision control over the dry/cure process from start to finish, regardless of the climate conditions. Dial in the optimal conditions and time for your dry cycle, dial in the cure...

cannatrol.myshopify.com

Yeah that’s pretty much exactly what I built for £300 ish I can’t remember. 1500 for theirs and u can’t get it in the U.K.

It would be nice to buy that though and have all the pre programmed settings and what not. I just use an inkbird and thermoelectric dehumidifier to control humidity and use the buttons on the thermoelectric wine cooler to control temp. Maybe I could just buy their control unit and retrofit it to mine, that would be nice

Mont@n@ · May 9, 2022

Blue brother said:
Yeah that’s pretty much exactly what I built for £300 ish I can’t remember. 1500 for theirs and u can’t get it in the U.K.

It would be nice to buy that though and have all the pre programmed settings and what not. I just use an inkbird and thermoelectric dehumidifier to control humidity and use the buttons on the thermoelectric wine cooler to control temp. Maybe I could just buy their control unit and retrofit it to mine, that would be nice

im going to be using a growtronix temp/humidity module for that but i found this link for a diy fridge controller:
Copy/paste from that link:

Just to share some resources I found:

Brew Pi 16, the kit homebrewers are using
Brew Pi’s mini fridge build guide 15
CellarWarden 9, the wine cellar version that’s open source, runs on standard Raspberry Pi hardware, and works as a humidistat as well
A post 5 by some charcuterie folks, links to this humidity + temp controller 11 that some recommend

happy growing

Blue brother · May 10, 2022

Mont@n@ said:
im going to be using a growtronix temp/humidity module for that but i found this link for a diy fridge controller:
Copy/paste from that link:

Just to share some resources I found:

Brew Pi 16, the kit homebrewers are using

Brew Pi’s mini fridge build guide 15

CellarWarden 9, the wine cellar version that’s open source, runs on standard Raspberry Pi hardware, and works as a humidistat as well

A post 5 by some charcuterie folks, links to this humidity + temp controller 11 that some recommend

happy growing

Omg this is groundbreaking news to me haha. Thanks so much for posting this.
looks like I’ll be gifting some hash to my tech friend for setting this up for me

thanks again mate

Glassblower4gvn · May 22, 2022

Blue brother said:
Anyone tried this?

I’m going to try it, been reading about it over the past few months and I feel confident it will work, it’s actually pretty well documented practise over at thc farmer and on 420 mag.

I understand the science behind it and have seen it work, and I also understand why so many less knowledgeable people dismiss it as a recipe for disaster. So I don’t really need convincing either way, I know it should work aslong as I don’t fuck up.

I just wanna know if anyone who’s done it has any pointers or wanna share any problems they ran into while using this technique.

how did you deal with the smell?
What size fridge did you use for how much bud?
what kind of fridge? I’m torn between buying a double wide wine cooler or using a spare frost free fridge I have in storage.
I’m looking to dry what would normally weigh 20oz fry

thanks in advance to anyone willing to share

So how’d it come out? I use a wine chiller for my dries and cures. Complete control. I would not use a fridge though, they employ dehydration so it will dry it too fast, wine chillers are different. The taste from keeping the trichs at below 65 for entire process makes for the most incredible tastes.

Glassblower4gvn · May 22, 2022

DrOgkush said:
Because that’s when mold forms. The fridge is a sealed jar. What’s your method of oxygen and allowing it to actually dry.

Yes it is sealed but with 1000x or more the volume so while technically it is sealed it wont matter.

DrOgkush · May 23, 2022

Glassblower4gvn said:
Yes it is sealed but with 1000x or more the volume so while technically it is sealed it wont matter.

Huh? Welcome to RIU.

Mont@n@ · May 23, 2022

Glassblower4gvn said:
So how’d it come out? I use a wine chiller for my dries and cures. Complete control. I would not use a fridge though, they employ dehydration so it will dry it too fast, wine chillers are different. The taste from keeping the trichs at below 65 for entire process makes for the most incredible tastes.

Thanks
What procedure do you use to dry your herb in a wine cooler and do you keep it at 65f all the time?

thanks again I’m just tired of drying in my flower room and loosing 3weeks

but Im sold with this idea

happy growing

Drying in a fridge

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