Drying Weed

First time grower looking for some advice on the drying process. I had two plants one gdp one purple kush. I harvested the gdp three days ago and the purple kush two days ago. They seem to be drying out alright, but I just want to be sure my setup will work. I grew under cfls with no nutrients. I initially had them set up in a cardboard box as i had seen people do online, but moved them when I ran out of space when harvesting my second plant. I have a fan on the opposite side of the room blowing the buds slightly, and a tin foil sheet to catch any fallen trichomes. is this setup ok?

Looking good. Just keep checking on them. Main thing is to dry the outside enough to prevent mold. You can always reintroduce tiny amounts of moisture when you jar them up.

Congrats

Looks good, but is there a reason you didn't manicure / trim them green? Once it dries it will be more difficult to clean em up.

Nice Nice. Thank you! Just one more question I guess... Is it the bigger the bud the longer it should take to dry out? Just cause my biggest bud (appears to be around 5 g's) seems to be drying quite a bit slower then the smaller ones. This seems natural, but I am just paranoid and need to know any information on this.

tpsmc said:

Looks good, but is there a reason you didn't manicure / trim them green? Once it dries it will be more difficult to clean em up.

Click to expand...

Yes yes... although this is my first grow I have trimmed quite a bit of bud... And fully understand how long and arduous that task is; however, since this is such small harvest. I estimate .75 oz- 1.5 ozs I didnt feel the need to trim it all off.

[video=youtube;ErvgV4P6Fzc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc[/video]

Just let them dry.

The more dense the bud is, the longer it will take to dry.

Good Job!!!

Does the drying process need to be done in the dark?

Light isn't good for your harvested buds, you're better off drying and storing them in the dark.

Oh boy, I learned that the hard way. I had grown to much to handle, so I got lazy and dried some outside on a clothes hanger. Luckily it was just extra grow, but the sun completely bleached it tan. It looked like dead grass in your yard. it smoked great and was fine in that regards, but none of my buddies wanted to smoke it because it just looked really ugly. Luckily, you only make that mistake once.

As far as trimming wet or dry, it's all personal preference. Its easier for me to trim the leaves when it's went, because I can bend the bud, but I've talk to other growers and they swear it's faster when dry. They just barely pluck and it crumbles away. I dunno, I say try both ways and figure out what you like for yourself.

Ya I have done a lot of trimming with dry weed before. And generally speaking I have to agree that the leaves are much easier to pluck away if the plants are drier. Anything that you couldn't easily pull away could be easily cut off with scissors, meaning you'll spend less time doing intricate manicuring of the buds...My opinion anyways.

ALSO If my plants are in my room (as I dont necessarily have a completely dark place to store them), will they be fine drying like that if I keep the blinds closed and try to limit light as much as possible?

I know a few that trim off only the fan leaves and any larger leaves first then after the dry they trim all the sugar leaf. Personal preference I guess. I do all trimming at once. I make hash with the trimmings....

Drying in your room will be fine, and do try to limit as much light as you can...

I dry for 4 days. Hanging in a closet, in the dark. For me, it works out perfect. Then I go strait to curing in jars. Burp the jars for about a half an hour each day and make sure to mix around the buds. Curing is important for a good, smooth smoke. Curing also bring out the flavors that we all want...

This is a half zip nug of Plushberry that was all done as stated above. Came out so sweet!!! Great berry flavor. I say sour cherries. Knockout high.

Damn that Plushberry looks awesome. I have been trying to limit lighting. And one of my harvest is on its third day and the other its second, so i still have a little bit of time before I throw em into mason jars. I'll keep that all in mind when I go to cure em. Thanks for answering all my questions bro.

After a few harvests, I found the most important thing to drying and curing was doing it slowly and being able to monitor it.
It took about 12 days or so for my last harvest to dry. Since you didnt cut off all the leaves, yours will take just a little longer than if you trimmed it all off. All personal preference.
However, being able to monitor it was just as crucial. The rel. humidity of the drying space is important. You want your crop to dry slowly till ~65% RH, then jar them. A hygrometer(s) is highly recommended. After jarred, slowly bring their Rh down to 58-60% by burping when necessary. The whole drying process takes about 7-14 days depending on bud size. It is safe to start to cure them and long term store them at about 60% RH.
I emplore you, do not overdry. The actual process of fermenting sugars occurs within a certain range. If this is brought too low, where RH is ~45%, it will stop. It cannot be restarted. It is a chemical process. Adding a piece of fruit to your jar may make your weed wet, but it will not restart the curing process.
It took me 3 harvests before I finally realized what I need to do to be abe to dry weed properly.
Keep it up, it looks good. You dont want all that hard work to go to waste now.

abide

Thanks man all good info. I jarred my first plants crop up today after they had been drying for 4.5-5 days, and the other plants harvest of mine seems to dry much slower as the buds seems to be much denser, larger in size, and were hung up to dry a day after the other one. Overall I don't think I am going to have any problems with mold.

just curious how many plants did you have in this harvest?

Two...
Pics of them while still alive can be found here:
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/438254-advice-flushing-smaller-plants.html
&
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/436637-top-looks-ready-go.html
&
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/422263-these-stems-thick-enough.html

Here's how I cure
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=156237

I dry most like everybody else. Slow and steady.