How come weed loses its aroma while drying?

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

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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.

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

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
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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

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.

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

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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.

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.

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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!

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

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.

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.

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

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......

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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%

hang'n on christmas..
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Even dog shit loses the smell when it dries out.