When you dry your weed upside down, it allows the sap content to flow continuously to the sap, thereby slowing down the drying process. What is the implication of this? The slow drying process gives more time for the chlorophyll and sugar content to be broken down, without losing cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids.
Drying Techniques for Producing the Most Flavorful Buds. Plants should be hung upside down on a line, whole and intact, for five to 10 days.
You can tell if your flower is ready for curing by giving it a gentle squish between your fingers. It should be spongy and still a bit sticky. If it feels wet or moist, it needs more time to dry. If you are dry trimming, the flower is dried if you can snap the branches rather than them bending.
Marijuana Drying Ideas: How to Dry Buds
Simply put your trimmed buds into cardboard boxes and place them in the empty grow tent or drying room. Keep a hygrometer in each box to be able to control temperature and humidity. Hang drying in a grow tent or closet also serves as a low-cost method.
Some growers choose to remove all fan leaves before hanging the branches to dry, while others leave some fan leaves on the branches. Leaving fan leaves on the branches can slow down the drying process.
Ultimately, pruning cannabis can help cannabis growers increase the bud quality and yield from their harvest. Trimming fan leaves is a necessary and delicate part of cultivation.
Fan leaves support the cannabis plant throughout the vegetative phase. They enable plants to absorb enough energy from light that is then converted into food needed for growth. While they might not be a smokable component of the cannabis plant, it's a pity to dispose of them following the harvest.
If you over-dry your cannabis, it'll be more likely to go moldy, so it's important to monitor the drying process closely. If your buds are too dry, they'll be more likely to crumble when you try to break them up for smoking, so it's important to take them out of the drying chamber before they become too dry.
Ideally, a well-cured bud should bounce back like memory foam. When you bend the stems, do they snap cleanly? This is a sign of a good cure. If they are still pliable and bend, the bud is too moist.
If the buds dry too quickly, more of the chlorophyll will remain, and the smoke will be bitter and have a green aftertaste.
Mold can also develop while your buds are being dried and cured. There are methods growers use to help prevent bud rot. Wait until after a dry spell before harvesting your plants. Outdoor plants should not be harvested if there has been any rain during the last three days.
An ideal time to dry cannabis is around 5-7 days. However, the time it takes to reach the ideal dryness (explained below) will vary depending on your climate and drying location.
If you cut the buds entirely off the stems, you'll have to use something like a drying rack to place the buds on to dry. If you leave a little stem, you can instead hang them from a line to dry.
Feed Your Plants
If you want your plants to produce big, bountiful buds, they are will need excellent nutrients to keep them healthy. Things like nitrogen and phosphorous can play huge roles in creating massive buds if you use the right amounts at the right time in the process.
Weeks 4-6: Buds Fatten Up
They'll still have all the white pistils sticking out, but you'll be able to see the buds getting bigger every day. At this point the “stretch” is about over and you can reduce the amount of training you're doing with your plants.
Simple brown paper bags, like the kind you get from the bakery, are perfect for drying buds. Especially popcorn buds. If you place a handful or two of freshly manicured smaller nuggets into a paper bag and leave them to dry for 2–3 days your halfway there.
Depending on the strain, it takes 3 to 10 days for your plants to be optimally dried. We know it is hard! You can tell they are ready when the outside of the buds feels dry to the touch. If you used the hanging method, it is ready when stems snap clean off versus bending or tearing.
If most of the pistils are still visibly white, then it's too early to harvest and your plants should be left to mature for a little longer. Growers should wait until at least 50% of pistils have turned darker to ensure near maximal THC levels.
Be aware that your buds will most likely start to get that hay smell when air-dried in a warm place so try to keep the environment as cool as possible (under 70 °F/20 °C).
Trimming cannabis is a key part of the post-harvest process, and well-trimmed buds are an important mark of quality and price in the industry. After buds are harvested from the cannabis plant, they are either dried to reduce the moisture content before they are trimmed or they're trimmed right away.
Usually, growers trim the fan leaves weeks before harvest, which is a period that leads to senescence, a phase in the plant cycle when the larger leaves start fading away. It is safe to start removing these dying leaves and continue until harvest. However, the main trimming processes commence after harvest.
If you've never defoliated before, we recommend you always play it safe and stick to removing only the foliage that very obviously impedes bud production. In particular, focus on big fan leaves and interior foliage that's already covering bud sites.
Removing these fan leaves opens up light and produces better air exchange to the lower canopy. Healthy leaves at the bottom of the canopy should be kept to trap valuable light from being lost and wasted. The more quality light a flowering site receives, the larger it will grow and the faster it will mature.