BEST PRACTICE DRYING PROCESS
This is what your drying process should be. When you cut that plant down it’s wet. First, hang the plant where it won’t fall. I use a fishing line. You need to slow dry it. The idea is to not allow mold to grow on it, but not have it dried immediately. In your designated drying room keep your humidity under 60 if it’s possible. Temperature wise, room temperature is perfectly fine. For ideal airflow you need to get an oscillating fan. You must make sure both sides of the plants dry evenly and you don’t want the fan directly blowing on the plants. You don’t want only one side to get the fan because then one side will dry out faster than the other. You just want moving air 360 degrees around each plant.
HOW DRY IS DRY ENOUGH?
The easiest way is to crack the limb. If the limb snaps easily, then it’s dry enough to put into the jars. Keep in mind that every limb is holding a different size bud and every stem is a different size. Therefore, we use a tool called Pro Moisture reader. I want to get it under 10% moisture in the bud. From there, you’re going to take all the fan leaves off. You’ve already done most of that before you even get to it. You can trim the buds more if you want but you can still smoke the leaves.
STORING & CURING YOUR BUDS
Now put your dried buds in either mason jars or grow bags. We’re using a new drying bags that do the curing for us; they will keep it between 58 and 62% humidity. You heat seal the top of these bags and you don’t have to burp the mason jars. Again, it does all of the curing for you. But if you decide on Mason Jars, you need to place them somewhere that you’ll be able to open them up one a day to ‘Burp’ them by unscrewing the jars for approximately five minutes before resealing them again. As you can see from the picture below, larger operation may resort to stackable bins.
