Hi everyone, I know there is a 2016 thread here dealing with curing overdried weed but I have a question that isn't addressed there. Have got the opinions of a load of local experts but don't think they've dealt with the problem much themselves so I would love to hear what you think. I'm really not sure what to do? First grow. Everything was okay until drying. After 5 days it was bone dry, would crush to powder. Some lettuce brought it back to dampness and it was put into jars which were burped, first once a day and now 3 times a day. For over a month, all I could smell was chorophyll when opening the jars. Now, 7 weeks of curing later, the hay smell is nearly all gone and weed smell is getting slowly stronger. Smoking it, it is quite harsh and the high (difficult to explain) is not strong, a little sickly, creeps up on you with a hint of paranoia. Not much initial kick. My question is: Should I continue curing? This is based on my confusion about the following questions: Will the hashness ever really leave? Will the high still be changing at this point? Thanks for any help advce anyone has. I was resigned to the first crop failing but can't let it go until I know it can't be saved.
Did you trim the leaf off? It sounds like you had quality issues to begin with. Pictures help. However it sounds like if anything you should just make tincture with it. Flavor it if need be.
Thanks for the response StickyEnt, The leaf was trimmed when they were cropped. There was no evidence of quality issues before drying and another tent in another space was fine. That tent took longer to dry and never became bone dry. The two tents were slightly off sync with each other so it is very possible that the bud I'm having trouble with was cropped a day or two earlier (in terms of the total lifespan of the plants). Not really sure how important that is. Oil is always an option, as you say. I guess I'm just hoping that if I cure long enough, it'll get to a good, if not optimal, quality. Might be time to give up on it but its hard to let go.
if my buds overdry, I just throw a fresh leaf in there to rehydrate a lil bit. They seem to lose some flavor, but they end up pretty good still and I wouldn't consider them ruined, just not as strong smelling/tasting. An easy way to test dryness as you dry is to just throw a small bud in a grinder. If too dry it crumbles and turns to power, if it's still too moist it will get caught in the teeth a bit and not grind easy and be kinda mashed up. The perfect consistency/dryness is after grinding it has a sort of springy consistency almost like cotton or sponge. You could also just use a humidity gauge or snap the stems, but that seems less accurate unless you're sure the humidity gauge is 100% accurate. When drying I dry until my buds feel dry to the touch, then I put them in a closed container knowing that there is still moisture inside and it needs to 'leech' out into the outer surface of the bud. After an hour or so in a closed container, the buds will be soft again and I leave them out until dry to the touch again and put them in a container again...repeating this process until I think they're dry. Then I grind up a tiny bud to check moisture consistency as described above. Smaller buds will dry faster than dense big buds...I think putting them in a sealed container before they're completely dry helps to equalize the moisture level in all buds, ensuring even drying throughout the whole batch. They will of course equalize during curing, but I like to get it done ahead of time to ensure even curing.
Thanks for the info Bongsauce. I will adopt your approach for drying the next crop. Based on your post, perhaps I should leave the jars open till the bud feels dry and then seal to cure till they return to damp, and then repeat? At present, I am burping the jars three times a day with no real attention to the condition of the bud (hoping that the cloropyhll will slowly leave). It seems as though you've experienced powder dry bud at the drying stage before. In your experience, do you think the bud might eventually lose its harshness and be smokeable?
Let's go with the first wierd thing I see.. you say that you started opening jars once a day, then started opening them 3x a day??!?!?!?! This is wierd because burping is done to let out excess moisture build up and replace with fresh air.. most people would burp jars more during the first week then less burping as time goes on... so every day for the first week then every 2 days the next week and so on. I strongly disagree with the running theory that your weed must dry for 7 days to get a good end resault.. imo the cure is the most important part not the drying.. so if your buds are super airy it might only take 3 days before it needs to be jarred.. thats just my thoughts on it though.. no matter what remember you can always use the over dried weed for hash and edibles if your unhappy with the way it smokes as flower.
Thanks for the reply. For sure, I am confused about how often to burp. It is not that starting seldom and moving to more frequent was my strategy. It is more that I keep changing my approach depending on what I read online. I don't really understand whether the burping is to let clean air in for some reason or just to let chorophyll-filled air out. Following the feedback here, I will reduce the burping (as the high freuqency may be slowing the curing process if I understand correctly) and see if the quality improves any quicker. I could turn it all to oil or hash but I am not very fond of oil and, although I love hash, I did turn some very old weed (about 3 oz that had laid in an attic for a year, maybe more) into hash (with help), the hash kept the funny taste that the stale weed had so I am bit nervous that that might happen again. If the quality doesn't significantly improve than I will have to try oil or hash. Thanks for the comments!!!!
If I'm not positive that the buds are at the proper moisture level for curing, I wouldn't leave them in a closed container for more than 2 hours or so. imo drying should be 99% done by the time you are curing them. When I put buds into closed containers to equalize the moisture through the bud, I consider that part of the drying process still. The cure begins when I can leave it sealed and they don't soften up or feel moist again. At that point I burp it once a day for about a week {I just open the jar and take a big smell, this cycles the air}, then I forget about for a week or 2. I think how much smell and flavor comes back depends on how quickly they overdried and how long it took to rehydrate them. The more drastically they are overdried and rehydrated will affect smell permanently, such as in the case of water curing...which is soaking buds in water, then speed drying them, this is a technique to purposely remove smell and flavor and it works really well. I feel like you should know within a few days or a week if the smell turns around. In your case, a few weeks is a long time to expect it to turn around. If the flavor, taste and high aren't there, then maybe turning it into edibles or a concentrate is your best bet at this point and call it a day and focus on the next batch.
Thanks for the info Bongsauce! I had a feeling that thequick dry and rehydration may have taken their toll on the bud. I think I'll leave them in the jars and burp one day a week for two weeks and if they're not good by then, I'll call it a day and turn it into hash. Thanks to everyone for all the advice.
Impossible to over dry a fresh harvest in 5 days unless you live in an oven or desert. I don't start curing until my buds feel over dried. As a matter of fact the small buds that are accidentally left in the drying rack smoke very good a month later. The high you're describing is sativa it's a creeper
Thanks Q Banger. It gives me some hope that you say it can't be overdried in that time. It was powder dry though. maybe it could have been the heater in the room sucking out the humidity? Not sure. It's not that I am mistaking the high. I am 25 yrs smoking and am familiar with the taste and hit of the strain, which is tangiland. I think its a hybrid. Not too strong (daytime weed as some might call it). Its more that the high is very off balance and never settles into something recognisable. Sorry but it is hard to explain. It doesn't creep up and then hit like a frieght train, as with amnesia haze. I will keep track of my progress and report the outcome here. Thanks everyone!