You'll continue to let your buds dry until they pass the snap test. That is, you grab a stem and when you bend it, it should audibly snap, sounding nice and crisp. Now your buds are dry and ready to be trimmed.
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.
To ensure proper airflow, avoid overcrowding the branches and leave some space between them. The branches should be left to dry slowly in a temperature and humidity-controlled room. Drying cannabis branches typically takes 7 to 10 days.
When cannabis is dried too long or rapidly, it is primarily at the expense of the lighter, more delicate essential oils (terpenes). The lighter, most volatile terpenes have the lowest evaporation points and dissipate first during drying, before the water does.
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.
Depending on the specific mass and profile of the flowers, the drying process generally takes three to four weeks. For both marijuana and hemp producers of smokable flower, the curing process is an important postharvest step that provides additional value in the quality of the resulting product.
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.
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.
Water curing helps to speed up the curing process by removing water-soluble irritants that affect the overall flavour. But you can certainly use both of these methods together; bud washing beforehand will prevent your flowers from bathing in their own grime during the water curing process.
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).
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.
If you don't have the space to hang your drying cannabis, you can also use nets that will allow you to lay your cannabis and should also allow for airflow. Remember that if there is any moisture left in between the buds that does not air out, you could lose your harvest to mould!
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.
Powdery mildew on buds after harvest is a serious concern for cannabis growers, and for good reason. This severe blight is one of the top causes of cannabis plant destruction. The key to beating this threat is to keep it from getting anywhere near your plants in the first place.
Harvesting the plant for a dry trim means: cutting the plant down, removing the fan leaves, breaking the plant down into workable sections for the trimmers, notching the stems to create a hanging point. There is an initial trim at this point for the hanging a small branch onto lines in a drying room.
Post-cured Cannabis Buds
After being cured, the nuggets will look like they've been rubbed down with baby powder. The hair color will fade to an ashy gray color, and many trichomes will start to fall off. However, it is essential to note that those trichomes contain most cannabinoids and terpenes within the flower.
Because bud formation starts after 7 hours of dark period, it is also wise to always maintain a minimum day length of 17 to 18 hours during the vegetative period. A dark period of 12 hours is used as a standard in cannabis to ensure a smooth flowering process.
You can harvest your plant by either cutting the entire plant down at once, cutting the stems down one by one while keeping the buds attached to them, or by removing the individual buds from your plant.
A bud hardener is an additive you can use at the end of the flower cycle to tighten up your flowers and pack on weight. They are typically used in the final 3 weeks or so of the grow cycle and contain a mix of macronutrients, micronutrients, minerals, essential oils, etc.
This occurs when plants lose their moisture content, curl up, and feel fragile and crunchy to the touch. Several environmental factors give rise to this issue—nutrient problems, too much water, and excess heat are just a few of the common culprits.
An ideal drying environment for cannabis is a dark room between 60-68 F and 55-65% humidity with moderate indirect airflow. The colder temperatures help to preserve highly volatile terpenes.
The drying and curing phase after harvest allows the buds to fully develop in taste, aroma, and potency. However, it also gives the buds time to become more firmly packed and tight. If the buds are not given time to fully dry and cure, it could cause airy buds.
You should start off by cutting some of the larger fan leaves away but keep the smaller sugar leaves and other vegetation. This will help expose the buds. The sugar leaves protect the buds while they dry and can help to create an ideal moisture level.
The ideal drying room must be dark, as light can damage the THC in your buds. While it does not hurt to have a light source inside to check on the progress of your buds, you should keep it off most of the time, and block all other passages of light that can enter the room.
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.