Drying and curing your cannabis

Table of contents:

II. HOW TO DRY YOUR BUDS AT HOME IN A SUPER EASY WAY

After the harvest, there are still some steps to make sure that your cannabis will be perfect when consumed or turned into an extract. Come with us to better understand drying and curing buds!

There’s nothing like the feeling of a good harvest! Getting to the end of the cycle brings some peace of mind, right? We love how much gardening is a constant feeling of overcoming all obstacles. But hey, attention! It is not because you arrived at the end of the cycle that you have to stop caring about your herb. After harvest, there’s still a long process before you can smoke that flower in its full potential: drying and curing your cannabis.

Many gardeners don’t fully understand drying and curing it. Even if you grew a beautiful flower with a super complex terpene profile, you can lose all this quality if you do not dry and cure your crop correctly!

We would love to thank all of you that have been together with us during our cultivation series! We loved creating these posts about each of the stages of the growth of our cannabis, a plant that unites us and brings us so much joy and quality of life. We hope that out content helped all of you – like water nurtures a plant!

Want to know more about drying and curing?

We will explain everything here in this post! Come with us!

@sunboldtgrown drying their cannabis crop

Drying process

Well, we already talked a little about it in the harvest post and we also have some other posts on the topic here on the blog – but it is always important to bring this idea to really fixate it, right? Drying is an ESSENTIAL step, much more complex than it seems. That’s because, if you don’t do everything correctly, you can ruin the entire result of your precious cannabis harvest and have problems with fungi, such as mold.

Mold is caused by filamentous fungi, which do not form mushroom-like structures. They live mainly in humid and dark places. They appear with whitish, greenish, orange colors, among many others. Although this fungus can help us a lot in some processes, like in the maturation of some cheeses, it can also be responsible for a huge range of problems – from allergies to fatal contaminations, such as aspergillosis. We have self-cultivation as one of the main Harm Reduction strategies, since you can know exactly what you are consuming, but mold makes cannabis totally unfit for consumption.

Drying reduces the presence of water in the bud to 10-15%, and one of the keys to this is to have a well-controlled environment. And there are many reasons to do this in addition to avoiding mold: drying properly preserves the perfect taste of your buds, and even affects the effect that this cannabis will have on the user’s body. The longer the bud dries, the more THC will turn into CBN and other cannabinoids. So, even talking about the same strain, the effect can be more flat or more agitated, raising or lowering the agitation. This happens not only because of cannabinoids, but also because of terpenes.

Terpenes are organic aromatic hydrocarbons found in most plants – and even some insects! The substance is used by plants as a natural repellent for predators, and also as a way to attract useful predators and pollinators. It is quite volatile, like alcohol, and can evaporate. That is why it is so important to do these processes in the right way: thus, all the substances in your cannabis will work together at their highest potency, in the so-called entourage effect.

Let’s talk a little bit about what to do and what not to do in this step.

WHAT TO DO

It is worth saying that drying and curing are an artistic process, and each person will do it differently and find the equation that works best for them. In some reliable literature, we found some tips:

Place your cannabis in a wooden, cardboard box or a specific structure for drying plants. The ideal is to leave the plants separate, so that there is air circulating between them.
Arrange your cannabis in a cool, airy environment with plenty of space between each bud.
If possible, use a dehumidifier to decrease the humidity in the room.
To achieve a good degree of evaporation in the first few days, a temperature of 68 F (20 ° C) and a relative humidity of 55% will ensure that the bud is left with approximately 30-40% water.
After that, the temperature should drop a few degrees to 64 F (18 ° C) to slow down the process. The humidity should be around 50%, or the buds will dry out too quickly.
Some growers like the 60F (16° C) – 60% relative humidity – in Brazil this reality is hard due to out warm temperatures
This process takes between 10 and 14 days.

WHAT NOT TO DO

Do not leave the buds staked, on top of each other, as this facilitates the proliferation of mold.
Do not try to dry them too fast, as the taste and chemical composition of cannabis can be changed in the process.
Don’t let sudden changes in temperature occur – so you preserve your terpenes and cannabinoids.
Do not allow your buds to be in an environment without air exchange. Ventilation is essential for drying.
Don’t put your buds in the sun! Direct light and heat will degrade your cannabis.

HOW TO DRY YOUR BUDS AT HOME IN A SUPER EASY WAY

Get a paper box;
Close the bottom part of that box, which will be the back of your clothesline;
Draw two squares on opposite sides of the box;
Drill 4 holes;
Pass a wire through the holes of opposite polarities, here we use hemp wick
Close the box;
After drying, you will be able to fold your box again! But it under your bed and it will be ready for your next harvest.

The curing process

After drying their cannabis, many experienced growers cure the buds. It is more or less like the process of aging wine: if the quality is not so good, it may not make much difference; but if the buds are top notch, it’s worth waiting a little longer for an even more incredible result.

Curing is an art, and you can start to play around and figure out what works best for you doing some experiments after harvest. That way, you get very good at it, and you never have big losses if something goes wrong along the way. This step increases the intensity of the flavor and slowly, but steadily, decreases THC in favor of CBN, which is much less potent than THC. The effect of a well-cured cannabis is more profound and introspective, serving almost as a meditation and an internal deepening. The flavor becomes much more complex and refined, gaining in depth, as well as in the variation of the bouquet.

WHAT TO DO

Place your cannabis in a wooden or cardboard box and press it lightly, so that some of the trichomes break and their oils and terpenes spread over the bud’s surface.
After packing, leave the buds in an environment of 18 ° C (64 F), with 50% relative humidity and total darkness, for a period of 1 to 2 months.
Check regularly to ensure the right conditions at all times.
Make sure that the humidity remains between 45 and 50% to prevent the formation of mold and fungi.
If the buds smell like mold or ammonia, the containers should be opened immediately, allowing the bud to dry in a warmer environment for a few hours before continuing the curing process.

WHAT NOT TO DO

Don’t try to cure buds that have too much moist on them, or they will create mold!
Do not try to cure in environments with higher temperatures or light, as these factors will degrade your cannabis and do more harm than good.

Recap the processes:

So, did you enjoy learning all this with us? If you’ve reached us by the middle of the series, or just now at the end, don’t forget to read the other texts to stay on top of all the tips. We know that planting is a delicate situation, especially in a prohibitionist context, and that not everyone has access to it. But in any case, information is never too much, and we know that when you plant it, lots of amazing buds will come out!

See ya, buds!