Drying by weight?

[Kerowacked]

Anyone tried drying by weight? Say a 10 lbs plant loses 75% drying, should weigh 2.5-3 lbs before trim and curing?

 

[mudballs]

i see 10-20% of wet weight being the avg.
so you lose 80% of the wet weight. so10lbs wet will yield 2 pounds dry

 

[Kerowacked]

Don’t know why i haven’t tried this before. Nothing worse than jarring early and fighting the hay smell or worse, mold.

 

[bam0813]

Interesting idea. I have some of those net hanging drying racks I use when I’m out of room or for smaller stuff and now I’m thinking of hanging it on a digital fishing scale to see how this works out should be able to watch weight the whole process.
Another experiment lol

 

[Hash Hound]

I try to pick a 28-30 gram cola and hang it from a small postal scale and watch the weight. Once it's down to 10 grams I know it's almost ready depending on the feel of the bud. Once I trim off the stem I usually end up with +/- 7g or 25% of the original weight.

 

[Kerowacked]

Interesting idea. I have some of those net hanging drying racks I use when I’m out of room or for smaller stuff and now I’m thinking of hanging it on a digital fishing scale to see how this works out should be able to watch weight the whole process.
Another experiment lol

That’s what i’m thinking, digital fish scale.

 

[DRHarris]

I got curious last year and ran an experiment. The weighing was kind of fun to see the progress and didn't add a lot of time to the process. We cut branches down and notched them on hangers for trimming. Once trimmed, we weighed each hanger using a flat kitchen scale at the edge of the workbench. Subtract the weight of the hanger (marked in sharpie on the hanger), and we've got our "wet weight" for each strain. There were a lot of hangers, but we just kept a running log. Once everything dried, we weighed again before going into jars for curing. Comparing the dried weight vs the wet weight, I found each strain different:

Tropicana Cookies - 18.31%
Tahquitz OG - 30.41%
Vanilla Frosting - 19.39%
GMO Cookies - 17.32%
Candy Apple - 23%
Strawberry-Banana - 20%

Using 20% +/- as a baseline makes sense. If you've got big, dense buds (like those Tahquitz grenades), you'll prob see more than 20%. Obviously, a lot depends on how well the drying goes, but good ballpark exercise.

 

[xtsho]

There are too many variables to dry by weight.

 

[DRHarris]

Agreed. Only useful to guestimate your crop yield when wet. I'm going to try using a moisture meter this year to see if it gives a more uniform measure than my usual bending sticks to decide when to jar.

 

[Herb & Suds]

Sorry but it needs to be said
"about a pound"

 

[Kerowacked]

Took this bud last night, its in the window, mostly cloudy, weighed 23 gr. Twelve hours later 17.7 at 60% rh and 25°C.

 

[Kerowacked]

How about just tracking one cola while the plant dries as a gauge of the whole plants weight loss. Easier weighing one big bud than the whole tree.

 

[Kerowacked]

this is what i saw, a typical 30g bud loses 30% in the first 24 hours, 30 is now 20. For the next couple days the weightloss decreases from 5 to 3 to around 1 gram/day, resulting weight around 6 or 7 grams which seems perfect for curing. I haven’t found anything on the web about drying by weight but imo when the weightloss is at less than a gram/day its ready for a final trim and curing. Try it out.

 

[oill]

I try to pick a 28-30 gram cola and hang it from a small postal scale and watch the weight. Once it's down to 10 grams I know it's almost ready depending on the feel of the bud. Once I trim off the stem I usually end up with +/- 7g or 25% of the original weight.

It's a long wait.... and you can't blink!

 

[Kerowacked]

It's a long wait.... and you can't blink!

Depends on temp and humidity, mine dry whole or chopped at 55-60% and 65-70°. Not monsters but 30g gets to 7-8g in about a week. The blink is when weight loss is around a gram/day.

 

[DaFreak]

My guess is that every strain is going to be different depending on the "hardness" of the bud and not just the weight. To avoid the hay smell taste is easy enough without weighing things though.

 

[Kerowacked]

My guess is that every strain is going to be different depending on the "hardness" of the bud and not just the weight. To avoid the hay smell taste is easy enough without weighing things though.

So you have never in all your grows had a moldy jar? Probably the second hardest thing for a noob is knowing when to jar, first is when to chop, early smells like hay.

 

[DaFreak]

Never. I guess I must have been taught good practices to begin with. Like Bruce Lee would say, "You have to feeeeeeeel."