Horselover fat
Well-Known Member
Why does wet or dry trim matter if it's 100% the drying?
Cutting stem to dry
- Thread starter trambles
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Chief_Broom
Well-Known Member
Not the guy you were asking but leaving the plant intact (ie waiting to do a dry trim) helps to slow down the dry. It’s just more stuff there to dry out.
UpstateRecGrower
Well-Known Member
I mistyped as someone after you pointed out, what I meant was that it is 100% the wet trimming, the trimming before drying. Green Leaf Volatiles are released when you cut the leaves (wet trim), that's why people associate the smell with grass or hay. Someone else mentioned genetics, that's partially true only because a stinkier/terpier strain would possibly still smell like weed after the wet trim..hello respected sir, can i ask you to expand on this? i get the feeling you know somethin i want to know
my gut says there is some merit to what you say, but i can't pin it down.
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Blue brother
Well-Known Member
100% this
mudballs
Well-Known Member
Ive wrestled with this off and on, the stink almost always goes away for me after drying and burping in vessel of choice. But i like knowing more so here go, someone check my work
GLV's
Green leaf volatiles (GLV) are volatile organic compounds that are released when plants suffer tissue damage. Specifically, they include aldehydes, esters, and alcohols of 6-carbon compounds released after wounding. These compounds are very quickly produced and emitted, and are used by nearly every green plant.
Those carbons are in chains, not rings...so these are mostly aliphatic GLV's...why is that important, we will get to that.
aliphatic compounds, the carbons are linked to each other in a straight chain whereas in aromatic compounds the carbons are linked to each other in a ring structure with conjugated pi electrons like benzene
What this boils down to is when we wet trim we do create organic compounds that do not oxidize easily....like an essential oil from grossville.
Aromatics we DO want notice ring structure
I dont know if this is gonna convince me to change s.o.p. at harvest, but it's sure given me enough valid info to consider...maybe theres a time in harvest where this matters more.
No, wet trimming does not ruin the smell.
I always wet trim before hanging to dry and you can smell the changes taking place as it hangs in a dedicated dry tent. It goes from fresh green harvest odor, to grassy/hay-like, to very mild to almost no odor at all. Then a good 2 week dry, jar it and curing, burping accordingly when time. After about 2 weeks the odor starts to develop and really come-out and it continues to develop in time. This is what I have personally experienced and I challenge anyone to find an actual scientific study published that shows wet trimming ruins the odor. I'll gladly apologize if I'm wrong.
And by the way, dry trimming causes more trichome heads to fall-off than wet trimming; you lose more and that can be proven by anyone that collects the trichomes from their tents or work areas. I'm not starting an argument, just squashing some bro science that's not relevant. Ask anyone that makes hashish from whole plants.
And by the way, dry trimming causes more trichome heads to fall-off than wet trimming; you lose more and that can be proven by anyone that collects the trichomes from their tents or work areas. I'm not starting an argument, just squashing some bro science that's not relevant. Ask anyone that makes hashish from whole plants.
Blue brother
Well-Known Member
Imo wet trimming causes too much disruption to volatile compounds before they’ve had a chance to settle down, every time you touch a wet bud it’s spraying terps allover the place that you’re never gonna get back
edit, cold temps negate this, hence the cryotrim machines that trim frozen buds.
whenever u can smell that beautiful fresh terps smell it means your Buds are losing it
edit, cold temps negate this, hence the cryotrim machines that trim frozen buds.
whenever u can smell that beautiful fresh terps smell it means your Buds are losing it
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Wet trimming does not lose as much as is lost in dry trim. When dry trimming the terpenes have already oxidized into terpenoids (not a bad thing, just depends on what you want for your end result). The end product/medicine/result for what you want from the plant should dictate the trim method. Frozen trimming is different entirely and does preserve everything the plant has to give. Do you actually own a Cryo-Trim & speak and from personal experience?
Blue brother
Well-Known Member
I don’t own a cryo trim no, my point was that it uses cold process to save the terps that would otherwise be lost trimming a wet plant.
in my personal experience after spending the last 4 years trying to find the best harvesting/drying/curing method, the best route is to protect the trichome until it’s dry, to me that means delicately handling and cutting down each plant and carefully hanging the whole plant upside down until its dry.
Properly dried trichomes don’t loose their terps anywhere near as much as wet ones, the terps pretty much bleed out of wet trichomes as they’re bashed about and exposed to air.
there is a of moisture around the trichome that acts as a barrier between the terps inside and the harsh environment outside, this is what stops oxidation of the thc’s as well. It is my belief that when this is disturbed (especially at room temp) we loose the greatest ammount of terps. Dry plants actually take quite a bit of agitation to release anywhere near the same ammount of terps into the air as a wet plant.
the same is blatantly evident when you touch a freshly harvested plant vs a dried plant
like I say this is just my personal experience and you obviously have yours, I haven’t got any fancy papers to back it up but it certainly seems to be a common belief in the industry atm
in my personal experience after spending the last 4 years trying to find the best harvesting/drying/curing method, the best route is to protect the trichome until it’s dry, to me that means delicately handling and cutting down each plant and carefully hanging the whole plant upside down until its dry.
Properly dried trichomes don’t loose their terps anywhere near as much as wet ones, the terps pretty much bleed out of wet trichomes as they’re bashed about and exposed to air.
there is a of moisture around the trichome that acts as a barrier between the terps inside and the harsh environment outside, this is what stops oxidation of the thc’s as well. It is my belief that when this is disturbed (especially at room temp) we loose the greatest ammount of terps. Dry plants actually take quite a bit of agitation to release anywhere near the same ammount of terps into the air as a wet plant.
the same is blatantly evident when you touch a freshly harvested plant vs a dried plant
like I say this is just my personal experience and you obviously have yours, I haven’t got any fancy papers to back it up but it certainly seems to be a common belief in the industry atm
UpstateRecGrower
Well-Known Member
Every grower I've met and become friends with or kept in contact with all have one thing in common.. if they did happen to wet trim at one time they no longer do now.. One of my closest friends started out dry trimming but when he moved to a new location he was afraid of mold in a damp basement so he wet trimmed and he couldn't figure out why he always lost the smell, I talked him into drying first even if it meant drying fast with fans to avoid any possible mold and he couldn't thank me enough after he did it..
All I can say is that in 20+ years of growing, I've yet to lose any smell from wet trimming and I know several local growers that do the same thing. The fresh harvest odor slowly dissipates until it no longer has any odor, then after proper curing the smell develops after about 1 - 2 weeks of curing and only improves after that.
Handling dry trim loses a great number of trichomes, far more than handling wet trim.
Cold processes, properly applied preserve everything the plant has to offer.
Again, it depends on the end result you desire, each method is different and the end product reflects this. Do you want terpenes, terpenoids or full spectrum? Take your pick.
This has been my personal experience, for better or worse. YMMV
Blue brother
Well-Known Member
I guess I’ll take loosing a greater number of trichomes than loosing huge slices of terps from every trichome.
but yes there are more than one ways to skin a cat and the majority of it comes down to preference
Horselover fat
Well-Known Member
I slow down the dry by placing the trimmed buds in boxes. Easier for me to dry them slow that way usually.
mudballs
Well-Known Member
I just fkn provided evidence of how it can...
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
I don't know any old growers that wet trim. That's one of the things most long time growers notice for themselves eventually. A wet trim greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to dry, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do. We want to stretch out the dry, while staying within the RH and Temp parameters we've decided on. Once your able to provide the conditions (temp/RH) that allow you to dry for 2 weeks (10 days isn't bad for a new grower), then you'll start getting the kind of terpy bud you've always wanted. After a long dry, you want to be able to jar those buds up at 55-58% and not have to burp much if any, especially if you give Grove bags a shot. You still need to get the RH into range, but once you do the Grove bags are really amazing at preserving your terps in storage, or while they "cure". Personally, I think that once you properly slow dry your buds, that's it, they don't get any better than that. From that point on, terps will slowly disappear and cannabinoids will oxidize and change, and the flavor will change as flavor elements disappear with the volatile terpenes, so some people may like how a certain strain tastes months down the line as more volatile terpenes disappear, leaving the stronger/longer lasting terps. I don't consider jar storage to be actual curing. Cob curing is a different matter.
Horselover fat
Well-Known Member
I'm old.
Chief_Broom
Well-Known Member
I like the idea of drying the plant whole but leaving it upright like the OP was able to do to dry. When you hang a plant upside down the buds all become covered in the fresh limp leaves which then dry that way. As an outdoor grower though I couldn’t leave the plant in its caging outside in the elements. I did hang it upside down in a shed to dry though all in one piece. I couldn’t remove the tomato cage I first used for support as a young plant until after I had stripped all the bud.
As to which is best wet or dry, I think both can be done successfully. Folks who wet trim successfully are obviously compensating in other ways for the reduced amount of plant material that has to dry.
From personal experience I think doing a wet trim (either full or partial) is easier because of the way all the still living leaves stick out away from the buds. But trimming wet can lead to over drying or drying too fast. Waiting to do a dry trim makes the trimming process harder but it helps with the drying process by slowing it down somewhat. Take your pick both can work and likewise both methods can be screwed up.
As to which is best wet or dry, I think both can be done successfully. Folks who wet trim successfully are obviously compensating in other ways for the reduced amount of plant material that has to dry.
From personal experience I think doing a wet trim (either full or partial) is easier because of the way all the still living leaves stick out away from the buds. But trimming wet can lead to over drying or drying too fast. Waiting to do a dry trim makes the trimming process harder but it helps with the drying process by slowing it down somewhat. Take your pick both can work and likewise both methods can be screwed up.
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
I dried my last harvest in place. When you do it that way, it's better not to cut the main stalk at all, then you benefit from leaving the roots attached and get an even slower dry. Leaving them in the pots is an easy way to slow it down by another day or two. The only problem I ran into is that the branches turn into "noodles" and all flop on top of each other, so you need to be careful to arrange your tops so they can breathe. This is easiest done in a scrog, where everything is already well tied down and arranged. Don't try to dry in place unless your branches are well supported because they'll end up on the floor.
Blue brother
Well-Known Member
This technique is known in the agricultural industry as drying on the vine I think, sure jungle boys do this for atleast part of their harvest process, if I’m not mistaken they actually leave the lights on for some of this too which imo would simulate drought. I’ve never tried it when I did hydro and now im in living soil it would be counter productive.
will you be doing it again? I’m certainly interested in seeing your work as I’ve searched quite abit over the last few years but cudnt actually find anyone doing it.
edit. This is the absolute best way to harvest if you want to minimise the disruption of the plant too as ur not having to cut out scrog net and pull n push branches about before swinging the cunt upside down to dry
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