Alright, I know this thread is kind of dead but I'm gonna bring it back with an update:
Not long ago I finished drowning 7 bubblelicious girls grown 12/12 from seed in soil under a 400sl hps cooltube in a small cabinet environment. Throughout the flowering cycle, I watered as usual with chem nutes at full strength right up until the end. A week away from chopping I bought a bunch of large 3 gallon freezer bags with the sliding zipper thing. Once the plants looked about ready to chop and the fan leaves had begun to yellow in color I pulled the plant out of the pot by the stem and popped it in a freezer bag. I zipped it closed, with the stem protruding through the top of the bag. I used a little duct tape to seal it up nice and reasonably air tight to limit the evaporation.
I put the root ball with the plastic bag around it back into the pot. I filled the bag with water once it was upright and positioned in the pot. The plant took about a half gallon of distilled water. I zipped the bag back up around the stem and sealed it back with the tape.
Over the next several days, I topped off the water regularly (every day or two). The plant continued to drink, and the leaves exhibited cool looking color changes (purples, pinks, oranges, reds, etc) like I've never seen before. Some of the purples and pinks transferred to the buds! I left the plant in the bag for 10 days. By the last 2 or 3 days the plant had stopped drinking and the remaining fan leaves had shriveled up around the buds. It looked like it was seriously dying. I chopped the entire plant at the stem and hung it up to dry.
It didn't take long at all for the plant to dry. MUCH quicker than in the past grows with the same strain. After about 4 or 5 days of hanging, I trimmed the buds and put them into mason jars with Caliber IV hygrometers. I burped them once or twice, and within a week or two the humidity stabilized at 65% indicating that burping wasn't necessary anymore and the jars were ready for long term storage.
Conclusion: Drowning accomplished everything I hoped for. I started smoking immediately after trimming the buds and they were pretty damn good right off the bat with no real harshness or grassy taste whatsoever. The smoothness surprised the heck out of me. I continued to cure them in the jars, but I pulled out nugs here and there over the next few weeks. They got better and better as time went on. The curing process was fast, especially considering how oily the bubblelicious is. Less than a month in the jars and they were incredible. It was easy to drown the plants and it sped up the curing process significantly. I also got to smoke my crop much earlier. I'm a convert now, and I'm doing this on every plant from here on out. It's an incredible way to cure. My stuff is so smelly and tasty, with very little effort overall. I definitely recommend this method.
