Drying buds with dessicant (ala DampRid)

Now I know that a slow cure is the way to go for premium quality. But I had way too much free time today and I was thinking about quick drying some buds off my still growing plants to wet the taste buds. So I broke out my handy dandy pot growers bible (Cervantes' book) and he lists a few methods in there. I gave up and used the oven method today. But there's one about using silica gel packets and that got me thinking...

I learned a method of drying out mushrooms a long time ago using a product called DampRid (which is essentially Calcium Chloride). It is a powerful dessicant used for dehydrating whole rooms. However; its not harmful if you keep whatever you are drying physically separated from it.

Just a quick search on RIU and I see a lot of references to it for the purpose of drying mushrooms and dehydrating whole rooms. But nothing about using it for the purpose of drying/curing buds.

So I thought I'd post this to see if anyone has any experience with this. It has to be better than nuking it in the microwave or roasting it in the oven. And it would dry way faster that sitting out in the open air.

For illustration purposes I ran to Home Depot and grabbed some DampRid to throw together this minuature setup using some supplies I had on hand.



Here I have two identical, sealable and stackable plastic containers. One is left intact and the other is trimmed off to about half of the height so that it will fit down inside the other container. I took the rim off the one I cut and fashioned it into a little triangle to use as a spacer between the inner container and the bottom of the outer container. The screen is an extra roll of metal window screen I had laying around but you could really use any kind of air-permeable barrier.



Drill lots of small holes in the bottom of the inner container. You want them to be concentrated along the lowest area of the container. In this particular container that is along the edge.



Cut and insert a screen in the bottom of the inner container to keep the DampRid from slipping through. Secure it in place with a few pieces of duct tape.



Cut and mold a screen around the top of the inner container such that it can be removed as needed. A few pieces of duct tape works nicely here too.



Fill the inner container an inch or two with DampRid.



Place the inner container in to the outer container and rest it on the spacer.



Procure some ripe wacky tobaky. (Ok, so this is semi-ripe )



Place bud(s) in container on the screen and close the lid. Leave it in there until you get impatient and just cook it.

I use damprids to keep my humidity down i bet it at least dries pretty quickly. have you tried it with finished buds?

fattiemcnuggins said:

I use damprids to keep my humidity down i bet it at least dries pretty quickly. have you tried it with finished buds?

Click to expand...

This was the first try. But I will certainly do a side by side test when they are finished and post back what I find.

I have read that moisture in air is lighter than air and therefore will rise rather than fall. How this applies to a setup with DampRid below the buds is beyond my expertise. I suppose it depends on how DampRid works.

Questions worth asking
1) Is DampRid strong enough to draw moisture from the buds to actually speed drying time, or does it simply act to remove moisture from air thereby lowering humidity? ( I don't believe small drops in humidity would significantly lower drying times overall.)
2) What effect, if any, does airflow have on any impact DampRid may have?
3) Is there an optimum placement for DampRid?
4) Is there an optimum airflow set up between the elements? (I think airflow is critical in early drying but I don't claim to be an expert.)

I have two DR bags hanging in a cabinet and they clearly remove water from the air but not in any drastic fashion. I don't think it would dry it anywhere near microwave oven or quick dry speeds but it should be quicker than just hanging it out in the air.


Here's what I did for a next-day dry of some clippings
1) put trimmed clippings on wide opening mesh/screen - which was placed into a small tupperware container with room below the mesh for airflow
2) put into a small wooden box and covered the box with fairly dark cloth. The cloth was similar to flannel in weight and texture.
2) opened small hole in opposite sides of cloth for intake/exhaust
3) put very small fan (and I mean small - as in I ripped it out of a battery charger that broke) pushing air into box. (pushing air rather the pulling exhaust worked better for me in this case since I couldn't provide an air tight exhaust for proper pull).
4) leave for 24 hours (to allow as much proper breakdown of chemicals as possible)

After 24 hours
1) Trim a little better, break up big pieces so most pieces are the same size and put on a tray
2) Place tray on top of toaster oven set to 125 F (see note below)
3) Mix, shuffle, toss clippings every 5-10 mins
7) Remove when outer edges become a little dry, brittle. Also, you can pinch a bud and see how it responds. You know what a properly dried, slightly moist, ready to smoke bud feels like right?

Note: i started out with the toaster on the lowest setting. There aren't even numbers there. What I did was turn the temp until I heard the heater arc. then i left it for 10-15 mins at that temp. Then I turned the temp knob until i heard the next heater arc and repeated those steps until I got to 125 F. I went to 150 F but thought it as too high and backed down to 125 F. It took about 2 hours to get it smoking-ready. I washed dishes and did small chores while working the tray to pass time.

It tasted OK and got the job done.

tkdgr said:

I have read that moisture in air is lighter than air and therefore will rise rather than fall. How this applies to a setup with DampRid below the buds is beyond my expertise. I suppose it depends on how DampRid works.

Questions worth asking
1) Is DampRid strong enough to draw moisture from the buds to actually speed drying time, or does it simply act to remove moisture from air thereby lowering humidity? ( I don't believe small drops in humidity would significantly lower drying times overall.)
2) What effect, if any, does airflow have on any impact DampRid may have?
3) Is there an optimum placement for DampRid?
4) Is there an optimum airflow set up between the elements? (I think airflow is critical in early drying but I don't claim to be an expert.)

Click to expand...

Calcium chloride will come into equilibrium with humid air at some absurdly low RH, like 1%. It does use the air as a humidity carrier/transfer agent. In the setup you showed earlier, moisture transport will be "diffusion-limited".
Airflow will dramatically speed the process by disturbing the thin boundary layer in contact with both desiccant and the weed to be dried. This is also very much like why forced-convection ovens heat food faster - the insulating boundary layer is washed away.
If you do choose forced convection, I would have the desiccant chamber separate from the drying chamber, with air being drawn from the desiccant side and blown over the weed, then returned via a second air duct. i'd also place a filter in line after the desiccant, to ensure no droplets of calcium chloride brine get onto the weed.
On a large scale, extreme coolness would be achieved by using enough dampRid to mostly but not completely dry the bud ... making it "jar cure ready" in a much shorter time, and also safing it against post-harvest rot.

Humid air is minutely lighter than dry air, but the effect is swamped by diffusion in systems smaller than, say, Florida. cn

I just put a bud or two in a paper bag and set it behind the pc so the fan blows into the bag. could do the same thing with a blow dryer on low. takes about 4 hr to dry enough to smoke. the taste is crap but the trich's burn.

So it sounds to me if you're going to heat it then the temperature is the key. The oven method in Cervantes' book says break it into small pieces and stick it in an oven at 150 F for 10-15 minutes. Also not to go above 200 F or the resin will boil and vaporize. It was about 20-25 minutes at 160 for me. But it did work to get it to a smokable moisture content and I probably should have gone up to 175 or so.

I think you're right about the air circulation. Although I'm sure placing a bucket of DampRid anywhere near a batch of drying buds would do nothing but help if it aborbed even a fraction of the airbourne moisture. I've seen it dry out mushrooms to a crispy critter in a couple of days in a sealed container. In can certainly pull moisture down in a closed system. It's more of a process of molecular diffusion. Any airbourne moisture in the container would be diffused to the dessicant.... Up, down or sideways. In fact that's the way the commercial DampRid containers for closets and boats are constructed, to pull the mositure down and expel the byproduct in the lower reservoir.

However to your point. In the case of this experiment, if a very small, low powered electric fan could be placed inside the container to circulate air within the container then presumably more of the air would come into contact with the dessicant faster resulting in greater efficiency. Good thinking.

Ok, now I just need something with a fan I can destroy.

I tried just putting the semi-dry semi-ripe bud in my vaporizer at 195 C (383 F) and it's pretty damn good.

So there it is...I'm convinced. The very best quick and dirty cure is...

• Cut a bud off the plant and do a quick manicure.
• Apply the rule of thumb (literally)...if it is bigger than your thumb then break it into smaller pieces.
• Heat it up to at least 65.6 C (150 F). How you heat it up is probably less important so long as you can control the temperature digitally. A modern electric oven is ideal.
• Stay under 93.3 C (200 F) Above that, some vaporization of the resin is possible.
• You should be able to go up to 76.7 C (170 F) and still have a decent margin of error before it goes over the mark. But even that is cutting it close. This is the "be more careful" mark.
• The time can vary depending on the bulk of the bud(s) but it should be somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes. (Maybe more depending on bud density and oven size. Please don't ever do this to a large batch and fry all of the trichromes. As the post implies....quick and dirty.)
• Just keep checking it every 5 minutes or so and take it out when it's mostly shriveled up and kind of sticky, but not dry or crispy either. If you inspect them and the trichromes are shifting to a really dark amber then it's time to stop there and reduce the time by 5 minutes next time. Remember that as your new "do not go over" time.
• Then forget about smoking it. Smoke is bad for you and there's no reason to endure it if it isn't top notch. All we want is the THC anyways.
• So, why not put it in a vaporizer at a temperature a little above what they say is the vaporization temperature for cannabis. That is usually 180 C (356 F).
• Maybe go a little higher to compensate for the extra moisture but never go above 200 C (392 F). As I said 195 C (383 F) seemed to work great on my sample.
• The resin will be vaporized and any residual rough taste caused by the short cure will be left behind.
• You'll be treated to a tasty vapor that's about as good and fresh as it gets.

So that's from the plant to sailing in happyville (without a bad taste in your mouth) in under 30 minutes.

Right on Cannabineer. After typing all the rest of this I finally saw your post. You've confirmed all my assumptions. Thank you.

I don't really plan to use this method on a large scale, but it will be intesting to compare one dried with dessicant and one dried in the traditional manner in terms of speed, potency and taste.

+Rep and all that jazz.

The best way to dry ur buds for me is to have a clamp or vice. the idea is to compress the weed to squeeze out all of the moisture. So you compress your weed in a clamp or vice. Remove the weed dry the weed in paper towel to get the excess moisture out of the weed. Then repeat the process but turn around where u had the bud in the vice so it's the other side that is getting compressed and keep repeating the process until as much moisture is taken out. Leave to hang for a nite in dark cupboard with a dehumidifier on and within 24hrs u got some dried compressed weed to smoke. As you not heating up any of the weed your not vapourising or losing any thc crystals is the best taste. i tried many methods oven microwave etc. All of those the taste is shit and the buzz lasts for 10-20 mins max and after the buzz u get a headache lol

Evil Buddies said:

The best way to dry ur buds for me is to have a clamp or vice. the idea is to compress the weed to squeeze out all of the moisture. So you compress your weed in a clamp or vice. Remove the weed dry the weed in paper towel to get the excess moisture out of the weed. Then repeat the process but turn around where u had the bud in the vice so it's the other side that is getting compressed and keep repeating the process until as much moisture is taken out. Leave to hang for a nite in dark cupboard with a dehumidifier on and within 24hrs u got some dried compressed weed to smoke. As you not heating up any of the weed your not vapourising or losing any thc crystals is the best taste. i tried many methods oven microwave etc. All of those the taste is shit and the buzz lasts for 10-20 mins max and after the buzz u get a headache lol

Click to expand...

Not to mention a very sticky vice...

That sounds crazy to me. How can you ask me to squish my babies?

But I dunno...maybe you're on to something. I guess I won't knock it 'til I tried it.

Patience grasshopper.Ya spent all that time growing them.Hang em and forget em.

hydrotech364 said:

Patience grasshopper.Ya spent all that time growing them.Hang em and forget em.

Click to expand...

Thank you Enlightened One. It's all a matter of time.
In the mean time, I'm still sourcing an adequate miniature ventilation fan and working up the specs for an integrated ducting system for the Micro Dessicator 1000.
This is just the prototype but we're shooting to be in stores by Christmas.

MojoResin said:

Not to mention a very sticky vice...

That sounds crazy to me. How can you ask me to squish my babies?

But I dunno...maybe you're on to something. I guess I won't knock it 'til I tried it.

Click to expand...

It's defo worth a try the sticky vice can be scrapped but it only takes the crystals from the surface area of the weed ur compressing the middle of the buds are just going to get squashed in the weed. If you want a quick smoke if u have nothing is worth a try for me it was the best out of all the quick dry methods for high and taste. I tried them all even one method of wrapping in foil the putting it in ur toaster on defrost setting etc.I harvested yesterday just two plants of my own bred haze but i dont need to quick dry coz i got some bubba kush and some cheese to see me through. If not i would take 10 grams of wet bud and dry just to have something there.

Like you said you can't knock it till u tried it i would give it a go if u wanted to dry some buds quick. They say patience is a virtue

Has anyone tried drying with only Damp Rid? My buddy's first harvest is due a few days before we go on a camping trip. We want to bring some for everyone but don't want it to taste like shit.