Drying in low humidity
- Thread starter ebcrew
- Start date
Serverchris
Well-Known Member
Get a drying tent and a humidifier, other than that some people have success with the paper bag method in low humidity areas.
NewGrower2011
Well-Known Member
I faced the same challenge with low humidity and just set a large tray of water in the room and a large object in the middle, draped a towel over that to let it wick and aimed fan at it. Combine that with something like an Inkbird humidity controller and you can get a large water reservoir. I have humidifiers as well but if you don't want to mess with topping off or need a large bump in humidity then a larger volume of water is helpful.
Last time I actually combined a tent with hanging cloth rack within, and a 6" AC Infinity fan with its temp/humidity control and a filter to keep air moving and to regulate the humidity. The humidifiers in the room were to bring up the ambient so that when the fan was drawing air in, it wasn't dry but around that 50% point. After a day or so of that I moved things into paper bags (small lunch bags, not too heavily loaded to avoid mold) to further slow down/control the drying.
Worked pretty well, will be tweaking further but I found a single dehumidifier was enough for me for lowering things (in a house, already climate controlled) but to raise them it took a bit more. That's why I rigged up the tub/towel/fan deal - this time I just need that Inkbird for it.
Last time I actually combined a tent with hanging cloth rack within, and a 6" AC Infinity fan with its temp/humidity control and a filter to keep air moving and to regulate the humidity. The humidifiers in the room were to bring up the ambient so that when the fan was drawing air in, it wasn't dry but around that 50% point. After a day or so of that I moved things into paper bags (small lunch bags, not too heavily loaded to avoid mold) to further slow down/control the drying.
Worked pretty well, will be tweaking further but I found a single dehumidifier was enough for me for lowering things (in a house, already climate controlled) but to raise them it took a bit more. That's why I rigged up the tub/towel/fan deal - this time I just need that Inkbird for it.
TheSadVeryBadMadGrower
Well-Known Member
Low and slow is the way to go
Sfrigon 1
Well-Known Member
U can always use my 60/60 term I coined hehehe
ebcrew
Well-Known Member
So cut and hang the plant whole and don't trim until it's ready to cure? Or will the entire plant be over kill
Herb & Suds
Well-Known Member
Hang it whole
It slows the drying process
ebcrew
Well-Known Member
Thanks interesting, will check this out as well as a humidifier. I'll have to Google inkbird. But as far as your setup , I'm imagining a big shallow pan of water, somehow a rack suspended in it with a towel draped over it, with the tip of the towel in the water. How do you suspend the towel?
CanadianJim
Well-Known Member
Paper bags work for me. We use a dehumidifier from about March to November, December for health reasons (it has an onboard hygrometer so it shuts itself off when humidity gets low enough) so we max out around 30 to 40%. I tried hanging the whole plant before. It was dry in 3 days.
In paper bags the buds dried in 10 days.
In paper bags the buds dried in 10 days.
ebcrew
Well-Known Member
Man i just scoured google and cant find a definitive guide, or much less any sort of help at all at paper bag drying. Most people use it as a step after the dry as a cure of sorts.
Herb & Suds
Well-Known Member
You open and close it daily like a slow cure to moist leave it open drying too fast close it
I usually wrap the bag in a black lawn and leaf bag too
CanadianJim
Well-Known Member
Most people don't dry in 30% humidity, lol. Curing is just a slow dry, usually in jars. You can start drying in paper bags, just leave the stems attached for the first few days and that slows it down even more. After it's reached the point where most people put it in jars, you finish trimming, manicure if you're not using it for edibles, and either keep it in the paper bags or shift it to jars. Pretty simple. You can cure in the bags, but I usually use jars.
natureboygrower
Well-Known Member
You plan on growing for awhile? If so, just buy a humidifier or you will always have this problem. A decent humidifier is $20. The ones that give off visible mist put out more humidity.
madhousemomma
New Member
This is my first time growing and I am in need of some advice. Im in the drying process right now. Tomorrow will be day 3 and I feel as though my buds are drying to fast. my Humidity is 30 percent and won't come up. I do have large bowl of water but since reading your post I put a 5 gallon bucket in it and a chair with towel draped over it and was wondering if I need to put the fan in front of the towel blowing it or the bucket of water. My grow tent is an 8x8 i have a dehumidifier in there and a osculating fan that blows from the top of my tent down on plants/buds and two other small fans on lower part of tent. Should I run all of them on low? is that to much air? Once I do your method how long does it take to bring up the humidity? Do you think i have ruined the flavor of my bud? Should I just start the curing process and burp often? Any help would be great.
NewGrower2011
Well-Known Member
I bought an InkBird humidity controller for my current drying attempts and it's struggling to raise the ambient from 35 by much. Large tote with an apparatus to dangle a towel down into around 4-5 gallons of water. I'm getting around 41-42 at best. Inside my drying tent I have an AC Infinity fan with their humidity/temp controller set to 55% and it seems to be managing things. I'm to the point now where I need the drawn in air to be close to 55 since I'm not seeing the peaks I did when fresh material was put in the tent (first 2 days). I would see spikes to low 60's but the fan would bring it back down and then go idle again so that's working well for when you need to remove humidity. Once you pass the tipping point that dry air being drawn in becomes the challenge.
I'm thinking of a big-box store run for yet another humidifier - but I want one that is auto-restart/analog controls and large capacity.
I'm thinking of a big-box store run for yet another humidifier - but I want one that is auto-restart/analog controls and large capacity.
smokebros
Well-Known Member
I use a separate 2' x 4' tent dedicated to only drying, coupled with an AC Infity 4'' fan + controller. I keep the controller set to 60% RH. In the winter in my area, humidity levels drop into the 30's and 40's but the controller does a great job at keeping the humidity stable in the tent.
Buy a separate tent dedicated for drying and add a humidity controller and fan.
Buy a separate tent dedicated for drying and add a humidity controller and fan.
NewGrower2011
Well-Known Member
I think the other thing I'm not getting the benefit of the towel/tub-o-water deal is due to not having water running (dribbling) over the towel as it's running. I.e. a small pump in the tub and some type of manifold at the top to drip on the towel/wick. That may make all the difference. The wicking alone is probably not nearly as effective at raising the humidity level as a saturated wick/towel would provide.