It's been a long time RIU. I want to PRACTICE drying and curing but I don't have fresh cannabis at hand.

Can I use something, not cannabis, that would dry and cure in a similar way? I want to PRACTICE drying and curing but I don't have fresh cannabis on hand. Ive completed about 15 grows which means hundreds of hours of actual labor. Hundreds of hours of research, seriously, you'd think I was studying for a final exam. And though I loved it, it didn't result in a finished product that Id want to smoke. Can you say "hay"?

I don't want to keep growing until I figure this out because it's pointless.

The closest I've seen personally and 100% can confirm was dry'd and cure'd real time by that person, was my boys herb. He was in the hospital and his plants were outside. They died and sat in the ground until he came home. So dry that we cut the plant and could smoke it. It had a smell and flavor, not top shelf but waaaaay better then the stuff I grew and I had everything recommended and followed the directions.

IF THERE'S ANYONE FROM NORTHERN VIRGINIA THAT CAN DEMONSTRATE THEIR METHODS AND ACTUALLY HAVE EXAMPLES OF IT WORKING. Like this what it looked like fresh cut and this is it after drying and curing..

Please help me RIU family.
Martin

Exactly what was your drying and curing process?

The most common cause of hay smell/taste is jarring to soon with to much moisture.

I tend to think the hay smell is often from harvesting too early, but jarring early could also be an issue. I got tired of messing around and built drying chambers out of a wine coolers, they work quite well, many people here use them. Takes the guess work out of it.

No practice required.
As close to 60 degrees as you can get and 60% relative humidity. When you feel it's time to trim put your buds in a brown grocery bag, add a hydrometer and don't jar till it hold's 62%. When you jar open your jars daily. If necessary open and put your buds back in grocery bag if not yet ready. You need/should burp jars daily for a couple weeks then scale back. It ain't rocket science. GL

MickFoster said:

Exactly what was your drying and curing process?

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To be honest.. I thought I did what was recommended.. Hang in room, some place clean, dark and cool. Mini fan but not blowing on them directly. When the stems snap it's ready for the jars and burping.. Add boveda packs..

I also used my grow tent too. Following the same process.. To be honest I know I didn't do it perfectly and can do better. But part of me thinks people deliberately leave out parts of the process for any number of reasons.. lol

Iriemartin74 said:

To be honest I know I didn't do it perfectly and can do better. But part of me thinks people deliberately leave out parts of the process for any number of reasons.. lol

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Not sure what your drying process is but I let everything dry in a cool dark place for 14 days or longer before I jar. Not sure if that helps.

In my opinion people overcomplicate this process, you can get great results using less steps to achieve your goal. It is also always possible that the hay smell is a from a not so great strain/pheno or, like Hook daddy said, harvesting too early.

60 degreesF and 60% relative humidity for 2 weeks. As long as the environment is perfect and constant, then the weed will dry out only to the point of that environment. It would be impossible for it to get drier than the environment, in other words. At that point, you can harvest and trim at your leisure. After it's trimmed up you want to put it into some big Mason jars and allow the moisture left in the buds to come to an equilibrium. After that, you can get some Grove Bags and heat seal them. Or, for really long-term storage, you can get some vacuum bags and then into the freezer.

Or, you can buy a Cannatrol cabinet.

20 inch box fan on med. pointed away from plants, portable ac unit and small 1 room humidifier. If you leave leaves on plant it slows drying time down too. Vent ac out window. 60/60 for as long as it takes.