dwc420letsgo
Well-Known Member
Just pluck out the nanners, at this point the plant will not have time to make seeds so I’d try riding it out
Thermoelectric wine cooler drying and curing - DIY
- Thread starter Hook Daddy
- Start date
I did pick the 3 I found off. I let it go another 2 days and this morning said F it you're the guinea pig.
I decided to drink the Kool(atron)aid. The piece parts are sitting in my office for the moment but I want to get RH down in my 2' x 4' tent (day 88, day 41 of flower). The tent is in my garage in Southern California so temps are OK and I use a big Waykar dehumidifier. The garage is 48% and the tent is in the mid-50's but I've got Govee sensors in the canopy and they're reading 60-62%.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a small Vivosun dehu and, as best I can tell, it did nothing. Now that I've got the Pohl Schmitt, I thought I'd give it a shot. It's an 8' tall tent so I wasn't expecting that much.
A picture is worth quite a bit, I hear.
56.2 to 50.2 in the tent and 61.5 to 57 percent in the canopy. That's a good RH to keep bud rot at bay and that's huge to me because I lost a beautiful plant a year ago to bud rot. After seeing how effective this dehu is, I truly believe that disaster could have been avoided if I had used a dehu in the tent.
I'm looking forward to using the Koolatron after the harvest but thank you @Hook Daddy and all y'all because adding the Pohl Scmitt will help ensure that I'll have actually have something to harvest.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a small Vivosun dehu and, as best I can tell, it did nothing. Now that I've got the Pohl Schmitt, I thought I'd give it a shot. It's an 8' tall tent so I wasn't expecting that much.
A picture is worth quite a bit, I hear.
56.2 to 50.2 in the tent and 61.5 to 57 percent in the canopy. That's a good RH to keep bud rot at bay and that's huge to me because I lost a beautiful plant a year ago to bud rot. After seeing how effective this dehu is, I truly believe that disaster could have been avoided if I had used a dehu in the tent.
I'm looking forward to using the Koolatron after the harvest but thank you @Hook Daddy and all y'all because adding the Pohl Scmitt will help ensure that I'll have actually have something to harvest.
UnknownRemedy
Well-Known Member
I was planning to make one of these for my next harvest, is the 20 bottle fridge oversized for a single plant or 2? I currently only grow a single plant, and was wanting something more stable to dry my plant(s) while I start my next grow.
Edit: Nevermind this thing is pretty tiny
Edit: Nevermind this thing is pretty tiny
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Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
Im glad the dehumidifier works in your tent for now, not much worse than loosing a plant to bud rot I know. Welcome to the koolatron club and be sure to keep everyone up to date with the build and harvest.
I have two and these are fabulous for storage. My weed has never tasted this good for this amount of time. Thanks for all the time and effort you've put into us here.
Gotta say drying like the cannatrol is definitely different. Only 1-2 days left of the dry cycle and the sugar leaves are still soft. Don't really feel what I would call wet but not the normal crispy feeling either. Also the loss of smell is just like they say. Not totally gone but much less. Makes me a bit nervous that I am making hay. I did lengthen out the dry cycle a day since I've seen reports that the 4 day is a bit too fast. If this works I'm gonna have to build 1 or 2 more as it only holds a 1/3 of my harvest. Thankfully the other 4 plants aren't done yet but I think I'm gonna end up curing in jars so I can dry the rest in the box.
Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
I stretch my dry out to 3 weeks and more at times, should make it better going a bit longer if any difference. In fact I looked back in this thread, I loaded both mine up on Mar 21, so it’s been about 2 weeks with an initial setting of 72% rh and 55f. The set rh is 65% now, so this dry phase will take over 3 weeks. I have never been able to set a timer on the dry cycle, so don’t know where you’re getting one to two days left, it’s dry when it’s dry. It’s not a cannatrol so don’t use their timelines, this should take as long as you want it to. The great thing is once it’s set at 60% rh and holding you can let it go for months and it cures right at 60%.
My box does run like a cannatrol though. I custom built it and coded a controller. I control water vapor pressure which is just a finer measurement of dew point. So I figured first run I'll stick close to the cannatrol timeline and dew points and see how it goes. I would drag the dry out longer but I am hoping to avoid hang drying the other 2/3s of my crop. Plus I'm curious if the 4-5day dry works or not.
Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
Ok lol. Just trying to help. If your box is entirely different you should probably move it to its own thread so you don’t confuse people.
That is the plan just waiting to see if it actually works first. This thread is what inspired me to build it in the first place. Figure if it works great I'll make a thread. If not then people that read this thread and dream of building their own from scratch can learn from my mistakes.
Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
Ok, it’s just that people come to this thread, see your post that the result smells like hay, and think your talking about the koolatron and leave without looking further, so I want to point out that it is not the case. I’m glad this thread got you thinking and experimenting, feel free to post here, just please point out that it is a different beast when complaining it’s not working as it should.
Quack the Duck
Active Member
What seems to be the sweet spot for temperature? I see you've done it in the 60s and now 55, does it only effect terps?
I didn't say it smelled like hay. I said at this point I am a bit worried it may turn that way. If so it will be from drying too fast. So that in no way would be a knock on the kooltron or peltier type machine drying. Heck being able to dry too fast in a small controlled environment that does not have air exchange would prove how well it could work with the correct settings.
Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
I can’t say for sure what all it effects without testing, but by just friends taste testing it is close but the dry and cure at 55f comes out slightly on top of 60f. The longer dry also seems to be favored. It’s a personal preference as much as anything from what I have gathered. The one clear consensus is that dried and cured in the koolatron beats hang dried for about 95% of people who try both side by side.
Edit: by testing I mean lab testing, which I have not done and don’t plan to. I made this to try and save a few bucks, sharing what I find along the way.
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budzilla0815
Member
I have totally thought about this. I bought my mom one of those little wine fridges. It doesn't get cold enough to freeze. It also has a temperature control gauge on it. I was just worried thit wouldn't have the right humidity
pahpah-cee
Well-Known Member
I still haven’t gotten around to bagging up my last harvest. It’s been sitting in my fridges for 4 months now.
let us just remember that the cannatrol has slightly different goals than we do. I think most of us are chasing the highest quality drying/preservation we can achieve. We know that high temperatures will cause terpenes to become volatile. So we try to maintain the lowest temperature we can. 55F is the lowest you can reasonably get these thermoelectric powered fridges.
The Cannatrol 4 day dry they advertise is impressive but it definitely comes with draw backs. They achieve this by increasing the temperature. This is just one of the cannatrol parameter settings. I see no reason to use this setting or replicate it.
Regarding smell loss; this has been reported on all diy or cannatrol fridges. the explanation is simple: your terpenes are preserved and are not off gassing. It’s definitely odd at first. I’ve even talk to old heads who returned/sold their cannatrols because of this complaint. If you want to prove that the terps are still there just throw a nug in a grinder and then smell it. It’s a wild experience, the smell will hit you like a bus.
let us just remember that the cannatrol has slightly different goals than we do. I think most of us are chasing the highest quality drying/preservation we can achieve. We know that high temperatures will cause terpenes to become volatile. So we try to maintain the lowest temperature we can. 55F is the lowest you can reasonably get these thermoelectric powered fridges.
The Cannatrol 4 day dry they advertise is impressive but it definitely comes with draw backs. They achieve this by increasing the temperature. This is just one of the cannatrol parameter settings. I see no reason to use this setting or replicate it.
Regarding smell loss; this has been reported on all diy or cannatrol fridges. the explanation is simple: your terpenes are preserved and are not off gassing. It’s definitely odd at first. I’ve even talk to old heads who returned/sold their cannatrols because of this complaint. If you want to prove that the terps are still there just throw a nug in a grinder and then smell it. It’s a wild experience, the smell will hit you like a bus.
Hook Daddy
Well-Known Member
If it has a compressor it won’t work for this particular build, if it is thermoelectric it should work, although your mom may not be happy with her wine cooler filled with bud.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree the 4 day is too fast for perfection. Only reason I am trying it is to see how it compares to how I normally dry. Plus with this being a test run I wanted to make sure I could complete the run before I have to go back to work just in case something was to go wrong.
The smell is wild for sure. But in the past I've had crops that did the same hang drying as I always tried to keep the RH in the room the same. Just took 3 weeks to get into jars that way.