Thermoelectric wine cooler drying and curing - DIY

ScentbyJasmine said:

Hey so why did you remove the connector

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Because it is smaller than the sensor so I could drill a smaller hole, no other reason. Once the hole is drilled and the sensor cable is run you connect it again.

Holy shit this thing is awesome. I put some small test nugs in early this week and have been stepping down the humidity 1% per day as a quick test (I'll do .5% with my actual harvest).

I'm only at 69% (started at 76%) but I vaped a nug ln and was very impressed with how greasy the surface was and well preserved the trichomes were. Still some plantiness but that makes sense since it was a quick dry. I can definitely see the potential here, can't wait until harvest next week!!

gibbsfkaleroy said:

Holy shit this thing is awesome. I put some small test nugs in early this week and have been stepping down the humidity 1% per day as a quick test (I'll do .5% with my actual harvest).

I'm only at 69% (started at 76%) but I vaped a nug ln and was very impressed with how greasy the surface was and well preserved the trichomes were. Still some plantiness but that makes sense since it was a quick dry. I can definitely see the potential here, can't wait until harvest next week!

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Harvest complete, and I think I'm officially a full convert to this method!

Over the last weekend, me and my buddies trimmed both my plants and loaded them into the cooler. I'm super happy with the way they came out, and feeling very good about the cooler method in general.

I started trimming on thursday and finished up last night. The cooler was set to 55° / 78% for the weekend as we worked to finish everything, so the first buds we completed sat at 78% for ~4 days or so. Not sure if that will cause any issues, the buds seem fine so assuming its probably ok but lmk if there's anything I should watch out for.

Last night before going to bed I dropped the rh to 77.5%. I'm in no rush and want to maximize flavor so I'm planning on doing the .5% drops as suggested here unless someone tells me otherwise.

One thing I realized is that my inkbird humidity sensor is the version that doesn't have WiFi. I work from home at a desk that is right next to the cooler, so I've been keeping an eye on the controller and haven't seen many major spikes (RH ranges from 70 at the lowest to 80 at the highest, but mostly hovers between 76 and 78.) Based on what I've read here I think that's normal but if I should look into that further please lmk.

Is it possible that I'm drying too slow? I thought the guidance was to start at 78 and drop 0.5% per day, but I also see people dropping 1% per day after a gradual ramp down initially. Also seems like the general target is 3 weeks so SFR people switching to 1% drops after a certain point?

Currently only at 75% after 6 days. So it would take me another 30 days to get to 60% at .5% increments. I wanna keep it low and slow but I also don't want to screw it up by dragging it out too long!

Hook Daddy said:

Lol, I won’t dry them too fast, I’ll just keep dropping by .5% until 68% or so, then by 1% after that until 60%, so that’s around 16 days, then they’ll sit for a while until I’m ready for the next harvest. This time before bagging them up I’ll probably drop to 58% for a couple days, then bag it up. And thanks for reminding me, I forgot to drop them at all so far today.

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Nvm, just found this post which answers my question!

@Hook Daddy OK I do still have one question though:

I started at 78, which means it would take me 20 days to get to 68 at .5% drops +8 more 1% drops to get to 60%.

Then 8 more days on that along with the 7 days I've already done, for a total dry of 35 days (which seems excessive compared to what I'm seeing others post here.)

Wondering if it would be safe to drop .5% every 12 hours from now till finish, or maybe now until 68, then switch to 1% drops per day?

Sorry for the 20 questions, just trying to dial things in. I'll probably start at 74% next time I didn't notice any issues with freeze outs in my system.

gibbsfkaleroy said:

@Hook Daddy OK I do still have one question though:

I started at 78, which means it would take me 20 days to get to 68 at .5% drops +8 more 1% drops to get to 60%.

Then 8 more days on that along with the 7 days I've already done, for a total dry of 35 days (which seems excessive compared to what I'm seeing others post here.)

Wondering if it would be safe to drop .5% every 12 hours from now till finish, or maybe now until 68, then switch to 1% drops per day?

Sorry for the 20 questions, just trying to dial things in. I'll probably start at 74% next time I didn't notice any issues with freeze outs in my system.

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Sure, there’s no set rule. Usually after the first 4-5 days you can drop faster with no issues.

Hook Daddy said:

Sure, there’s no set rule. Usually after the first 4-5 days you can drop faster with no issues.

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i want to thank you for this thread, its 90-120 in my garage where i normally dry, i was dumb this year and didn't plan an ac unit, so now im modifying a unit for just this, and you did 150% of the leg work