Personally, I like to take it in planes from the top down, so first all the colas, then the tops of side branches, etc. so that the lower buds get more light as I'm trimming the tops, then I'll trim and manicure everything wet by hand, and dry the individual buds on a rack. Going by hand while wet means you can remove just about all the leaf material in a bud, rather than just the tips, and also dramatically reduces the time curing/drying, though the harvest itself takes a bit longer.
I have the rack in a semi-permiable tent to prevent things drying too fast, while still reducing time from cut to bag/jar to just two or three days. I generally just use freezer zip-locks for the curing stage, and, whether open or closed, leave them in the same tent on a different shelf; trim also goes in there, again, on a different shelf.
I feel this is the only way to get good, clean bud, and to go from cut to cured in about ten days without cutting corners. It would be faster to just trim leaf tips, but it would also take a bit longer to dry and cure, and the final product would be worse and less attractive. Hang-drying, I feel, results in a need to trim after drying no matter what you do before hand, and takes much longer to dry, resulting in more THC breakdown due to exposure.
Cell phone pic in the dark, but here's what I'm curing right now:
Also, you do lose more trichomes when trimming by hand, hairs as well, but you'll get the best fucking hash off your fingers. You'll also lose weight, since you're actually removing the leaves rather than hiding them, but more high quality trim means more high quality concentrates, which is a fair trade IMO.
NOTE: This is just my opinion, what's yours?
I have the rack in a semi-permiable tent to prevent things drying too fast, while still reducing time from cut to bag/jar to just two or three days. I generally just use freezer zip-locks for the curing stage, and, whether open or closed, leave them in the same tent on a different shelf; trim also goes in there, again, on a different shelf.
I feel this is the only way to get good, clean bud, and to go from cut to cured in about ten days without cutting corners. It would be faster to just trim leaf tips, but it would also take a bit longer to dry and cure, and the final product would be worse and less attractive. Hang-drying, I feel, results in a need to trim after drying no matter what you do before hand, and takes much longer to dry, resulting in more THC breakdown due to exposure.
Cell phone pic in the dark, but here's what I'm curing right now:
Also, you do lose more trichomes when trimming by hand, hairs as well, but you'll get the best fucking hash off your fingers. You'll also lose weight, since you're actually removing the leaves rather than hiding them, but more high quality trim means more high quality concentrates, which is a fair trade IMO.
NOTE: This is just my opinion, what's yours?