do you seperate all your buds before drying? and you changed temps and humidity to increase dry time? just curious because i have never attempted that. i increased my dry time by trimming my buds still on the plant, i also left any larger leaves that i can get off easily later on the buds and all the big fan leaves aswell. it slowed my dry time down significantly but maybe thebenefits came more from leaving as much leaf on as i could rather than the longer dry time?
you have gioven me some fuel for thought there skunkdoc, i just may dry my whole plant without trimming at all next roud and see what that is like
personally mate i like to remove as much leaf as i can from the bud before i dry, i prefer it this way, i know some folk like to hang the whole plant upside down with all the leaves left on until dry
i have tried that but found it much more work in the long run, a greater risk of mold, and no benefit that i could detect
if you leave the leaves on they stick to the bud as it drys i do not like that its horrible removing them when they are half dry and shriveled up,
i really do not like smoking the leaves no matter how much resin they have on them, the final little tiny leaves i will remove before i smoke when dry
i leave the buds on the steams/sticks and hang them up until half dry, say 4-5 days then i snip the nugs/colas from the sticks, the stems are half woody at this stage but would not snap
i then lay out the buds to finish drying for a few days until first crisp, or sometimes i put them in brown paper bags to finish drying
when it first starts to go crispy ill put it all in a large container for a few hours to see how quickly it will become spongy again and to make it evenly wet ,kind of like a pre cure test to see if it is dry enough to cure
i start the cure as early as i can, i burp the containers often i will check them all the time to see how long it takes the crispy weed to become spongy again
i keep repeating this over a few weeks until the bud can stay in a container with lid closed and remain crispy on the outside, which means there is no more trapped mositure left in the middle of the buds, all though this time i am still smoking the buds as they go through different stages of drying/curing the tastes change, this also helps me to know just when things "taste right"
if you like experimenting , one thing i did years ago was dry a few buds in a sealed box with some silica gel and sand lol
it took about 4 weeks to dry, the pistils stayed white and some went pink that would of normally of been brown, it did not taste any better though but did look pretty
peace
