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How To Dry And
Cure Marijuana
After you have properly
trimmed your medical marijuana you will want to give it a
proper dry and cure.
The process of drying and curing marijuana can and will
effect the quality of the final product.
The best dry is usually a slow dry. Drying too fast will
lock in chlorophyll, nutrient residuals and other things
that a slow dry helps remove.
You also want a fairly cool and well ventilated room, 60 -
70 degrees is about ideal. A good fan to remove gas build up
in the dry area will also help improve flavor and prevent
mold.
As marijuana and other plant life decomposes and breaks down
it produces carbon dioxide gas. It can smell like a bail of
straw or alphalpha and it can make your final product taste
and smell funny. Proper ventilation will eliminate this
problem.
To get a nice slow dry you will need to control the
humidity. Depending on the time of year you may need a
humidifier or a de-humidifier. If it's cool and rainy or too
warm you may even need something to control the temperature.
Once you get the climate control tuned in you need to
put up lines to hang your buds on. Some people hang the
entire plant upside down because they believe the THC will
flow from the roots into the buds. That is one of the many
myths about growing marijuana. THC does not flow in the
marijuana plant. The roots have such a minimal amount of THC
that even if it did flow it would be useless anyway. |
THC forms in the trichomes on the mature flowers of the
marijuana plant. That's where the good stuff is for most
patients. This is what hash, hash oil and hemp oil is made
from. It forms on the flowers and stays on the flowers until
it's removed by humans or decomposes into the ground etc.
Hanging your plants upside down with the roots on also tends
to get dirt on your marijuana flowers. Nobody likes dirty
marijuana.
Many people use fishing line or other similar string and run
it from one side of the area to the other and back again.
Leave enough space between lines to get decent ventilation.
Once you have your dry room or area set up you are ready to
trim and hang your marijuana. Space the trimmed flowers out
so they aren't touching each other across the lines. Set up
a fan to keep the air in the room properly circulated. Make
sure to sweep the floor and clean the entire room well
before you hang your marijuana. Dirt particles can easily
stick to the sticky trichomes on marijuana buds.
Once you have everything trimmed and hung shoot for a
humidity of about 40% if you can. 50 is acceptable but much
higher than that the first day or 2 can promote mold inside
the denser marijuana buds. The denser the buds are the
longer you want to keep the humidity around 40%. Indica and
Indica dominate strains that have very tight dense flowers
are usually more prone to inner bud mold while hanging.
Once your medical marijuana
flowers begin to feel a little dry and slightly crispy on
the outside let the humidity come up to 50 - 55%. Keep the
room ventilated and the air circulated at all stages so far.
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You want to keep the buds in this stage for at least a week,
2 if possible. Some strains require more than 2 weeks. The
longer growing strains often have more nutrient residuals to
release and do better with a longer cure time.
By drying like this you are really getting a "pre cure" on
your medical marijuana.
Once you have given the marijuana a proper dry time bring
the room down to 50% humidity for 4 hours or so. It's best
to do this on a dry day unless you have a dehumidifier. Once
the marijuana stems snap but not a crispy snap it's usually
ready to jar up. The flowers should still have a little
moisture in them but not a lot. It should be about as dry as
you like to get it when you like to smoke it but just a tad
moister.
Open the jars every day for a minute or so until the buds
are the perfect moisture. After a week or 2 they are usually
cured and ready to smoke. After 3 weeks in the jar they are
usually premo.
Keeping your medical marijuana in a glass jar helps preserve
quality and flavor.
This is the quickest and most effective way I have found to
dry and cure marijuana and get a high quality product. |
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