# Best ways to cure and store after hanging?!



## Kfweedman420 (Sep 21, 2019)

I took a sample nug just now after having it hang for 6 days! Still have the rest up. Feels dry, but no snap of the stems yet. This little guy busted up pretty nicely but could tell it was still a bit moist/sticky on the inside..  burns white ash, no crackling when bowls lit. Pretty smooth for it just being cut without curing it.. can’t really describe the taste though. Isn’t bad but isn’t awesome.. will it get better? I have two fans below circulating the area, not directly on them.  pretty much the first time growing, had 3 other ones but took down early n fucked Up!


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## oldfogey8 (Sep 21, 2019)

The sugar leaves usually don’t taste that great. I try to trim as much of them away as I can but sugar leaves have a lot of trichomes on them so if you are not planning on making hash, RSO or cannabutter, I’d leave the ‘manicure’ as it is. The flavor will most definitely get better as it dries and the chlorophyll gets broken down. If it has been hanging for a week, and the outside feels dry, you could slow the process down by putting the buds in mason jars or Tupperware/food storage containers or even brown paper grocery bags. A slower dry and cure will give a better finished product. Nice job by the way.


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## Lesso (Sep 21, 2019)

I was going to say the same as O.F. put them in jars for a cure.


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## Kfweedman420 (Sep 21, 2019)

oldfogey8 said:


> The sugar leaves usually don’t taste that great. I try to trim as much of them away as I can but sugar leaves have a lot of trichomes on them so if you are not planning on making hash, RSO or cannabutter, I’d leave the ‘manicure’ as it is. The flavor will most definitely get better as it dries and the chlorophyll gets broken down. If it has been hanging for a week, and the outside feels dry, you could slow the process down by putting the buds in mason jars or Tupperware/food storage containers or even brown paper grocery bags. A slower dry and cure will give a better finished product. Nice job by the way.




Would big ziplock freezer bags do the trick?!?


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## The Hemp Goddess (Sep 21, 2019)

I'd personally recommend trimming the smaller sugar leaves off and using them for something else.  They really do affect the taste in a negative way.

No ziplock bags.  They do not actually seal air tight.  Pick up a few glass canning jars and lids.

Nice sparkly looking buds!


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## Eyeball Kid (Sep 22, 2019)

It's nice to see that someone is harvesting early. I'm assuming that the poster is growing outdoors. I'll be cutting my four plants down before dawn this morning. I took these photos yesterday. Today rain comes in at about dawn, so I'm getting into the yard to cut them down and hang them up. Yeah, it's early, but I'm not going to get them soaked and hope that, on the other side of the rain, I won't be dealing with moldy buds. The trichomes are doing well, from clear to milky. I don't want amber trichomes for that couch potato effect. A few years ago, I had a major branch snap during a rain shower on September 7. I dried the buds and I really couldn't tell the difference between the potency of those buds and those I harvested weeks later. Depends on the strain, I guess. That time, it was Blue Dream. Yummy. Observers are telling me to expect about a pound out of each plant. My usual routine is to hang them, finish with trimming (a lot of work), then let them slow-dry in ziplock gallon bags, then transfer them to quart canning jars for their final curing. (One year, I didn't air them out enough and had to toss a few jars of bud because of mold. I guess that's how some of us learn.) If they arrive at their cured "destination" as they did last year, they'll be ready for vaping and smoking in December. This has been an unusual year for harvesting because we've had early rains, which sends me and, no doubt, others, into a tizzy, finding ways to shelter the flowers from water droplets. I did get a spot of bud rot here and there, but not a big deal. Anyway. off to the back yard for some major harvesting. I might leave parts of a sativa dominant plant for further maturing, since that plant is a slower developer and the buds aren't that thick. It likely can withstand more rain than the plants with thicker buds. We'll see.
















...Okay. Done. The take was about one-third larger than last year, when I filled around 34 quart canning jars with buds. It's a puzzling but somewhat pleasant dilemma, having so much. Last harvest was especially interesting because I had so much surplus from the year before, I began giving the stuff away to acquaintances like it was candy. As the year went on, I had to give more away for fear that the potency would decrease as time passed, and because I knew that this year's harvest would bring even more surplus. I still have a large amount of surplus from the 2018 harvest and will have to dump the surplus onto happy friends and acquaintances. I won't sell the stuff because of state laws, so it's a win-win for everyone. I had thoughts about giving my surplus to chronically ill vets, for example, but groups of vets may be wary that the weed I have isn't inspected or certified, etc. If anyone has ideas, please reply.


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## Rosebud (Sep 22, 2019)

Hi  EBK, welcome to our humble site.  Ok, no so humble.. we rock the dank. I feel your pain, i am growing outdoors now too. We cover ours with a tarp when the rains are coming.  You know how you grew. Were you organic? if not what did you use on your grow? That will depend on if you can use it for medicine for people.  Tell us more.  To cure,  we hang in the shed till dry then goes in glass jars to burp for as long as needed. Then my outdoor grows go in Seal a meal bags. and stacked on a shelf.


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## Eyeball Kid (Sep 22, 2019)

Kfweedman420 said:


> I took a sample nug just now after having it hang for 6 days! Still have the rest up. Feels dry, but no snap of the stems yet. This little guy busted up pretty nicely but could tell it was still a bit moist/sticky on the inside..  burns white ash, no crackling when bowls lit. Pretty smooth for it just being cut without curing it.. can’t really describe the taste though. Isn’t bad but isn’t awesome.. will it get better? I have two fans below circulating the area, not directly on them.  pretty much the first time growing, had 3 other ones but took down early n fucked Up!



It's the trichomes that are the reason for growing pot. That's where the cannabinoids are concentrated. If you're new to growing, I suggest that you pick up a 30-50x jeweler's loupe and give the flowers a good stare. Look for the trichomes, the white to milky to amber dots on the flowers and at the base of sugar leaves. If your flowers don't have any (usually due to poor light conditions on the lower part of the plant), pass them up. When magnified, a trichome that has the THC/cannabinoids will look like golf ball on a tee. Chemists have written that fully formed THC trichomes that are clear have the highest amount of THC. But most people want to harvest later in the flowering period, when trichomes get milky white and the cannabinoids begin to transform into other molecular structures-- similar to pure THC. What I keep reading is that the longer the trichomes develop, the more that the psychotropic effect will simulate a sedative effect or a "body high." That's apparently due to the conversion of THC to more complex molecular structures that effect receptor sites differently. One more thing: expect fresh flowers to taste differently than a cured flower. I hear that they're harsher. Personally, I would wait until they're all done, but perhaps that's because it's easy to accumulate a surplus from last year's harvest. And another "one more thing." Consider herbal vaping. Your pot will taste better, the terpene fragrance is very noticeable (Pineapple Fields really does have a pineapple scent), and the effect is more gradual but still just as strong.


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## The Hemp Goddess (Sep 23, 2019)

You may want to look into using Boveda packs to help keep your harvest at optimum humidity.


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