# help me decide on my harvest



## city (Feb 20, 2009)

Hey thanks for stopping by.

Well I'm a couple weeks away from harvest and I have been reading up on drying and curing.
 I don't know which way to go..........
HELP!
 So should I hang and dry?
Dry ice method? If I do,do I still cure in a paper bag? Glass jar.?

Urggggg. Ideas?


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## WeedHopper (Feb 20, 2009)

I hang mine in a drybox untill it the outside of the Bud feels dry,,I put it in jars and burp it as often as needed,, per moisture buildup.(make sure ya keep an eye on moisture!!!)
Anyway,,it Smokes nice and stays fresh. Some go from drybox to paperbag and then to jars. Personaly preference. Personaly,,I dont see the difference between the drybox and the paperbag. And please,,I aint up for no arguments :ignore: about the Paperbag ,,use it if ya want.
I put a computer fan in my Drybox to exhust. I have a vent in the back,fan in front,,and I pull cool dry air thru the box and over the buds that are hanging suspended. On the bottom I have a screen for loose stuff and small buds.:hubba: 
Thats it. Keep it in your jars,,put up in a dark,cool,dry place. Yer set.


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## city (Feb 20, 2009)

Well I had planned on hanging them in my veg box and using the fan to keep the air flowing. I don't really understand the whole brown paper bag thing. How often should the jar be burped? And should the jar be room temp or in the fridge. Heard of both.

Anyone done the dry ice method? And do you still cure it afterwards? Woukdnt it hurt thc levels by crystalizing the water in it? Heard it does make the bud retain its color


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## WeedHopper (Feb 20, 2009)

> How often should the jar be burped


 Alot of that has to do with the size of the buds your curing in the jars and of course quanity of buds. I check mine the 1st few days several times if needed just to see how the moisture is. You will get a feel for how long to wait in between burps. If ya open the jar after 3 or 4 hours and they feel real moist,,you know to check them more often. Ya want some moisture to keep the bud from completly drying out,,,BUTTTTT,,ya dont want enough to cause MOLD. Its nothen to it..Just keep an eye on them,,thats all. Another words when ya 1st put your Buds in the jars they have alot of moisture still inside the bud,,ya cant leave them a couple days and not check them. When you burp,,you want to let the moisture thats built up in the jar,,OUT,,then close it up again.The weed is sweating out moisture,, inside the jars,, and thats how it cures. A little moisture in a bud is good,,,alot is not.


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## The Hemp Goddess (Feb 20, 2009)

I trim every bit of leaf material off that I can.  The branches are hung upside down in my closet with a small fan circulating air.  I live in a relatively arid climate and the buds dry fairly fast, so I check them everyday and don't let them get too dry.  Small buds that I cannot hang are put on screens. I don't ever use paper bags.  Once the buds are dry enough that the stem snaps, I trim the buds from the stems and they go into jars.  Cowboy has given you good advise on checking and burping your jars.

Harvest time is so exciting....


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## blancolighter (Feb 20, 2009)

I use the paper bags after I hang dry. When my buds feel mostly dry on the outside, but the stems aren't ready to snap yet (usually this is at the 48 hour mark in my dry house), I'll throw them in paper bags a few days. This slows down the drying process (cause if I hung alone, my plants would drry in 2.5 days and be weird tasting) and helps preseve the taste. When the stems finally do snap I'll move em into the jars.


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## WeedHopper (Feb 20, 2009)

I can slow down the drying process by turning off my exhaust fan in my drybox,but paperbags will do the samething as Blancolighter states.


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## 420benny (Feb 20, 2009)

When I put my outdoor buds in paper bags after hanging for a few days, they all stuck together from the sticky trichs. Then, the trichs got knocked off by turning the buds in the bags every day. I am not sure if I had too many in each bag or not. I just know they went from A+ to A- by using the bags and too much handling. Big, shopping bags about 1/3rd full. Part of the problem I am sure is the plants were hanging in my damp barn to dry in the beginning. I added a heater and fan which helped.


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## Alistair (Feb 20, 2009)

City, this time around I'm tossing those buds directly in a brown bag.  If I hang them up to dry, they dry too fast for me.  After I consider them to be dry enough (a stem snaps easily), I put them into jars.


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## city (Feb 21, 2009)

Thanks all. So has anyone tried the dry ice method in the freezer? Heard it keeps color and firmness really well. Then from there after 3 days goes straight to the jar. To cure


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## WeedHopper (Feb 21, 2009)

city said:
			
		

> Thanks all. So has anyone tried the dry ice method in the freezer? Heard it keeps color and firmness really well. Then from there after 3 days goes straight to the jar. To cure


 
If it keeps its green color,,does that mean its going to have that Chlorophyll taste? Just curious.


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## city (Feb 21, 2009)

No idea. I just know it is supose to pull the moisture out


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## The Hemp Goddess (Feb 21, 2009)

I know that it is not good to freeze your buds, so I'm not sure that dry ice in the freezer really sounds like a good thing.  Have you done a search for info?


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## city (Feb 21, 2009)

I am interested in that to. But if it gets to off the topic then yes post it in another thread then add a link in here.  Yes hemp I have been looking for it for a couple of days now. I know I found it on here last year but not now. From what I remember is that you put equal bud to dry ice in a coffee can. Poke holes in the top of the can and put it in the freezer for 3 days. The dry ice instantly freezes the bud without crystalizing the water in the bud. The water evaporates out of it with the dry ice. Suposably it breaks down the cloriform when it does this. 
 From there you put it in a dark cool place to cure.. not sure though.


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## WeedHopper (Feb 21, 2009)

I found this bro.  hxxp://www.drugs-forum.com/growfaq/1251.htm

*What is the "Dry Ice Cure" (Freeze drying )?* 

*What is Dry Ice?* 
"Dry Ice" is frozen Carbon Dioxide. CO2 will change from its solid, frozen state to its gaseous state without passing through a liquid state - hence its name dry ice. This process of solid changing to gas is known as sublimation. 

*What is Sublimation?* 
Sublimation is a simple process which depends on the fact that the surface of a frozen solid is actually quite active at the molecular level. In the case of water ice, water molecules are constantly leaving and binding to the frozen surface. In a moist atmosphere, more water molecules bind to the surface than leave, and ice grows on the surface (e.g frost inside your freezer). In a dry atmosphere however, more water molecules leave the frozen surface than adhere, so the solid dries out. 
The same process occurs with Dry Ice. As there is a fairly low CO2 content in air, the dry ice sublimes away completely, leaving no residue or liquid - hence its name. 

*What is Freeze Drying?* 
Freeze drying (scientific name: Lyophilization) depends upon the process of sublimation (explained below), and on the fact that like CO2, frozen water at low temperature will go through the process of sublimation under the right conditions. 
Dry ice has a very low water content, as it is made up of almost pure CO2. In theory it IS pure, but even from a lab suppliers, it will have a small amount of impurities - these do not matter for our purposes. In effect the dry ice vapour has near zero relative humidity. 

Now: (this is the important bit) 
When material containing water is placed into this almost zero humidity environment, the water molecules are drawn out of the material and into the CO2, raising the relative humidity of the CO2 and lowering the water content of the material. If the CO2 around the material is steadily replenished then the process will continue until all moisture has been removed from the material. All this happens at low temperatures, below the freezing point of water, which means that the material is preserved in a totally fresh state. 

*How Do I Freeze Dry Grass?* 
Use a container (I use a Tupperware box) that is twice as big as the volume of grass you wish to dry. Make a few small holes in the lid, to allow the gas to escape. 
Put equal volumes of bud and dry ice inside, loosely packed, with the dry ice underneath the bud. Put the lid on and make sure it is properly sealed so that the only way for gas to escape is through the holes in the lid. Put the box into a freezer, lid upwards. This is to keep the material as cold as possible, prolonging the sublimation process for as long as possible. The dry ice will begin to sublime pushing all air out of the box and surrounding your buds with bone dry co2. The totally dry atmosphere will begin drawing water molecules out of the plant material. 
Check the tub after 24 hours and then every 24 hours until the dry ice has all gone. When the ice is all gone -the buds should be completely dry and smokeable. If you find that they are not quite dry then put some more dry ice into the box, place the lot back in the freezer and wait until they are done. 

*Can I use a fridge?* 
You could use a fridge instead of a freezer, but the dry ice would evaporate very quickly so you'd need a lot more of it to dry the buds, hence the expense would rise rapidly. Better would be to use a cool box - one of the plastic insulated boxes for food storage when camping. Again - make sure that there are holes so that the gas can escape. 

*Do I need to prepare the buds?* 
It's better to partially dry the buds so that they are nearly dry, then finish them off with dry ice. If you use fresh, wet grass then you can expect the process to take much longer and to use more dry ice, pushing the cost up. I find that using partially dry buds in a freezer the dry ice has gone after about 48 hrs. 
What I do is give them a week of slow dry, then manicure, THEN freeze dry them. 

*What are the advantages?* 
The advantages of this method are increased potency and a 'fresher' taste. 
As the material is preserved in a totally fresh state, the THC glands suffer as little degredation from heat, light and air as is possible. No other drying process preserves the resin glands is such a fresh state as can be achieved with freeze drying. 

*Why should I freeze dry?* 
Freeze drying is good if you plan to freeze your bud anyway. If you don't want to keep it in the freezer then there isn't a lot to be gained by using the technique, as the 'fresh' thc will rapidly degrade as usual once outside the freezer. 

*Where Can I get Dry Ice?* 
You can get dry ice from most lab suppliers (expensive) but many industrial ice houses or ice cream suppliers sell it for considerably less (preferred option) 
Just try the yellow pages. 

*My Opinion Based on Experience* 
To be honest, In my experience the dry ice cure is a lot of trouble for little benefit, as the final taste isn't as good as you can get by slow drying and glass jar curing. Generally it's greener tasting and somewhat 'minty' due to the remaining chlorophyll. Strangely enough, some people like this minty taste and associate it with strength. (weird, I know - but they do.) 

*Does it really increase potency?* 
I have tried comparison by using a control sample, and freeze drying definitely seems to give you a slightly higher hit with a mintier taste than the jar cure, but the overall strength didn't seem hugely different. It's a connoisseur smoke, perhaps. In a blind test at a party with about thirty people involved it came out about evenly split as to which was the strongest, but that was a subjective test, and was only conducted in a very stoned manner! According to The Frank & Rosenthal Guide, anecdotal evidence suggests that freezing improves potency, which is why I got into the process in the first place. I'm not convinced either way, but it was a fun technique to play with for a while.


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## WeedHopper (Feb 21, 2009)

> To be honest, In my experience the dry ice cure is a lot of trouble for little benefit, as the final taste isn't as good as you can get by slow drying and glass jar curing. Generally it's greener tasting and somewhat 'minty' due to the remaining chlorophyll. Strangely enough, some people like this minty taste and associate it with strength. (weird, I know - but they do.)


 
Found my answer. And I think yours too.


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## city (Feb 21, 2009)

Guess so. I think I am going to take a little out of my harvest and get some dry ice just to try it see if I like it


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