# Stealthy DIY herb dryer



## woOzer

*please sticky

Also, please dont credit me with this. I found it in one of the threads and thought it should be a sticky. Thanks.




WoOzer





*Well, after months of deliberating how to dry stealthily, I decided to make my own version of Quickgrow's Herb Dryer, which they sell for $365! 

*PHASE 1 : The Plan *
The drier is just a Rubbermaid with a carbon filter in it, with a fan ******* air through the filter and out of the cab. My only question was the type of fan used/CFM rating/etc. I discovered the pro-built boxes use only a cheap little muffin fan. 

*PHASE 2 : Gather Materials *

In total this cost me about $55-60: 

Rubbermaid container (about $15). 
Inline fan - $22 
scrubber - parts- $25, 
carbon- $10 
electrical cord - from a power strip (thanks, Dub.) 
shelves and mounts - hardware cloth leftover from scrubber plans and screws I had laying around. 

I had to decide which fan and filter to use. Well, after seeing prices on fans and filters, I was discontent. I came upon the SunScrubber, which I?m sure many of you are endearingly familiar with, and I knew it was right. Not so much because its sleek and bad as hell, but because its cheap and customizable. 

While on the Home Depot trip to pick up scrubber materials, I was looking at their selection of inline fans. They had 4" - 80cfm, 6" - 250cfm, and 8" - 500cfm. I grabbed the 4" (80 cfm) because my scrubber uses a 4" opening, and because I believe 250 cfms is too much for this purpose. It cost $21.99. The 250cfm was only $24.99. 

*PHASE 3 : Construction *
First, I constructed my scrubber. See this link for details: 

*DIY Pro-Style Compact Carbon Filter/Scrubber >$50* (by Sun is Shining) 


I traced a circle around my inline fan to mark where it would be placed on the Rubbermaid. Using a butter knife and a lighter (the absolute worst way to do this) I cut a hole to snuggly fit my inline fan. 

The fan was pushed through, with the fan blowing out of the box. The scrubber was slipped right onto the fan. 

The drying racks: for this, I stuck some 3" screws through the sides to act as rails, on top of which is placed appropriately sized sheets of hardware cloth, which were left over from the scrubber. I will be utilizing 3 trays, approx. 3" apart vertically, giving me a little under 12 ft2 drying area. 

I drilled a bunch of little holes in the lid for intakes. If these holes become an odor leak during the trial run, I will remedy this by purchasing a replacement odor stop furnace filter sheet, and place it over the holes, on the inner side of the lid. 

*How does it work?* 
I have run the first test with this machine and it has passed with flying colors. It dried the small white rhino buds from my 125w cfl grow in 2 days. They were crispy, but after being in the jar overnight, they have regained some pliability. 

Also, no odor was detected from the drying process. The room even seemed a little fresher. 

[Editor's note: it is easy and worthwhile to put the fan on a dimmer to slow down the rpm's and make drying a little slower. For best results, hook the fan up to a humidistat to dial in your relative humidty to a desired r.h.%]


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## Capt. Skinx

Holy Shitzu. What an awesome thread. THANX FOR SHARING THAT!!!!


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## Dyannas son

i was very seriously thinking about ordering one of these bad mofos off ebay but now i can make one way better and WAY cheaper they are about 150.00 dollars haha what a rip off..

thanks woOzer


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## SSwest

Has anyone on here used this method of curing/drying?  If so share your experience and how your harvest turned out.


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## theCre8or

I wouldn't call ordering it on ebay a ripoff.  I built everything myself because I didn't want to spend the money, but when you pay money, you are also payin for someone doing the work for you.  How much is your time worth to you?  

I'm just sayin...


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## dmack

Im amazed by the idea. Bookmarked this page for future reference


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## Dubbaman

interesting idea for a faster dry im going to have to build one of these too and since i just built my ONA machiene i can skip the carbon scrubber step and jsut do it with my extra 4" fan....sweet


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## Flyinghigh

theCre8or said:
			
		

> I wouldn't call ordering it on ebay a ripoff. I built everything myself because I didn't want to spend the money, but when you pay money, you are also payin for someone doing the work for you. How much is your time worth to you?
> 
> I'm just sayin...


 

Doing ur own "Put Together" is alot of fun I think !!!! 
What is My time worth is the out come of the Job !!
Time is always a Esseance these days and to build a curing box like Woozer did is Kool !!!     I will Have to wait til I can get back on my feet from my Surgery..

It takes Stoner to come Up with these types of IDEA'S !!!


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## harvester

no one here mentions that it kills the potencey and taste to dry it this way why is that mabey they just wanna sell the stuff so it dont matter to them.. but if you want your buds to be the best they can dont do this


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## harvester

harvester said:
			
		

> no one here mentions that it kills the potencey and taste to dry it this way why is that mabey they just wanna sell the stuff so it dont matter to them.. but if you want your buds to be the best they can dont do this


 and dont even try to say it dosent affect the bud cause its a lie . ive used this method vs the good ole hang dry /jar cure method and the stuff from the herb dryer tasted like glass and didnt get you high. but boy o boy was it faster


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## houseoftreasure

So... I see here there are conflicting theories on the notion that this is a good plan... before I go spend the money... Does a "rapid Dry" program affect the quality? I have used many a method of smoking, cooking and general consumption, but the ways of "manufacturing" are alas, a mystery. We are OMMP qualified and getting ready to grow for our own consumption and want to know the MOST effective and efficient ways of... procurement. We are set to be an internal operation so as not to have involvement with any one who will draw attention to us from LEO. Even though "WE" will be legal. So. In short, the question here is; "Does rapid dry affect quality?"


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## Newbud

Anyone wanna coment on it effecting strength?
Can see it doing a little by it ( the bud ) not having enough time to undergo the various chemical changes that i've read about but surely harvester's claim that it doesnt even get you stoned has to be pure rubish, i mean if its some good bud laced with THC your getting stoned, right?


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## DonJones

Harvester is really dealing more with the &#8220;aging&#8221; of the product than the drying.  Moving lots of room temperature air over the product is NOT going to remove the resin containing the THC UNLESS the velocity is great enough to blow the resin crystals off, in which case, just slow the air flow down by either slowing the fan down or increasing the resistance to the air flow, i.e. blocking some of the inlet holes.

Yes, drying it quickly will reduce the time for aging and the related chemical processes.  One answer for that is to harvest later when most of the chemical process are finished.  Another thought is to initially hang it upside down to finish the chemical processes and then put it in the dryer to finish removing the moisture after the aging has finished.

A tip that might improve the effectiveness of the process and achieve better drying consistency throughout the dryer is to put the intake holes and exhaust on opposite sides of the dryer, preferably one on the top and the other on the bottom so that the air flow somewhat equally through all of the product on the shelves rather than more through the top shelf, then less on the next shelve and finally even less on the bottom shelf.  Also placing the intake on the top and the exhaust on the end/side will cause more air to flow through the product closer to the exhaust rather than equally through all of it.

To make it more convenient you could use an elbow on the exhaust so that you could sit the dryer up on top of something and have the exhaust still go out the side of the area.

Personally, when I get around to making one, I will glue some 2&#8221; high feet/legs on the bottom of the bin so that there will be plenty of air flow to the bottom out side of the bin, drill my intake holes through the bottom, and exhaust it out the top.  I may remote mount the fan via a short piece of dryer hose so that I don&#8217;t have to mess with the fan when I loading or emptying the dryer.

Great idea!  It is really amazing what you can do when you analyze something and figure out how it works, then reverse engineer it

Don Jones.


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## WHITESTRAINS

for sure, any quick dry method does effect the quality of the smoke. in my opinion it doesnt do the potency any good and taste is poor when compared to traditional method of drying and cureing.


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## the_baked_caveman

i think that is a quality idea but i agree with whitestrains when he said that quick drying it will only effect the smoke


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## leafminer

Amazing. First class. Gotta give a rep for this.
You've reminded me of the 50's - my mother had a Flatley clothes drier, which was basically a steel cabinet with a 1 KW heating element below, and rods on top from which to hang clothes to dry. Warm air rose up and dried the clothes... it had a design fault in that if you put wet clothes into it, they woud drip onto the 240V electric heating element ...  :shocked: :huh:


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