LED Growers Forum

Drying and curing marijuana buds, how to dry weed and cure cannabis buds


Drying and curing marijuana buds

Marijuana resin crystals Drying and curing marijuana is a 3 step and the last process in growing marijuana in order to smoke it without damaging your lungs and getting the best taste out of your marijuana buds. Drying marijuana buds generally takes a maximum of two weeks and curing cannabis can take two weeks up to two or more months. Drying time also depends on where you live and the place you dry them. Places in a desert would dry them weed faster, and tropical places would take longer to dry the weed. The first step after harvesting your marijuana buds is the drying possess. This can be performed by taking the branches and hanging them up side down so the marijuana fan leaves droop and cover the marijuana buds. During this step you need to put the branches in a cool dark place [not humid with enough ventilation]. It is good idea to check up on the weed buds every day to watch for signs of mold and mildew and correct the problem if it happens. After the marijuana fan leaves droop down over the flowers and turn crisp or break off easily, you would want to start trimming off the marijuana fan leaves only. Even a better way to take off the cannabis leaves is to do it before drying the marijuana buds because it will be much harder to cut off the marijuana fan leaves after the marijuana buds have dried.
So, we recommend you to cut them off before you hang the marijuana branches upside down. The deal with this method is to dry it slowly but not to fast. If you dry your marijuana buds too fast it will make your marijuana buds smell like pine needles, hay, or taste bad. Drying the marijuana buds too slow in this first step is not a good idea ether because of mold and mildew will attack them. It's very important there's enough air circulation in the room so you can't do it without an electric driven fan. After the marijuana fan leaves are trimmed you want to hang it up to dry again because the marijuana buds will still be moist or wet. They should still have the little inner cannabis leaves so they can droop and cover the marijuana buds. Hang the branches again in a cool dark place with proper ventilation until the little marijuana leaves and bud tips turn crisp when you touch them. It is then time to remove the marijuana buds from the branch and remove the rest of the leaf material as best as possible. This is what is referred to as "manicuring" of marijuana buds. But as said before it's better if you do this before you hang them to dry. At this point the marijuana buds should be a little moist, including the inside of them. Some can be smoke-able at this point, but if you wait till the next two processes you can get even better smelling and tasting marijuana buds.

Bagging the marijuana buds

After the marijuana buds are trimmed [and a little moist still] you would want to dry them some more in the paper bag step. The best choice would be the brown shopping bags found at a supermarket, because they are not bleached [the stuff you don't want in your marijuana buds]. This is another tricky step. Put the trimmed cannabis buds in the brown bag loosely and its best not to fill it more than 3 to 4 inches | 7.5 to 10 cm from the bottom. It is not necessary at this time to close the bag [still need to prevent mildew and mold]. When the marijuana buds are in the bag you would want to check every day to rotate the marijuana buds in the bag so they dry evenly.This can be achieved by shifting positions of the marijuana buds, turning them ever so often, or shaking the bag. As the marijuana buds dry they will naturally compact into the self-preserving state that is mostly desired. At this time that the marijuana buds can be more compacted together and the bag can be folded close. They should now be fully smoke-able, though perhaps still! slightly moist in the middle. A big reminder that every climate differs and may take more or less time. There is nothing better than repeated, hands-on checking to prevent damage to the marijuana buds from mold and mildew.
Dry New york diesel marijuana buds
Curing the marijuana buds

The last step is to create a way to bring out the full flavour and best smoke from the marijuana buds. This can be done by using an air tight jar or similar. Put the dried marijuana buds into the jar loosely [do not compact them and cover them]. It is very important in the early jar-stage to check the marijuana buds at least once a day to replace the air, take them out [this helps dry evenly and put them back in a different order]. This should be done for 7 to10 days then it can be done lest often. After 7 days all you need to do is open the jar and check the marijuana buds on a daily basis for mold and mildew. If mold and mildew is found in this step. Take the marijuana buds with mold or mildew out of the batch [throw away and put the rest back in a brown bag for a few more days] then the jar step can be repeated. This step can take from two weeks to two months depending on how you want your cannabis buds to develop its distinctive characteristics. The longer the better. A bud is completely dry, cured, and ready for consumption when the stem in the middle of the bud snaps easily with the fingers. The snap is easy to detect with practice. The marijuana buds now can be sealed and stored for a really long period of time. Lastly there are many ways to dry marijuana buds, but this is the best method yet we use and never failed us.

Hi Ledbud,

Thanks for this rundown of drying and curing. I came across Roseman's experiences from his Bubbleponics tutorial, which I think adds to your post nicely.

HARVESTING AND CURING

I start by finding two boxes, one to put the large fan leaves in, to make oil later, and one box for the trim leaves, the leaves that grow out of the buds with trichiomes on them. The trim leaves with trichomes are for making Hash later.

I bring branches to the kitchen table and trim (also called manicure) them, by cutting off the leaves that are growing out of the buds. I trim them very very closely for several reasons.
1, they dry faster.
2, if there is any chlorophyll taste or chemical taste to be found, it will be in the leaves and not in the pistils, calyxes or flowers.
3, I am not trying to achieve the most WEIGHT or Quantity, I am trying to achieve QUALITY!
4, I can worry less about bud mold. If I leave large leaves on the buds, the leaves could possibly hold moisture in the buds and then mold on me.
5, Well manicured buds are more attractive to look at.

You will need very sharp scissors. Some growers wear rubber gloves, and after completing the trimming, they freeze the gloves, and the trichomes that stuck to the gloves will peel off in a thin sheet of plastic like HASH. YUM -YUM. You will also want to have a straight razor blade to scrape the scissor blades. What you scrape off you will want to smoke in a pipe, two hits will blow your mind.

After I trim them, I sort them by size. Very small popcorn buds and fluff buds with no significant stem on them, go onto box lids to dry.
Buds with stems get hung up, according to size, separating very large ones from the smaller ones. I want the least amount of stem left on them. They need to be in low humidity, in complete darkness or at least in very low light and not in direct light, they need to be in air that is well circulated and moving, but not blowing directly on them. The enemies of the THC and buds are strong light, heat, dampness, mold, and animals and insects.
I hang them to dry and be sure they do not touch each other to hold any moisture.
I do blow a circulating fan OVER them, but not on them. The sides of the boxes prevent the fan's air from blowing directly on them.

The popcorn buds and fluff buds that are laying on box lids, and not touching each other get stirred and turned over daily. They take at least 3 and no more than 4 days to dry. These are not what we call the nugs or nuggets, or very tight dense buds. They never had a stem.

My smaller buds, on skinny stems dry for more than 4 days and less than 6 days.
My larger buds dry for 6 or 7 or 8 days, depending on the thickness of the stem, the bud and the stem length.

You will read in many places to dry them until the stem will easily "snap" and be very dry. If you do that, the buds will need re-moistening again later.
I dry mine the number of days I mentioned above and disregard the stem easily snapping. I have completed 8 grows total, and each grow taught me to not be as concerned with how dry the stem got, but how dry the bud got.

AFTER I dry them the prescribed time, I remove them from the boxes, and cut as much STEM off as I possibly can. I then put my nugs in air tight containers, I use large mouth mason glass jars, same as most other growers use. Every day for 30 days, I burp them, or open the jar, shake and stir it a couple seconds, smell it, and reseal it. IF it stinks, IF it smells funny, like moldy, IF the jar sweats, I dry the contents a complete day again. They have to be burped 30 days in a row. That 30 days in a jar is called CURING.


We DRY pot, so we can CURE it.

We CURE pot, to make it taste sweeter, smell sweeter, to avoid bud-mold, to make it more smokable or burnable, to get the chemical and chlorophyll taste out, and to increase the potency. A GOOD cure takes 4 weeks, and some connoisseurs cure it up to 6 to 8 weeks.

The idea behind curing was learned from tobacco growers. Curing is a biological process of allowing the SUGARS and STARCHES to change into something MORE pleasant to the taste and smell. Normally the SUGARS and STARCHES taste HARSH and not so pleasant. To grow, Plants need SUGARS that convert into starches from Fertilizers and sunlight. Curing also removes a lot of chlorophyll or the chlorophyll taste that is sort of a grassy leafy medicine chemical taste and leaves a sweet tasty pleasant taste.
Also, we cure pot to avoid MOLD that can come within 30 days AFTER Drying.

We cure pot in jars, in darkness, in a cool place. After being placed in the jar, we store them in a dark cool place, then we re-open the jar once a day, smell it, inspect it, let it breathe for a few seconds and then re-seal it. IF we smell an unpleasant "nose pinching" smell, or see white growth, we need to immediately remove it from the jar and DRY it some more for a few more days.

When you first harvest the buds, save some moist large stems in the refrigerator, in a baggie. If you dry it too much, you can add a small piece of stem back, to re moisten it some.

I have CURED pot one week in jars, and tasted it, and then Cured it 4 weeks and tasted it. If you will try the same experiment, or ask any experienced grower, you'll learn (taste) the difference. It is much more potent, and much sweeter tasting, and smells much better too.

Hi teetee
very good info mate.
I use my trimming to make cake and they very handy when I am out or when cant smoke because of family come over.
I only smoke buds that over 2 months in jar. 1000% taste better sweet and stronger.