??? Drying technique with limited options ???

[Crow]

Hi folks - Crow here - getting real close to harvest and now I'm realizing that 1st stage drying, in November, in Maine could be an issue for me. Thing is we don't keep any room in our house heated much past 65°F in the day - besides which there is lots of light and absolutely NO closet space available to dedicate to drying.

MY PLAN - submitted here for your approval or to be kicked to the can - PLACE MY PLANTS IN hanging PAPER BAGS TO DRY

Cut and trim, leaving branches for hanging, then place the branches in double paper bags with the tops of the bags wrapped around the stems (maybe 2 or 3 plants per bag). Hang from the exposed stems. I'm thinking that the bags will allow air to circulate while preventing light degradation.

ORIGINALLY my solution was to continue using my grow shed as my drying room. THING IS - I've decided that it would be useful to harvest in at least 2 stages. I have 5 plants - all Northern Lights. The plan was to harvest 2 or 3 in the milky trichomes stage and the remaining, about a week later in the amber stage. Just to experiment with the benefits/or not of the early/later harvest
re: tastes/effects/potency etc. That means that my grow shed will have plants still growing while my first harvest needs to be dried. The paper bag plan might work fine hanging those in the shed with the growing plants but would be easier to just hang them in one of our living spaces.

Any thoughts on this hanging paper bag idea or other solutions that are worth considering?

• Do I need to double up on the sacks for light mitigation - or will one layer of bag to the job?
• Should I add only 1 stem per bag or will 2 or 3 not be too crowded?
• It seems wise to not just throw buds in the bags but keep them on stems to promote better drying.

Thank you for any comments and advice.

Crow

[9fingerleafs]

I’ve done a similar thing before but I hang the branches in cloth hangers place them in a corner or somewhere I can later place a bedsheet or a blancket to cover direct light. They don’t need to be in complete darkness it’s just protecting from strong light. For example if you have a shelf or something sticking out the wall. Just hang them under tHat and cover with something

[furrysparkle]

Light degradation is very minute during drying, I’d recommend hanging above your grow light so they don’t get too much light but you still have everything together

[Weed Pharma]

The first thing I consider when drying in Maine is the relative humidity- it drops to the 20s once we start to heat and causes the buds to dry in a couple of days- be careful not to over dry and kill the cure. I keep 1/2 of the sugar leaves intact and leave as much branches as I can to slow it down.
The temperature for drying and curing is best low, 60,s is good. My dry tent this morning was 67.

You will need to block the light completely while getting stale air out and provide a little circulation.
i can not speak about paper bags, cardboard- boxes etc.. as I keep a very small tent for that- even a cheap clothes wardrobe or Rubbermaid tote could work.

[GreenhouseEffect]

Hears what I did this time. Didn't want to hang in my shed for multiple reasons, so had to do it in my greenhouse. Put a furniture box on top of some boards to keep it off the ground, then ran a bunch of clothes line back and forth. I have a small dehumidifier in the bottom, for when I need it, and for a while I had a 4" carbon filter going. All you really need is a small fan pointed at the wall, but getting a small dehumidifier off amazon( there pretty cheap for the little ones) is a good investment, for when you have lots of bud hanging, and the humidity jumps, when you get a storm. You don't want to close the box to tightly, and buds will fall down into the bottom, so cutting an access hole is helpful.
I think D.A.A.S. likes to use the paper bag technique, and he says it does really well.

Happy harvesting, what ever method you use!

[GreenhouseEffect]

Drying buds is definitely an art. One thing I am learning, is to take a look at my weather forecast, before harvesting, then if I see a bunch of warm dry weather right after harvest, I try to leave LOTS of stem, to slow things down. If the forecast is calling for cold and wet, I don't leave nearly as much stem, so they get out of the danger zone for mold growth, a little quicker. Of course, if you heat with wood, maybe you actually have dryer temps, like weed pharma, said.

[Crow]

Thanks everyone. Temps & humidity will be easy to control. Typically the indoor temps are in the mid 60°s to low 70°s F and humidity never much less, or more, than the mid 30%.
I was concerned about too much light but based on your replies I think I can just hang my partially trimmed stems and tent them with brown paper. All actually easier to do this time of year - after the dampness of coastal summer with windows open and much before deep winter when the heat has dried everything out.

Has been quite a learning curve. Even having read and read some more about the process there is noting quite like being in the midst of it to have the mind go - OH YEAH, that's what they mean

Now - do I harvest on the full moon or on the new moon?

I'll get back to you with my results.

Crow

[Potted]

Hay crow,here’s 1more option,place buds in b.p. Bag loosely and place in fridge move and check daily till dry. Lol

[Crow]

Getting there

Crow


Bud Candy

[GreenhouseEffect]

That is a Beauty, Crow!
The waiting is definitely the hardest part, getting there, though!!

[Crow]

Here is what I came up with. This is 2 plants of 5. I'm letting the other 3 go a bit longer into more amber. My original plan here was to just lay the buds loose in 1 layer on the bottom of a paper bag. But I had more buds than bags so I built these racks - all stuff I had on hand. Took a few minutes of clipping and bending.

Next batch I think I will make my "rack" tall enough so that I can hang stems while still in the bags. Better that way as they are fully exposed to the air circulation and will not be touching each other. The bags are intended to mitigate light degradation PLUS they make it easy to hang my entire small plant off a cup hook

Helps that my colas aren't more than 3" or 4" long. Of course, I can trim to even shorter if need be.

Thanks for the advice.

Crow

Here is the basic 2 stack rack - with 1" x 2" hardware cloth - fitted to my paper bags




Rack & Sack





DRYING ROOM - a sloped ceiling in our living room. Fragrant hints of goodness to come!

[PRIMO]

Good thinking with the d.i.y. wire mesh racks

[furrysparkle]

Creative, you could prolly sell this.

[Crow]

ANOTHER UPDATE - A new version of my Rack 'n Sack. You folks probably think I'm nuts, or at the least, that I am overthinking this. May very well be right Thing is - I really only have one area of rooms in the house that is consistently heated. By that I mean 65° F to 71° F this time of year. Other areas in the house are always below 65° F. One room in our "heated " area qualifies as having enough out of the way space to hang plants to dry. That room is very well lit by sunlight. SO - my objective has been to create a way to evenly dry my 5 plants and not expose them to too much sunshine, or drafts, while they dry. Hanging and/or paper bags were suggested and I decided to combine the 2. The 1st iteration was, as seen in the photos above.

FYI - Most main colas were in the 9" to 11" long range - the big ones having maybe the circumference of a champagne flute.

TODAY's VERSION of the Rack 'n Sack uses the wire rack but in such a way as to allow me to hang my colas in the bags rather than laying them out on the racks. This means that the air flow is presumably better and the initial trimming was much faster as I was able to leave more of the colas intact.

See what I mean?

I just cut a piece of 2" x 1" hardware cloth to fit in the bag - with the ends poking through the duct tape reinforced sack. The hanging bag, surprisingly, keeps it shape very well.





The secret to easily loading the rack was to keep the long edges of the hardware cloth free from sticking out wire with about 1" of clearance to either side of the bag. I could then slip my hand in to the side and feed my hooked cola up onto the rack.




Here one is all loaded - This one has spikes sticking out of one size because I needed to optimize the hardware cloth piece I had. In this case I could only load from the "smooth" edge. The above version was the improved (2nd) result.




In either case - this worked very well. The bonus is that the little bits of frosty twinkle toes buds & trim, cold be tossed into the bag and lay loosely and evenly spread on the bottom of the bag under the hanging colas.

OF COURSE - if you have BIGGER COLAS this system requires deeper sacks then the 14" tall ones I used. In my case I got the last 3 plants in 2 bags
and these have joined the first 2 hanging off our sloped ceiling. The fact that I could easily load 3 plants into two bags, whereas last time, each plant required it's own bag, suggest that this 2nd version is more efficient. The plants, incidentally, had all the same yield and sizes of colas - roughly 6 oz. wet, per plant.

Hey - not for everyone but at least I gave you something to read and photos to look at

Enjoy ,

Crow

...and one more photo -