Starting my second battle soon. Questions + tips? advice?

[realhuuuman420]

SHOWTIME!

So excited! I really want to thank everybody here, this forum and everyone on it has helped me more than any book or reddit post could ever have. This was my second grow, first successful one, and all thanks to you guys. Your patience with me and my million little questions has been extraordinary. I really appreciate it.

So, I present to you the harvest. I think I could've left it for another week, but unfortunately, time does not allow and I wanted to have enough time for proper drying as well.

Total weight now came out to around 100 grams, I assume once it's properly dried it will drop to something like 30?

I trimmed the main cola-bud (on the pic, that thing is massive!), but it took way too long, so I just superficially trimmed the rest, and will do the final trimming before putting it to jars.

It looks amazing, a beautiful purple shade, sticky as hell. And from the inside, it's actually very bright pink-red. I accidentally snapped off a bud or two and it looked like it's bleeding

It smells amazing as well, not your usual weed smell, it literally smells like cotton candy.

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So here it is, Afghan Purple Kush Autoflower, 12 weeks and 2 days from seed to harvest, went through some stress due to nutrient deficiency at around week 4-5. The buds, if developed, are super tightly packed and have a magical smell and color.

I have taken two or three small samples in the past week, and I can tell you, it hits like a very pleasant and gentle truck. And that's without any proper drying or curing.

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BTW, I have found an absolute king of quick-drying methods, obviously not recommended, but for those times when you really need to take a bit from your live plant and smoke it ASAP, this works a million times better than microwave, oven, or anything else.

Air fryer. Put the bud(s) in something so that they don't jump around - I used a little metal tea infuser. Put it on ~50-60 degrees Celsius, between 6 to 12 minutes in total. Open every 2 minutes, let it cool down a bit. If it's small enough, 6 min should be enough, but you just check it every 2 min and see for yourself if it's ready for grinding. Of course taste and smell are not great, but vastly improved from other methods. Trichomes do not explode or die. Can't speak for potency, because I have not tried the final dried and cured product, but like I said, hits like a truck.

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Obviously still accepting any tips or advice you have for me for drying and curing. Right now the plant is sitting in the grow tent at 60% RH and 21C, exhaust fan is on, it moves the top buds around a little bit, but I don't think that's a problem, it's a really light breeze, almost unnoticeable.

Oh yea and... don't ask me why I hung it the way I did.

[Rootsruler]

Keep in mind that Trichomes are made with sheets of water and are VOC's. The most delicate of the VOC's begins to evaporate at around 70°.

[Gingerbeard]

There is a feng shui trick to hanging to increase potency, yield, and libido. But we won't get into that.
Real fine looking dope. I'm jealous of your colorful footballs, damnit!

[Going2fast]

Not sure about the air fryer thing but congrats.

[Gingerbeard]

Why don't you people call it a convection oven? It's like the Sleep Number beds are padded air mattresses.
Whomever came up with the 'air fryer' verbiage is the electronic gizmo naming person of the year.

[Bluey]

https://www.whirlpool.com/blog/kitch...ing%20elements.

[Gingerbeard]

I think that's talking about a mounted kitchen appliance like a standard oven. A tabletop air fryer is a tabletop convection oven. Don't care what Whirlpool has to say.
I care deeply what you have to say B-dog. But not a hoot about Whirlpool.

[realhuuuman420]

I've got something like this https://external-content.duckduckgo....6b5&ipo=images

Until I just googled it now, I've never ever heard of it being referred to as an oven. Granted, I have never heard the term "convection oven" either...

[realhuuuman420]

Is it possible that the bottom row of my buds have already dried and are ready for curing? They feel dry to the touch and crumble if I press too hard. I snapped a little bud right now, and had no issues grinding it up.

The top row is still damp-ish to the touch, and feels like a sponge, no crumbling. What does this mean?

RH on the bottom of the tent is always higher, and I actually kept the pants with the soil inside. Put a bit of water in it yesterday as the RH dropped a bit under 60%, and this helps sort of like a natural humidifier.

So RH on the top is hovering at around 60%, on the bottom around 63%. Right now the bottom is 61 and the top is 57%.

Lowest RH was 58% for a few hours last night.

I'm considering putting it in jars already, or at least the bottom row of buds. Thoughts?

Could it have dried a bit too quick because of the exhaust fan? It's strong, but not that strong? like I said, if you put your hand inside, you can barely, barely notice a soft breeze

[realhuuuman420]

Bluey umm 21-22C so good as well... but I'm thinking, especially the main cola which is on the bottom row, perhaps it was already semi-dry when I harvested it?

I haven't watered it 5 days before harvest.

So regardless, should I jar those which seem dry? I mean, prune it well and then jar it up? I smoked a bit yesterday and yeah, everything seems perfect... potency is through the roof, and there's even some good smell - but mostly it just smells like weed that wasn't cured.

But it wasn't harsh, nor wet.

[Bluey]

I aim for 16⁰C and 60% RH and that takes about 7 days wet trimmed.

[realhuuuman420]

So a bit too warm?
I just checked again and the ones that I trimmed are dry (so dry to touch, I have a couple of smaller buds that are from the bottom of the plant and not fully developed, those are already crisp dry - which I guess is normal, since it's mostly air in them)

The ones that are not trimmed at all except for the largest fan leaves, those are still soft and spongey to the touch, but they don't feel wet or sticky anymore, just soft.

The biggest one, the main cola, feels like it's perfectly dried now, feels just 'right' to the touch, and that one was fully trimmed.

Well, I'm gonna put the ones that feel dry in jars and see what happens.

It's possible that the slight breeze dried them too quickly. But I'm sure they'll moisten up a lil in the jars, and will be just fine after cured.

It turns out that it's really difficult to have perfect drying conditions! Another lesson learned, I suppose. I know now exactly what to do next time - first, use a weaker exhaust fan, and second, no wet trimming unless the harvest is massive and takes up half the tent (doubtful as I will be only having one plant at a time always)

[Rootsruler]

Remove all the ones that feel too dry. Probably the lower more larfy flowers. Put them in a jar and give the lid a couple of spritzes of water and close the jar. Your flowers should rehydrate after 24hrs.