Drying/Curing Cannabis

DO NOT OVER DRY your cannabis. I see new growers over drying their cannabis a lot more frequently than under drying it. Think of good flower you have smoked before. You should need to use a grinder to grind it up properly. If you can grind it by rubbing between your fingers it is too dry.

Relative humidity should be 57-60% in your drying room. If your humidity is lower than 55% hang a wet towel or run a small humidifier in the dry area. In Canada, during the winter, my RH will be as low as 30% with the furnace running. Drying buds this quickly will cause terpenes to volatilize off, destroying much of the flavour you have worked so hard to create. Don’t over dry and don’t dry too quickly! I recommend the use of a humidity controller paired with a humidifier for drying in cold climates or a de-humidifier for humid climates. In Canada I typically only need a humidifier October – April and can get away with my house AC alone in the summer.

Drying Cannabis should take a minimum of 5-8 days depending on the ambient humidity and temperature in your grow room. 60F and 60% RH is a commonly accepted target for drying.

The Snap Test is one way to determine if your cannabis is ready for curing. Try to bend a medium-sized stem. If it bends easily and feels fresh you require more drying time. If it starts to crack but does not break you are ready for curing. If bending a stem causes it to snap completely you may have over-dried your cannabis, you screwed up. Don’t worry it can be rehydrated using 62% Boveda Packs at the cost of some lost terpenes.

There should be a very small amount of airflow in the room to provide fresh air without drying the plants too quickly. Drying rooms should be dark (e.g. windows taped off with garbage bags) to prevent UV damage to the sensitive trichomes.

Handle the plants with care during this stage. Trichome “heads” contain the majority of the plants terpenes and cannabinoids. As shown in the video below trichomes are very brittle and the heads break off very easily. Try to only touch the stems of the plants.

Storage racks and Laundry Drying Racks are my favourite DIY method for hanging cannabis in a dry room. It is easiest to hang individual colas by a small branch left when trimming. Herb Drying racks can also be used as a purpose built solution.

The most simple method of drying is hanging colas from string, but the reality is you won’t always have a V on top of a stem to hang over the string. I recently saw a neat DIY drying method on reddit using coat hangers and binder clips. Credit to user /the_KushLife for this picture. You can see he left the fan leaves on before drying, meaning he will be doing a dry trim as opposed to the wet trim. Both work well. Wet trim is less work while dry trim gets you a cleaner looking final product. I prefer a hybrid of the two, doing a quick one over wet trim and then taking my time on a dry trim for the top colas and extracting the rest into bubble hash.

Once your plants are dry and you’ve done a final dry trim it is time for curing in mason jars. For large harvests or people who like to automate things you may want to look into the Cannabis Auto Cure System. Curing is an essential part of any cannabis that will be smoked as it allows the chlorophyll in the plant matter to break down. Those making flower rosin can skip the curing step.

Add 1 Ounce (~28g) to every 32 oz (1L) mason jar. Use a Kitchen Scale with a high capacity so you can zero the weight of the jar. This will allow you to track yield in your grow journal. Taking notes is essential to becoming a better grower.

The jars should be burped daily for the first two weeks. To burp the jars you open them for 1 – 30 minutes to release gases that build up during the curing process. Gently shake the jars to prevent clumping and promote air flow. After 3 weeks you may notice the smell start to improve/change. After 4 weeks your cannabis is at its peak for combustion.

The Doctor’s Guide