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DRYING YOUR (LARGE) OUTDOOR HARVEST

Endur

Well-known member
Veteran
When I did my guerrilla grows I dried them in the forest.

did anywhere from 10-30 pounds, on different occasions.

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Plants were harvested, broke down into manageable size to hang.
Hung for 8-10 days, then bagged into turkey bags, and hauled home to trim and cure.

peace
Endur
 
B

BasementGrower

i keep seeing this.. fuckin drying outdoors.. i cant bring myself to do it.. i had tried this.. and compared to indoor drying.. i lost alot of THC to CBDs just from drying outdoors.. im assuming .. not lab tests.. but the outdoor dried wasnt as potent?
 

hamstring

Well-known member
Veteran
There are many problems to drying outdoors but i dont think loosing potency is one of them. Just my two cents.

Drying 20lbs in a spare bedroom with out a carbon filter running 24/7 will be tough. The smell will permeate the whole house that I can say for sure. I dont have a good solution I would love to hear one as its been brought up many times.

Its tough to bring in 20 lbs all at once and keep everything on the down low in a urban environment. Sure if you live on a large track of land but on a city lot, tough.
 

ghostmade

Active member
Veteran
last outdoo harvey i pulled (been a minute),i wet trim anything that wasent hash worthy bout a tent like 12 x 12 and hung them there with drierite on the floor and those big ass silica packs they use dried like this for 3 days then turkey bag them out
it lost about half the weight(easy'r to pak out and its better to getcaught with half the weight right?;) )
cool thing is that the buds were real drie on the outside after 3 days but wheni got home and unpacked them there were moist again(9 hours later)
trimed and 5 more days on diy window screens cured for 2 mounths boom loud!lol
shit the only thing that stops any good od plant to bseeds
 

thaicat

Member
In my experience, product dried outdoors is superior to indoor. Just a cleaner taste and all around better looking. You have to use common sense and not try to hang in rain or extreme humidity but I prefer to dry outdoors.
An added benefit is it take a lot of the risk out of drying and hauling to final destination. You don't have to deal with odor, you lose a lot of weight and a lot less stressful than dealing with it indoor.
I don't ever like thinking of a bust but if one was caught hauling 10lbs of dry out of the woods. It would be much better than 100lbs wet.
 

thaicat

Member
A good number of my plants were hung in trees and away from harm. Also, you'd never want to have it sitting in any kind of plastic bag. You get a sap bath and invitation for mold to ruin everything.
 

hamstring

Well-known member
Veteran
I have dried outdoors every year since I have been growing . The best advice I have seen is from Julian in his large grow thread. Drying outdoors is a tool in your bag don't look at it as a end all method.

Like others have mentioned if you get rid of some water weight and therefore some of the smell then consider it. My advice is pick a spot where you have easy access because if the weather changes you have to move fast. You also have to have an alternative spot/idea.

My two cents on tarping, as I have done it many times, its a double edged sword. It can shield your bud from rain but it can also hold in moisture and cause mold. Again it depends on your climate and weather but if you look in the pics above you can see the bud is hanging very close to the top of the tarp. If it rains and then the sun comes out where do you think all the heat and humidity is going. UP and I have been screwed like that before. Again its a tool not a solution.

I hate playing the best practice idea because its different for everyone. I happen to be at 42 deg north and last year we were in a desert and drying outdoors was awesome.

I would keep that carbon filter running but hope for some nice days in croptober (love the word smithing) and let them set outdoors for a couple days and then bring them indoors.

To answer you question about the carbon filter keeping the smell out. Again only providing my experience. If you bring fresh bud (no drying outdoors) it will be impossible to keep the smell completely out. Especially at 42 north your furnace may be kicking on and it it moves air through out the house. Especially if the cold air return is not covered.

Like in life there are not absolute or easy answers. Good luck.

How many plants make up a twenty lb grow?? I have never hit that mark but I grow using the minimalist method.
 
D

DonJuanMatus

very good points hamstring

i also used to dry outdoors, in the swamps of the subtropics...i grew in multiple locations in an area that was way out in the middle of nowhere in the swamps, a few miles from the closest trail...the location of the spot made it as safe and secure as it gets but it made it impossible to bring anything in (seedlings/clones) or out (wet flowers)..so what i did was design a way to bring in a lip lock bag of germed seeds and walk out with bagged , dried herb..that necessity caused this drying cabin to be made...it is roughly 9x9x7 or so and was made using nothing but a hand saw and a few rolls of poly twine..i stuffed the sides and roof with dried pine needles and the top with debris to camo from the sky (this location was right in the path of a small airport, with alot of air traffic)..the roof was covered with plastic sheeting before it was covered with debris

here is a pic

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i was worried about the quality of outdoor dried herb to indoor..but i quickly realized that herb dried in this shack actually came out better than herb i brought inside, which was usually dried to quickly do to the size it occupied..with that said, the weather there was great for it as there was no winter and most of the time the cabin was being used was during our dry season with minimal rain...i did dry a crop once that was drying over a course of two weeks and got rain 4 or 5 times, and it still came out great...the key was leaving the top of the side walls open to allow air flow in and out of the cabin, or else i think they would rot or not dry well
 

huligun

Professor Organic Psychology
Veteran
The smells Drying are pretty bad, but don't think that just because it is dry the smell is gone. Having a quantity of decent bud in a house smells.
 
D

DonJuanMatus

thank you prosper..it took 6 or 7 days or so to construct, doing 2-3 hours a day, roughly , as this was many years ago and cant quite remember exactly..id imagine in the right woods one person could build one it 2-3 full days max..i live in colorado now but this cabin was located in a swamp in the deep deep south east with high humidity and alot of rain..in the summer in some months we got 8+ inches, and floods weekly, it rains alot..i grew mostly in the dry season which was autumn/winter/spring as it rained less and had much more ideal temps for flowering

this certainly wont work in most guerilla situations but that doesnt mean you cant adapt it to your area in some form..if you get rains at the end of september you could always run and early sept strain and dry outside before the rain comes...the rain isnt the issue as much as the humidity from the rain is..and even a day or two of rain is fine as long as we arent talking about a week straight of rain, then things could turn quick...ive personally never had even a nug go moldy on me drying in this shed..its not an easy thing to do , drying outdoors, but if the necessity is strong enough a smart man can figure out how to do most things if he pays close attention

ive dried plants with temps in the low 40s one freak winter, but that was with no rain, and they did fine..they took longer, but didnt mold or turn bad...a big importance is to make sure the plant is dry when its chopped and placed to dry, if you chop it down with dew or rain on it and toss it in a dry shed..rot in days...if i get rain when i wanted to chop , i let em dry and chop after a sunny day..if i shake em and water droplets fly off them , it doesnt get chopped...but again this is in a no winter situation where the setting of frost isnt an issue..in some places you can have a window of only a few hours before you loose a plant to the turning elements, so like i said it wont work for many

i got this idea from wally duck and i believe he used a propane burner set on low in his drying tents (which were old canvas army tents) just to keep the humidity at bay..id bet money that would work well even in places with damp cold harvest periods..it would take experimenting to dial of course but nothing worth knowing was ever learned easy
 

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