All rightee then. Will be interested to hear your report.
All the Best, CT
Welcome to ICMag!
Take your time and be patient fool. You need to use some mental muscle and control that smoking habit.
What strains do you have? They might be low thc content - even tho they look and smell amazing.
But regarding the dry before freezer.
I would dry the buds just as if you were going to jar cure them. The OP(orignial poster) never gave us his drying conditions... coulda be 85F 40% RH. . . I wouldn't trust 4 days.
Here in cali it takes 5-10 days for a good dry... its all about your environment.
In my opinion - when the stems snap but not apart is when the dry is good. and it really depends on the size of the buds. Huge buds shouldn't even be left to be huge - they could mold in the center if there isn't enough airflow and breaking them apart would be ideal to ensure proper drying.
Hi City Twin and the rest,
Still need to burp the jars another couples days, but anyways here's my report.
Sorry no photos though.
strains:
Northern Lighst from Sensi and JackFlash also from Sensi.
Both chopped and hung to dry in a dark well vented chamber at 40%rh for 4 days.
Then into the freezer they went in an open shoebox, loosely filled.The buds lie on top of each other.
Temp: -20°C( brrr)
I'm talking about a normal freezer ( well it used to be frost free, but somehow that doesn't work anymore, the fan is not comig on, no heating of internal walls / auto defrost, tons of ice/ frost ....damn it's Amundsen vs Scott in antarctica in there)
To be able to see some differences of this method and the best timing on the first run already, I took the NL out of the freezer after 10 days , the JF was left inside for another 5 days( total of 15).
The JF came out perfectly, spongy and went into jars to be burped for another few days. smell is increasing straight after it defrosted and keeps changing a little from day to day, only getting better. It gets more and more yummy.
The NL had to be layed out to dry for another 5 hours, lost a good amount of moisture and then went into a jar as well. Should have gone 15 days as well.
As of today, both of them have been in jars and burped daily for 3 days. The initially moister NL is burped twice as long daily as the JF that came out of the freezer perfectly.
All in all I have to say after a little over 3 weeks I have some of the finest smelling buds in my jars. To achieve this It took me well over a month using regular curing ( ten days to dry and then burp continuously for AT LEAST a month).
Next round will be:
- hang dry for 4 days
- Freezer for 15 days
- burp in jars for another 5 days.
So my conclusion is: this method works well.
pros:
- The freezer( although not frost free) speeds things up( sublimation).
- Time hang drying is minimized along with time of tell tale smell
- buds come out delicious after shorter amount of time
cons:
- the lady may have a word on what goes in the freezer
(My guess why it worked in a non frost freezer at minus 20 Celsius is that sublimation always occurs below 0 Celsius. colder temps will not help, but also not harm.
I guess the sligthly lower air pressure in a freezer that you feel as a resistance of the door when you try to open it helps the sublimation process and is probably the same as if you had a frost free freezer where a fan/ air pump causes this sort of a very light "vacuum" ( it's not anywhere near a vacuum).
In my opinion it works like this:You open the door, the freezer is flooded with warm air from the outside, then, when you close it again, the warm air is cooled down significantly, therefore decreasing in volume and causing lower air pressure as on the outside. this is the resistance you feel when you try and open the door again.
The bud was grown outside, now the lower air pressure in the freezer, although minimal, let's the cells in the buds expand slightly, making for a more even sublimation.)
Thanks everyone for providing the initial info to me, happy as can be!
Jah bless and keep g(r)oin!
I was just going to ask about temps and you have a similar issue to me.
My freezer has three options, less cold mid and more cold. Yeah simple i know but its a good fridge. Its new and its frost free as i see no frost at all in there.
So i chucked my digital thermometer in there for a minute and it gave me -16 degress C on the mid option. When i turn it down to less cold it gives me a temp of -4 C
So i guess i am going to try it for 15 days rather than 21 days, what do you peeps think?
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