WET VS DRY Trimming

[chuewy]

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[BasementGrower]

Trim in the dark? That's pointless.

not trim in the dark.. chop in the dark under a green light.. so that nothing leaves the roots and into the plants.. if ur going to leave them in the dark 24-48 hours n then turn the lights on the chop down.. thats a waste of time sorry but after the last 5 years of experimenting.. ive found the best way to dry and cure. and it works for me.. now im working on switching to vertical. barebulbs.

 

[Hammerhead]

If the plant is in senescence none of that matters...Read up on this subject..

 

[VenturaHwy]

I used to hang my branches to dry them for many years before trimming. When you trim the buds right after cutting a branch off the growing plant it is much faster, the scizzers don't get gummed up, the leaves are sticking straight out so I do a much better job, so it is all around faster, maybe twice as fast.

Now to what matters.... how the buds end up smelling. There is one step not one person has even mentioned on this thread....

 

[festerous]

Dry trim, heres why. The leaves on the plant protect the buds when they are hung upside down and make the buds dry more slowly. Chlorophyl leaves a plant slowly. The slower the cure the smoother the smoke. Also wet trimming smears the trichomes because they havent hardened. I prefer a twenty day drying process with low temps and plenty of fresh air. I only do this on indoor. Outdoor doesnt get this treatment because quite frankly its not worth it. We have TONS of outdoor pot around here. I dont think some of these hillbillys know what chronic is. Went to the closest dispensary several times and thats all there is is outdoor schwagg.

Some of the best tasting pot I have ever smoked has been grown outdoors.

 

[prune]

Also wet trimming smears the trichomes because they havent hardened.

lol, if you have the scissor skills of a monkey, maybe...

If you don't have a good handle on your environment, leaving all the leaves on (and all their contained moisture) provides a buffer and safety net for the unskilled.

In the final analysis, the overwhelming reason to wet trim is that, yes the trichomes haven't hardened, and are better able to resist the various shocks and blows of scissoring. Once the trichomes have dried even the slightest snap of a stem releases a flood of glandular heads falling to their doom. (please, no flat-earth responses!)

 

[dre8791]

I believe dry trim works better than wet trim. It allows the bud to dry slower.

 

[dre8791]

Good!

 

[BasementGrower]

lol, if you have the scissor skills of a monkey, maybe...

If you don't have a good handle on your environment, leaving all the leaves on (and all their contained moisture) provides a buffer and safety net for the unskilled.

In the final analysis, the overwhelming reason to wet trim is that, yes the trichomes haven't hardened, and are better able to resist the various shocks and blows of scissoring. Once the trichomes have dried even the slightest snap of a stem releases a flood of glandular heads falling to their doom. (please, no flat-earth responses!)

unskilled? would be growing a shitty plant..

 

[BasementGrower]

another thing.. post some pictures of ur shit if u think ur a good grower.. im sick of people that cant grow bud sitting here telling me how there methods work better then mine haha.

its all personal preference.. and like i said.. if u have an enviromental controller for ur drying room.. then ya trim wet go for it.. but my preference with alot of other GOOD GROWERS .. do dry bcause we tried both ways.. and found the one that works in the enviroment we have for it.

 

[Jbomber79]

I think it really depends on the environment how dry/humid the climate is affects the drying. I just tried the hole experiment because I am a firm believer that the curing process can make or break how the smell/smoke comes off.. Dry trim def retained the smell as far as potentcy that seemed to go back to genetics.. I almost ruined one plant by trimming whilst wet..Just my opinion, I have trimmed alot of outdoor that was wet trim and it didn't have near the appeal as the same strain indoor..

 

[St3ve]

I will say this, we can all agree that the longer you take to dry them the better.

That said, when I went from hanging to dry then trimming to wet trimming in a trimming machine, I had to relearn how to dry my buds. They can dry SO much faster when they are trimmed wet. The first couple of runs when I used the trimmer, I was not happy AT ALL with the results. Smell and taste were lacking to the point I was kind of embarrassed when I showed my finish product off.

Then I got good at controlling the drying environment.. thus able to slow down the dry from a wet trim. This made a monumental difference.

I ask the folks who have compared their own grows, how many days did you dry them compared to each other? I asked because you can't dry them side by side in the same room or the wet trimmed stuff will dry faster and the test won't be fair. I could hang buds on one side of the room and they would take around 10 days. In the same room, the wet trimmed would dry in 3-4.

Now, I wet trim them in a trimmer, and dump the buds in a rack. I keep the room around 65-70F and shoot for 65% RH and it takes around 10 days. Then I bin them up around a stable 65% and cure them as long as I can, usually two-four weeks at least.

I will probably never go back to dry trimming because I feel I get top shelf results, and it takes FAR less time trimming wet.

No one really addressed my question so I will post it again. This is from page 2 of this thread.

 

[the gnome]

what st3ve said.

 

[Alone]

I prefer to pick off all my big fan leaves and leave all other leaves on, until the plant is dry enough to put into jars. This will prevent breaking the heads on the trichomes that you will use later for dry sift or bubble hash or whatever.
It also helps the plant dry slower if you have leafy bud. If you dont have leafy bud then I suggest keeping the plants away from too much air movement.
The end product always comes out better when you leave the suger leaf trim on until its dry enough to trim and put in jars. The slower the drying process the better. I hang full plants upside down without the big fanleaves. I keep it in the dark always. My humidity levels are at 45% while flowering and stay at 45% during the drying process. If you notice your buds drying to fast, turn the humidifier on full blast.
I have to do this because I did a S.O.G with smaller plants and just noticed this morning my plants are drying to fast.
EDIT.......EDIT.......EDIT ~
My first wave of harvesting 1/2 the Critical+'s...............
They were all flower with hardly any leaf material on them.
They dried way to fast and would have needed along cure in jars to suck the moisture from the inside of the flower stem.
A good friend noticed it wasnt as smelly and needed a better cure. I agreed. It was 74* and the closet door was open to much with the fan to close to the door. It dried in 5 days. Although still good....it wasnt as good as the last batch.

This second and final wave of harvesting...............
The lights are off and its much cooler in the drying closet off the flower room. It took 4 days longer for them to dry (9 days) and they were still abit moist when I trimmed em up and put them in jars. I kept the jars closed all night and then opened them all day. I then closed it again for the night, then opened them for an hour.
The next day....this morning......I opened the jars to sticky, skunky, stinky buds that need abit more drying time still so the jars are open since 5am. Much better. I write this to confirm that drying with just the fan leaves off, nice and slow, in a cooler environment is the best way.

My GranDoggyPurps has been drying for 6 days already and is still soaked. Im thinking 4-5 more days until I can try to put it in jars.
It takes longer cause there is much more sugar leaf on this strain, Its got bigger denser buds,and its in 66*, in the dark with very little air movement. With the closet door open just a crack, the can-fan and the oscilating fan moves the air around just enough to pull air and extra moisture from the drying closet.

 

[Benjamin Check]

Damn, I trimmed wet because it was my first go and couldn't figure out why some of the Chronic had a kind of grassy taste after being so dank during the grow. It was potent as hell, but the flavor wasn't all there even after 30 days in a jar driving me nuts with anticipation. Nothing worse than having to buy weed with a pound of better shit curing......

 

[THC123]

There is just no room for discussion on this I have done side by side many times


dry trimming is a pain in the ass but dry trimmed bud are great even without curing

i usually dry the unmanicured plants for 10-14 days, then the stem snaps bud the buds are still sticky and I freeze them

But also for curing i have noticed the smells are better with the dried trimmed one vs the wet trimmed on. Dry trimmed bud has more character

We have TONS of outdoor pot around here. I dont think some of these hillbillys know what chronic is

Lol have you ever even smoekd decent outdoor? I think outdoor bud grown and dried well is always better then indoor, might maybe not look so compact, but the effects and smells are off the chart compared to indoor with the same cut of the same strain


I take outdoor over indoor any day

 

[St3ve]

how did you do a side by side? I mean, what was your method specifically.

Its pretty arrogant of you to say there is no room for discussion because of what YOU observed in YOUR methods. Just sayin..

 

[THC123]

It is not just me, every breeder-- grower i know that won cups or has good weed dries this way

wet trimming is for the commercial boys trying to make a quick buck

 

[noreason]

I tried a couple of times to trim when the plants were dry and it's a pain in the ass yeah. And glands are very fragile, they fall down very easily, just trim on a black surface to see the resin on it after a couple of minutes. I would put a screen under

I like to smoke pot with very few leaves or no leaves at all, I hate the leaf aroma so, wet trimming is the best, I can remove even the little leaves without damaging the other resin.

On smell and aroma, honestly I didn't notice any appreciable difference, but this could be me. I have to try it again. However I hate seeing resin fall down, it has to stay on the flowers!

In theory, aromatic and volatile substance like terpenes can exit from the trichome's wall and evaporate. This is normal as these kind of substance are plausibly produced and excreted to fight environmental adversities. But we don't want them to evaporate, we want them to stay inside the glands and I think leaves can play a role in this, slow down the evaporation.

That said, a lot of strain has so much smell and aroma that sometimes they give me a little nausea, even with wet trimming.

Usually I just don't want to let the flowers stay in contact with the air for too many days. For mid-sized flowers a week is enough in a controlled climate.

 

[THC123]

Or it falls down or it sticks to your scissors anyways you lose resin

I am talking bout the aroma and taste, please try it again bro, just drying no curing , then smell and taste the difference

I like to smoke pot with very few leaves or no leaves at all, I hate the leaf aroma so, wet trimming is the best, I can remove even the little leaves without damaging the other resin.

I thought like this for many years and then i totally changed my mind cuz if you dry it well with leaves on you dont get that "leaf" aroma