What really makes smoke harsh?

[MrFista]

I must put 2c in on curing in dark vs light. Chlorophyll breaks down in the dark I would not hang plants in the light for several days you may cause chlorophyll to be dried out before it breaks down and it will be left in the leaves. Plus the best cures (I've experienced) have always started as microbeman pointed out - leave shades on and hang in a dark ventilated shed.

This is not practical for commercial growers harvest is that much longer and messier.

I am of the school of thought that it is not the nutrient load in my soil that determines my plants growth but the plant itself and the diversity of microbes processing the nutrients. Too much N puts a damper on fungi so I'm sparing with it - BUT - I add pond water with nitrosomonas nitrobacter etc in it to help the N get cycled in my soil. Likewise with P. A little bit gets added, but I'm more interested in lots of saprobic fungi, and hopefully some mycorrhizae making insoluble soil bound P available for my plants. I'm quietly convinced the plant signals it's requirements and if the correct biology is present those requirements are met.

When I load the soil then add nothing but ACT to my grows I get all the reds purples oranges etc in my leaves and the smoke is the smoothest in town. Yield does not suffer. When I try feed them on top of having nutes in the soil I get that dark green look and the smoke is never as good as it could be and no it doesn't grow fatter buds.

I never add kelp in flower. Never. I thought it was the kelp I could taste but recently learned cytokinin slows senescence which will effectively delay the breakdown of chlorophyll leading to harsher smoke.

Less is best. But of course, there's a line.

Say you got a fat person, a malnourished person, and a fit person.

Who had the most food? The least food. Did either scenario produce a prime specimen? Who will have health issues?

Far easier to let the microbes and plant determine the nutritional content the plant wants - I can't understand what the hell it's saying, but those little critters do.

Cars, people, plants, we all perform badly on fuel too rich for us. Plants have an out, a team of workers who can monitor uptake in a feedback loop with the plant. If they're present.

More compost, less nutes, that's smooth advice.

 

[maryjohn]

the responses keep getting more detailed and I bet you that people are learning like crazy unless they aren't reading! I know I am. Awesome.

Thanks CC and Fista!

I just chopped, and I have the whole scrog just hanging upside down, leaves an all. With the screen still on and attached by a zillion twisties, I attach the stem to a rope on a wall. The screen keeps it hanging right. It's in very cool temps. Any thoughts on that? the temps thing I mean.

Trouble is, I have a vaporizer, and fresh bud in a vaporizer is one of my favorites. I don't know if that plant will ever dry. Mazar-i-sharif - great out of a vaporizer! Oh hey, that's my method I guess, for a really smooth "smoke".

what can make it harsh? after I vaporize, I am always sad about the left over material. so I SMOKE IT. blagh! It's just ghetto, and it tastes awful. Like chemicals. And this is clean stuff.

 

[VerdantGreen]

agreed. great posts.

i think whether you stick all the food in from the start or feed as you go along, you want to work on keeping it to a minimum, and i dont think that yields suffer from this either.

V.

 

[Crazy Composer]

I agree with Verdant again... about yields not suffering due to minimalistic feeding.

mj, on the temps... I don't know why, but I gotta say, cool temps and drying pot are two things that my gut tells me is not as good as higher temps. But all I have on that is a gut feeling. Unlike most people here, I like to dry my herb fast at first, then slow it down. I get it to barely smokeable in 3.5-4 days, then seal the herb and slow release the moisture from there. Every time the container is sealed, the moisture that has become airborne is released, then the moisture in the bud works it's way out to saturate the air again. This is repeated until the proper bud moisture is achieved.

Often, after the first few hours of being in the container, the bud gets too wet to smoke again... due to the inner moisture redistributing itself more evenly throughout the bud. I find this even drying to be helpful in the drying process.

There's a million takes on this subject.

 

[Mr. Stinky]

no, poor comparison, N in a plant is nothing like atmospheric nitrogen (which should be called dinitrogen)

In a plant it's most commonly absorbed as NO3 - i.e. nitrates - and then it is converted to nitrites and then ammonium to build amino acids and proteins etc. (very simplified explanation)

sorry for the critique mj - but i hate to see misinformation getting passed as truth on weed forums

V.

haha your right, and i apologize for the misdirect. i didnt mean to say they were the same, just making the correllation

and i agree that "less is best"

 

[alpinestar]

high resin content strains

too much nitrogen and other nutes, but most of the time you will see its nitrogen

improper drying

shitty trimming

mold

too much paper in the doobie youre smoking that bud in

 

[MrFista]

MJ - too cold a temp you might set conditions for molds on your weed. Get some air circulating to assist the drying process. There's a fine line between slow cure and moldy buds too which is dependant on several things: temperature, air circulation, moisture, spore count. On big plants we'd use sticks to hold branches apart as well.

Those cold basement areas could probably do with a bleach a day or so before you move plants in to dry them.

 

[guest2012y]

I've always thought or been told too much nitrogen,chlorophyll,bad curing by drying too fast,and all the reasons folks have mentioned here. Also heard that if the bowl is left with black ashes it had a lot of carbon,if ashes were left white,not enough. Where's the happy medium?

 

[Johnny Rotten]

Too much N P K and MG....each have their own affects on buds when overused. Curing helps but dank organic should be able to be quick dried and not be harsh. If it still is harsh after a quick dry, you still have more flushing to do.

 

[Crazy Composer]

Rotten, I agree... clean pot smokes perfectly well right after the initial dry. I consider herb "cured" as soon as the moisture reaches the right level and is evenly distributed in the herb. This can be done in about a week to a week and a half. No amount of curing time will remove salts/metals from the herb. If a long cure is needed to make the herb taste decent, it could have been grown better in the first place.

 

[VerdantGreen]

maryjohn has been banned? - thats a shame. he has driven us to some very useful and productive debates and this thread here that he started is one of the best ive seen in a while.

always a loss to the community when someone who is knowledgable and passionate gets excluded. he came over a bit spikey and argumentative sometimes but no worse than stuff i read on this site every day - except mj was a little more eloquent than most.

this kind of thing really pisses me off and only serves to put me off this place.

V.

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey yeah he looked OK, what did he get the Ban for so as the rest of us can learn from his/her mistake?! Its a pitty!
Scrog'

There should be a Judge n Jury in a democracy!, not just an Executioner!, lets put it to the vote on IC, should we have hearings for abusive, disruptive, & missunderstood IC'ers, lol!
Or do we say fk'em they should of thought of that before getting offensive, if they ever did in the first place? Makes me wonder what people do to get a ban, piss off a MOD or Admin etc. Is it fair to leave that decision to just One (1) person.????
Peace n Love to all........................

 

[Crazy Composer]

Wow! I had no idea. I was just commenting in private how I was happy he was playing nice.

 

[kushkid420]

Excellent thread.
I think overdried bud makes smoke harsh, overfeeding as well. I hate that chemical taste!

 

[MrFista]

WHY is MJ banned? Moderators?

I'm entirely over "should I pH my Earth Juice" threads.

MJ had something to offer.

 

[DARC MIND]

maryjohn banned?
pretty lame....
im to high to be pissed off but like verdantG it too also makes me think twice about this place
i considered him one of the few friends i have hear and well this blows

 

[ScrubNinja]

I agree thoroughly. People need to be thicker skinned, especially on the interwebs. Some kid in the micro forum reported him for trying to help his grow. End result: all the info that was shared (including by me) was deleted and he got called a retard and banned (apparently for 24hrs but it happened over 24hrs ago, maybe a server thing).

FREE MARYJOHN

*and free maryjane too if you have the time, thanks.

 

[Microbeman]

Is Maryjohn banned? If so by whom? If this is the case I'm offering my resignation.

 

[JackTheGrower]

Here's the easy take on it... Overly rich soil yields less than perfect smoke. Light soils yield tastier buds.

For hydro and chemical growers... no step down in fertilization before harvest, yields less than perfect smoke. A step down (flush) before harvest yields much better smoke.

The catch: If you overfertilize, even just one time, the buds can never be as good as from a plant that was always fed lightly. Just ONE overfeeding can cause the plant to store salts it will never use. Not everything the plant takes in will be used by the plant in a normal life cycle. So it stands to reason that the best gardeners will feed ONLY what the plant needs, for a short period of time, then re-feed when the first signs of nutrient drop off show up again. In this way you cut the risk of ever loading the plant with unneeded elements. Of course, when we're talking about what makes smoke taste and burn badly, there are many, many other considerations, from dusty air, to poor drying habits, etc... But in my experience the number one consideration for smooth, tasty, natural-tasting smoke is... what the plant takes up from the medium, and how much it takes up.

A plant that was always just a few days away from nutrient deficiency, will always taste better than a plant that has had more than enough to eat at all times. I've NEVER, even one time in my experience, seen a fully green plant (at harvest) smoke better than a properly nutrient-deprived plant.

BTW, good idea for a thread.

---------------------------

I disagree with the over fertilization concept in an Organic soil situation.

Now organic rated liquid feeding in some medium may be organic growing but it's not Organic Soil growing.
Medium plus liquid feeding organic or chemical feeding; that I am sure you can overfeed.

It gets hard to explain organic soil gardening if we mix the organic liquid feeding in an organic medium or non organic medium with true organic soil growing.

Also I avoid ready made liquid nutrients unless I made them.
I, more often than not, soak soil with water, apply liquid compost coffee evenly over 16 sq ft of surface area and then top dress with a rich organic mix.
That way there are "boosts" in natural populations that will capitalize on the top dress mix. That is the right way to do the turbo-ness and not a liquid pump-dump. IMO.

So I don't agree with the overfeeding concept.

I agree with the quick dry is harsh, I agree with SuperConductor on letting the plant material time to die. I also agree cool dark is fine..
I will look at the leave the leaves on this next time but I already leave it in more of a rough trim.
The fan leaves are not included in keep the leaves on.

My bud leaf material smokes smooth.. Even early in flowering and microwave dry.. Test dry in microwave in a stone bowl.

The Big fan leaves I never smoked but bud leaves we all smoke as part of the buds we get..
I then use a paper bag to allow the plant material to share what moisture is left,
Then off to Jars for long low oxygen curing.

So far this way of doing things has been okay. It's always smooth after time in jars and lasts for well over a year and is pliable when removed from those jars.
I don't open for casual checks after the first few checks.

It's good to check a few times but folly to keep adding oxygen IMO.
Oxygen will change the effect directly I experienced.
Constant exposure to oxygen is like a timer.. It will change the chemical nature of the effect with exposure to oxygen in a period of time.
Just smoke some bud right out of a jar and then smoke another bud that you leave out in the air for 3 or more hours.

We are focusing on avoiding harsh.. I'm way past that looking for ways to improve flavor, smoothness and quality of effect over time.

harsh worry.. Not here.

Liquids only feeding doesn't allow the plant to interact with it's enviroment in a natural way and may cause stress.
Stress may contribute to a harsh smoking plant material.


Always willing to share and learn more.

Jack

 

[JackTheGrower]

I must put 2c in on curing in dark vs light. Chlorophyll breaks down in the dark I would not hang plants in the light for several days you may cause chlorophyll to be dried out before it breaks down and it will be left in the leaves. Plus the best cures (I've experienced) have always started as microbeman pointed out - leave shades on and hang in a dark ventilated shed.

This is not practical for commercial growers harvest is that much longer and messier.

I am of the school of thought that it is not the nutrient load in my soil that determines my plants growth but the plant itself and the diversity of microbes processing the nutrients. Too much N puts a damper on fungi so I'm sparing with it - BUT - I add pond water with nitrosomonas nitrobacter etc in it to help the N get cycled in my soil. Likewise with P. A little bit gets added, but I'm more interested in lots of saprobic fungi, and hopefully some mycorrhizae making insoluble soil bound P available for my plants. I'm quietly convinced the plant signals it's requirements and if the correct biology is present those requirements are met.

When I load the soil then add nothing but ACT to my grows I get all the reds purples oranges etc in my leaves and the smoke is the smoothest in town. Yield does not suffer. When I try feed them on top of having nutes in the soil I get that dark green look and the smoke is never as good as it could be and no it doesn't grow fatter buds.

I never add kelp in flower. Never. I thought it was the kelp I could taste but recently learned cytokinin slows senescence which will effectively delay the breakdown of chlorophyll leading to harsher smoke.

Less is best. But of course, there's a line.

Say you got a fat person, a malnourished person, and a fit person.

Who had the most food? The least food. Did either scenario produce a prime specimen? Who will have health issues?

Far easier to let the microbes and plant determine the nutritional content the plant wants - I can't understand what the hell it's saying, but those little critters do.

Cars, people, plants, we all perform badly on fuel too rich for us. Plants have an out, a team of workers who can monitor uptake in a feedback loop with the plant. If they're present.

More compost, less nutes, that's smooth advice.

Applying top dressing material in a balance of C to N is a good idea..
Micronizing ( there is a thread on this ) is better too since more surface area is generated on those materials and all materials are distributed better over any individual area.

Better to have all the materials in the soil and decaying before the plants go in rather than try to have a soil mix we are trying to fix during the grow.

Compensating for a poorly developed soil with liquid feeds is probably a cause of harshness,

What is a rich soil I ask.. That's a new one and it sounds curiously like something like baiting..

If rich soil means there is plenty of materials that provide nutrients then i am a rich soil man. If it means overboard or don't respect some people then that's bad form.