Once you’ve chopped your plants down, you are ready for the drying and curing process.
We know the sight of your huge flowers covered in trichomes has you eager to start consuming them, but the most important steps of growing are yet to come.
There are a few different ways you can go about drying and curing your flower.
Which one is right for you will depend on how you want to trim.
We will teach you everything you need to know about drying and curing, but first, let’s talk about why these steps are so important.
Why is proper drying and curing so important?
Drying your buds will obviously help eliminate excess moisture from within. This will prevent the spread of mold, and go a long way in improving the quality of your flower.
The curing process, the final step in harvest, is arguably the most important. If you don’t cure properly, your harvest will be low quality, unenjoyable to consume, and can even be ruined from mold and rot. A proper cure:
- Increases potency, flavor, and aroma
- Leads to a higher quality product
- Can help preserve your flower for much, much longer
Now that you know why you need to pay attention to these processes, let’s discuss how to plan your drying and curing phases.
How to dry bud
There are a few ways you can go about actually drying your buds. But, you will need to determine whether you want to trim wet or dry first.
Trimming wet vs dry will determine your drying and curing process
Leading up to your harvest, you can defoliate the huge fan leaves from your plant, which will not affect the final few days of flower, and will help start the drying process.
Once you chop your plant down, you will need to decide how you are going to trim.
For some, the workflow will look like this:
- Trim
- Dry
- Cure
For others, it will look like this:
- Dry
- Trim
- Cure
If you trim wet, you can chop your plant down, and manicure your buds. Then, you will move onto the drying process.
The drying process
There are a few ways you can go about actually drying your buds. If you want to trim dry, you can hang your entire plant with coat hangers or string/rope to dry. Or, you can cut off branches to hang individually.
If you chose to trim wet, you will now have your flower manicured and ready to dry. Make sure to snip off as much of the stem as possible, as these hold a lot of water.
The best drying method for wet trimmers is to use a drying rack. Drying racks are hung from the ceiling, and you can spread out your flower evenly on it to dry.
There are a few reasons people love using drying racks. They save a ton of space when you need to dry a lot of flower in a relatively small area, and actually speed up the rate of drying.
Drying racks are preferred in areas with extra humidity, as they reduce the chance of mold development.