Harvesting and Curing your yield

Over the winter I grew some standard feminized photo-period plants indoors and they did quite well.

These were some Critical Mass strain acquired from ILGM.com. As you can see by the one plant they gave a good yield. The “wet weight” is 15.8oz according to a digital scale from Stamps.com. It’s been my observation that the dry weight will be 60% (40% water weight evaporates out). So that puts my consumable yield at 9.5 ounces give or take.

Here is a better look at a budding branch

In the old days folks would hang a plant upside down in a closet or shed. There were old wives tales that the “resin” and goodies in the stem would gravity-feed to the inverted tops/buds. All that really did was prolong the time it actually took to dry the goods as the stem kept the bud moisturized..

You are better off stripping the harvested carcass and drying the weed off the stems & trunk. More bad practices back in the day included drying in an oven, toaster over or microwave. Too big of a chance over-drying & losing your investment/having harsh smoke.

Ideally you want to dry it slowly and have the humidity low so you dont risk mold/spore growth. I accomplished this by my use of a home made “shark cage”. This was made simply from 2 mesh baskets that would normally be used as desk organizers for in & out baskets. By filling one with fresh harvested buds and inverting the other basket over the top of the other so they are “kissing” and lashing the handles together with wire, it makes for a very good drying chamber.

Air can easily pass through the mesh and all you need to do is flip the basket over once a day to keep it turned over so no area builds up any contained moisture and molds the weed.

I put the shark cage in a covered barbecue that’s sitting idle between cookouts. The outside air dries it quickly and it’s not exposed to the direct elements. After a week it can be brought in & transferred to jars