I never cared about maintaining humidity levels, but I only preferred as dry as possible.
Until I started to press, I've not had great results with dry, overly cured material...
Interesting and echoed around. I hope to have a harvest soon. Last year I slightly underdried most of the plants and had a mission to burp down from 65% and just over to begin with for a while.
Some of them dried a bit further before jarring, going in at about 60%. These plants cured the best, have the best aroma too. I added humidipaks to virtually all jars in the end after I thought some were dried too far for a long slow cure, and the others I had to burp so much in the end I just lowered them a good bit, tossed 62% packs in and left to cure.
So my plan this year is to dry them all a little further, ideally to get a stable 62% reading at the time of jarring. This seems to be the better way IME. I have found that from there the humidity reading can rise up during curing, but also it can just sit stable at 60%. Both ways seem to give a better final product, with more aroma and better texture/shade as you expect from well cured buds.
However, I also have serious plans to start pressing rosin if things come together.
So Im not sure what approach to take drying/curing with this in mind. I mean, would this approach still be wise? To dry a little more, then I could always add humidipaks after or during curing to restore to, or maintain at 62%.
As in, would there be a better approach with rosin pressing in mind?
Like deliberately jarring above 60%? I was planning to avoid my usual mistake of jarring a little too soon and having a mission to lower them with high environmental humidity (70% plus) so that I didnt even want to open the jars I needed to lower from 64-67%.
And then when its safe to open, having to leave them open so much I felt it messed with the cure and aroma. It just seems like drying a bit further gets better results. I guess perfect woukd be to jar at a stable 60%, which will rise to 62/63% max during cure. But no higher lije 65% and up can easily occur. This way I dont think it matters so much how you cure, how much you burp (Im still not convinced burping is really necessary depending on moisture level at jarring), or if you add humidipaks or not. The end result just seems to be better all round.
But I dont want to render my harvest more difficult to press into rosin down the line.
So any advice is appreciated if anyone has any ideas.
@psychonaut you have lots of experience and wisdom on these topics I would really value any thoughts you may have on this. Sorry to keep asking you so much stuff I have great respect for you how you offer the best and clearest unbiassed advice to all here, and with the direction I am hoping to go I feel your knowkedge could help me so much. We will have to sort out some fees 'cos I may become a slight pesterence in the coming months while I find my feet.
