Ripley’s OG, Ready to harvest, Day 70. GBD/DAZ MEPHISTO.
IKEEP SAYING THAT it is easy to grow Autoflowering Cannabis plants. By your first harvest, you will know it really is true.
Unfortunately, you can’t simply pick flowers off an Autoflowering Cannabis plant and use them. There is a use for green tomatoes, and you can eat ripe ones right off the vine. Not so, Cannabis. The crop has to be dried.
Do not ruin your crop at this point. When and how you harvest those flowers will have much to do with the quality of your grow. So will drying and manicuring and curing. These are the finishing touches, and they greatly influence how your harvest will look, but even more important, how it tastes.
Do not rush things at this stage. If you do, you will not be able to achieve the quality of product you want. This is one way in which Autoflowering Cannabis differs from tomatoes.
Harvesting is simple. The flowers on the tops of Autoflowering Cannabis plants usually ripen first. The lower part of the plant and smaller limbs will have flowers that may take a week more to ripen. This is why you may not want to simply rip the plant up and start the drying process as you would with the larger Cannabis relatives.
Depending on genetics, however, and how the plant is exposed to light, it is possible for all flowers to be ready. When this happens, cut down the entire plant and dry it before trimming off the flowers.
For the first grows, harvest when trichomes are half cloudy with some amber for energetic highs, 70% milky trichomes and more amber ones for the greatest intensity of THC and energetic highs, or for more sedative highs, wait until 70 % of the trichomes are amber.
Make sure to include as much stem as possible when you harvest stems as this will make it easier to hang them. Often it is easier to remove the top colas all at once. This has the benefit of exposing unripe flowers on lower side branches. Then just keep an eye on these remaining flowers and remove them when they reach the stage you have chosen.
In any case, before you cut flowers off a plant, carefully remove the larger fan leaves. Toss these into the compost unless you are going to make oils or bubble hash, both of which are beyond the purview of this book but instructions for which can be found via the Internet.
Actually, you shouldn’t touch the flowers at all. This is a rule. Remember, those glandular trichomes are fragile. Do not cause them to degrade any more than they do naturally.
Drying Autoflowering Cannabis is necessary as it removes the plant’s grassy chlorophyll taste. Your crop needs to be evenly exposed to air so it will dry. Drying also removes water from the flowers’ cells. These are the same reasons tobacco is dried.
Drying will prevent mold from destroying your crop, but the crop remains susceptible to mold while it is still damp. It is a good idea to check a drying harvest every few days to make sure things are progressing without molding up. If any mold is found, remove infected buds and increase air circulation.
The goal to drying is to remove 75%, or so of the water from the flowers. How to tell if you have accomplished this? You could weigh a representative cola or flower (or even the whole crop if you can do it carefully without damaging the trichomes) on a postal scale. Then calculate 75% of that number. Keep re-weighing the cola until its weight is reduced 75%. This gets a precise reading, but the handling can damage trichomes.
Fortunately, there is a much easier method. Just bend a drying branch or twig. If it snaps, the harvest is ready. If it doesn’t snap, it is not ready. Again, be very careful not to handle flowers lest you damage trichomes.
There is such a thing as drying too quickly. In that case, the taste will remain grassy. Be patient. It takes at least a week to get the chlorophyll to break down enough to make a difference. Depending on conditions, drying can take about 5 to 15 days.
Do not be tempted to use heat to speed up drying. Microwaves and heat both degrade THC. In fact, these are not even worth trying, no matter how convenient and tempting it may be.
Hanging some nice bud to dry using a hanger and inexpensive clips. PSYCHONAUT, WIKICOMMONS.
The easiest way to dry Autoflowering Cannabis is to hang your harvest in a dark spot where there is air circulation. The temperature should be between 15 and 27°C (60–80°F). The humidity ideally should be 50%. There should be no direct light, and actually, darkness is much preferred. Easy.
You can hang your harvest in a cardboard box, open drawer, a closet, or the like. Clipping to coat hangers works great, too, as the whole crop can be easily moved.
The hanging process is where drying can be speeded up. Ensure good air circulation to remove the moisture that evaporates and to prevent molds attacking the still damp plants.
A drying method used in humid areas is so easy and so effective that it is my go-to method for beginners and advanced Autoflowering Cannabis growers, no matter what the humidity. Any brown paper bag will do the job, provided it isn’t coated with wax.
Place your harvest on the bottom of the bag so that no individual piece touches another. Flowers touching each other increase the chances of fungi (aka mold) growing. Mold is the enemy of your harvest. Don’t fill the bag, only lay down a single layer.
Carefully close the bag by rolling down the top a couple of inches. Use a binder clip to keep it shut. There should be plenty of air in the bag. The brown paper will absorb the moisture from the flowers.
You can place bags on several layers of newspaper (if you can find any!) to absorb this moisture or, better, hang the bag. Either way, by adding air circulation to the outside of the bag, you can finish the job in less than a week, though it will depend on the amount of moisture in the harvest as well as in the air.
A lot of tomato growers dehydrate their crop for convenient storage. These dehydrators are great for drying Autoflowering Cannabis, provided you do not use the heat setting. Many dehydrators have a control switch for this. If not, don’t use it. It will cook your harvest, and it will not be any good.
Again, make sure not to rush. Again, if you do, your harvest will continue to hold some of that chlorophyll you are trying to degrade. I advise use of a dehydrator for harvests only after you learn how the crop reacts to simply hanging or bag drying.
Once dried, you need to further clean up your harvest. This is done by carefully removing the remaining leaves, branches, and stems. Leave the tiny bract leaves and perhaps the sugar leaves right below the flowers.
Actually, most harvests undergo two manicuring sessions. First, after you harvest flowers but before you dry them, the large leaves that don’t hold trichomes can be removed. Do this first trimming within 24 hours of cutting the limb. This way the leaf cells in the leaves you want to cut will still have turgor—the fan leaves will stick out, and they will be easier to hold and cut without damaging the trichomes.
After drying, you need to manicure your crop, that is, trim off all the leaves except those coated with trichomes, as in this pretty trimmed cola. GBD/DAZ MEPHISTO.
The second trimming is after the crop dries. Remove all the small leaves. To do so, use a very fine pair of nail scissors. It is important to remember to avoid touching and thus damaging the trichomes. These are like little balloons, and they are very easy to pop open. If you must hold them, do so in your palm, not between thumb and index finger. This is an art.
Trichomes lost due to poor handing during manicuring. You don’t want to lose trichomes while harvesting and trimming. CANNABIS PICTURES.
Your plants’ flowers will be sticky. You might want to wear gloves as it is very difficult to wash off any residue. The flowers will also have a distinct odor which will increase whenever you break open trichomes while cleaning your flowers. There are special soaps that will help clean hands (and equipment).
After you dry your product, you can use it. However, it is best to take one more step, curing. The dried Cannabis is further dried and any remaining chlorophyll is degraded. Curing improves taste and is a step you should follow. It is not difficult. It may be what distinguishes your crop from commercial products as few commercial retailers have the time to cure properly.
To cure your harvest, carefully place it into sealable glass jars. When filling jars, do not pack or in any way smash your harvest. Instead, pour in enough to almost fill the jar and then seal it. You should be able to see the dried buds move around when you shake the jar.
Close and store jars in a cool location, out of direct sunlight, where you will have access for the first 2 weeks. If possible, open the jar up to 3 or 4 times a day to burp it, letting any gas buildup escape. Then close and shake it very gently.
After a week of daily burping, most of the chlorophyll dissipates. You can skip a day or two if you must but do check your jars regularly.
After 2 weeks or so, you can open the jars every few days. Eventually the jars won’t produce gas when opened. This is the indication that the harvest is finally cured. You can see why most commercial operations don’t do this. It’s a lot of effort, and it takes 4 to 8 weeks. However, this effort is well worth it in terms of taste. And, if you decide it isn’t, then you can skip it to future harvests. It is your hobby.
One of the unfortunate characteristics of Autoflowering Cannabis is that it becomes much less psychoactive when it is exposed to bright light and oxygen in the air. As such, it is important to store your harvest where this deterioration is minimized. The recommendation is a cool, dark location and always in a glass container.
There are now humidity control packs designed specifically to keep Cannabis at the right moisture level once dried and cured. Developed to keep cigars and pipe tobacco moist, they resemble sugar packs and can be placed into a jar where it will keep the moisture at a constant level. They are often sold at dispensaries and will surely be found at tobacco stores, or they can be ordered via the Internet.
Some growers vacuum pack their harvest. These packs can be kept for a long time provided that they are kept cool and in the dark. The only possible problem is the degradation of the plastic by terpenes. I do not suggest that you keep vacuum packs in the freezer as the THC will continue to degrade and trichomes will become damaged as they turn into ice crystals.
Of course, once you know how easy it is to grow Autoflowering Cannabis, there may be no reason to save a harvest. Simply grow a new one.
