Wet vs Dry Trimming and what not to do
The outdoor harvest season is long but is finally nearing its end. Congratulations on your upcoming harvest. Harvesting is an exciting and labor-intensive part of the process but is also very important. Buds that are grown well can suffer extreme degradation if not harvested and stored properly.
Washing your buds
I do not recommend washing your buds during the harvesting process. Any bugs on your cannabis plant will vacate as the bud starts to dry as they go in search of a living food source. Molds like powdery mildew and botrytis are a better reason to wash buds. Any mold on your buds can be cut out during the trimming process, though washing is a last resort for mold, the finished product is better used for tinctures, lotions, or in some cases edibles. However, these are opinions based on experience and not for everyone, if you are on the fence about washing your buds in a peroxide solution, then let this be only one factor to consider.
If you have done it for years and like the way it turns out, don’t let me steer you in a different direction.
If you are intent on bud washing, use a concentrated Hydrogen Peroxide solution of 33-35% in your mix. As with anything, if you are going to do it – make it count. (1 cup produce to 5 gallons H20)
photo | James Bates
“Discoloration in the cannabis leaves is a good indicator that it is time to harvest, especially if you’ve undergone a good flushing period around the 8-week mark for most strains” – Olivia
Dry vs Wet Trimming
Dry Trimming is easy in the sense that with a good system, you can trim faster by simply knocking off the dried leaves from the plant. A really good tool for doing this in bulk is the Trim Bag Style Trimmers, but simply using some gloves and your fingers to knock off leaves is incredibly quick and gives you a really close, manicured finished product. There’s the added benefit of being able to hang whole branches upside down to dry which increases quality by allowing the bacteria and microbes in your drying product to consume any remaining chlorophyll left in the cannabis plant.
If you are using a Trim Bin style sifting tray, you will want to trim your product dry in order to utilize the sifting screen to collect your kief. Generally speaking, dry trimming is typically a lot less sticky and less wearing on your pruning shears and harvesting equipment as well.
The biggest downside to dry trimming, in my opinion, is that you have the ability to lose more plant material in the harvesting process. Agitating the cannabis plant in its dry state can damage buds and crumble them into shake that may have stayed intact if they were trimmed wet. This can cause a lower final yield than wet trimming.
Ultimately the pros outweigh the cons, trimming is faster and higher quality when trimmed dry. If you are on the fence or want to form your own opinion, I recommend doing a side-by-side comparison.
The trim you remove from your buds will also already be dry and can then be processed into concentrates, edibles, or tinctures.
photo | Michael Biggerstaff
Wet Trimming is incredibly space-efficient. You can cut your buds off of your stems, place them on a tiered drying rack, and get pounds of wet product to fit nicely in a 2×2 -3×3 area. It has the potential to go through more styles of automated trim machines, though machines now are becoming very versatile in this department and all typically have the option for a dry setting.
You will (in theory) knock less of the trichomes off of your buds by trimming wet and for that reason, it is said to produce a higher potency. In my experience, I don’t find this to be incredibly accurate.
In the potency and quality aspect of trimming, both wet and dry methods definitely have pros and cons, respectively. Wet-trimmed buds that are on a drying rack will need to be shifted or flipped to prevent having a flat side and to prevent mold issues from arising during the drying process. It’s incredibly easy and quick to do.
The trim you remove while trimming wet will need to be dried, either on a separate rack of your drying rack (the bottom one works best in case anything falls through, it won’t fall onto your drying buds) or you can lay it out flat on a piece of cardboard or anything semi-absorbent. Keep a watchful eye and keep air flowing to prevent molding. Make sure not to overcrowd your drying racks, it will ultimately take longer for your buds to dry and can cause molding.
photo | Brian Mumbles Wilhite
Curing and Storing
Both methods of trimming are useful in a few ways, regardless of which way you go about it, you can begin to cure your buds during the drying process while they are hanging. Keeping your buds in as dark of an environment as possible can help to preserve the quality and regulate your humidity and temperature to slow down the drying process. If you do this all for long enough you can cure your buds so well that burping them in jars is no longer necessary as long as the jar or container has a good air-tight seal and is stored with a humidity regulator.
The Boveda Humidity packs are a game-changer for curing and storage. Both humidities that they offer for cannabis, whether it’s the 58% or 62% will keep your buds at exactly the right humidity you desire. The Boveda packs pull humidity from the buds when stored with too much moisture and will reintroduce moisture to overdried buds. It takes out the guesswork and the need to constantly regulate and burp your container. Of all the products in the industry that may or may not be necessary, or even work, this is one I can honestly say that I never harvest without.
It is important to cure and store your bud at no less than 55% humidity. Once you go below that level you will kill off the beneficial microbes responsible for your terpene preservation and they will not return. At the point that the microbes die, your curing process stops with them. The longer you can keep your buds at that humidity while also drying, the better your cure will be. That is why you will see and hear of people that will hang their buds to dry for 2-3 weeks as opposed to speed drying them in 2-3 days. As with most things, good things come to those who wait.
You could fill a book with tips, tricks, and instructions for curing and storing, but the most important parts would be the same.
A quick summary:
Store your product at room temperature between 60 and 75°F.
It’s important to keep your buds out of the light to prevent sun damage and degradation, much the same way that the sun damages anything that it touches for too long. It is for this reason that some jars are tinted amber or purple. Simply keeping it in a kitchen cabinet or a dark room is perfect.
Humidity is a key factor in long-term storage and preserving the quality of your bud. That’s why cigars are stored in a humidor and wines are stored in regulated environments and humidity-controlled cellars.
Things to avoid
There are numerous ways to harvest, hundreds of products and tools, and even more strategies and methods people swear by. They all work in their own way and every tool and every method is good for something.
That being said, two of the most important things to impart are, do not speed dry your bud in a dehydrator and not to put your buds in the freezer. There is a long list of reasons of how these practices are damaging to your bud, but the quick and comprehensive version is while the final product may still get you high, it will lose its smell and taste, and may lose some of its medicinal value in the process, and it’s not necessary. The buds that dry too fast will never cure correctly and the bud that goes into the freezer will be different from the bud that comes out of the freezer.
Trimming is bittersweet. Most of you that have done it before know that it is not only time-consuming and uncomfortable, sometimes it’s just hard to kill the cannabis plants you’ve spent so much time with. The highlight though is that trimming is followed very closely by the very best part of the process, consuming your medicine and knowing you were the one to make it all happen. Whether you ran an outdoor cycle or an indoor cycle you should be proud you made it to the end. Bud curing and preservation is tricky but an art in itself, hone your skills and never be afraid to experiment.
Happy growing everyone! Congratulations on another harvest!
Come see us at our 2021 CroptoberFest Event at the shop and see all your favorite local vendors, live music, and some of the best names in nutrients.
Olivia Sobelman has been a cannabis grower for 10 years and was part of a team that won the US Cannabis Cup Awards three times. Sobelman and her husband, Tyler, own and operate The Grow Depot Hydroponics Store in Mid-Missouri. Fast becoming “The Plant Doctors,” The Sobelmans’ mission to educate and destigmatize cannabis is at the root of their business. Grow depot offers access to free consultations for patients and growers, both in-person and by phone, to diagnose and mend many issues in the garden. Visit Grow Depot for grower tutorials, past articles, and to learn more about the services they offer and their contributions to the cannabis community.
What do you think?