Cultivating cannabis is not easy. The plant relies on very specific conditions to not only grow and thrive, but to ensure that the result is potent, fragrant, and free of contaminants and pests. These hurdles continue after harvest, with drying and curing presenting their own set of challenges to product quality, including potential for contamination, the difficulty of preserving terpenes, and the likelihood of THC degradation.
With so many potential avenues for failure, it’s important to identify problem areas and address them before things go awry. Knowing your proverbial enemy as a cultivator can end up saving you time and money that you can leverage in other aspects of your operation. To help address these problems before they wreck your next yield, the following are six cannabis drying room issues you should actively work to mitigate.
#1: Incorrect humidity levels
- What’s the issue? Humidity is the amount of water vapor that’s present in the air, and cannabis and humidity aren’t friends. Overly high humidity levels prevent your cannabis from drying just enough to reach the proper moisture content before it makes its way to the consumer. Too much moisture (also known as water activity), and the whole harvest risks developing mold and mildew, which renders the cannabis unusable. Too little, and the flower is brittle and less flavorful. The right humidity levels ensure that the cannabis dries precisely how it’s supposed to.
- How to solve the issue: First and foremost, it’s important for cultivators to keep an eye on relative humidity, not just humidity. Relative humidity measures the water vapor that’s actually in the air, whereas humidity calculates the maximum amount of water that could be in the air. This reading gives cultivators a more precise look into their drying room conditions. When measuring the relative humidity in your drying room, it’s ideal to keep the levels at around 55%. As the temperature drops a few degrees, the relative humidity can drop as well, but it should never dip below 50 percent in your drying environment.
#2: The temperature is off
- What’s the issue? Just like the humidity levels need to be just right in your grow room, the temperature needs to be at ideal levels as well. The temperature has an influence on humidity levels in the room, further exacerbating issues if the cannabis drying room is too hot (drives contaminant-causing humidity) or too cold (results in too-brittle cannabis).
- How to solve the issue: Look into factors that are influencing your drying room’s temperatures. One common culprit is drying room lighting: The lights can give off enough heat to swap the temperature, particularly if you’re using heat-generating HPS lighting. Consider switching to cool-to-the-touch LED lighting if this remains an issue. You can also rely on your cannabis drying room’s climate control system to keep the temperature steady. A well-functioning HVAC system can keep the temperature steady all year round in all conditions.
#3: The airflow is poor
- What’s the issue? Airflow and ventilation are incredibly important to the operation of a good drying and curing room. Proper airflow helps maintain the temperature and humidity levels within the room while keeping the air from growing too stagnant. When air in your drying room sits still, pockets of heat and moisture can linger in your buds, impacting the quality of the final product and resulting in inconsistently finished buds.
- How to solve the issue: Start with the size of your drying room and the size of your equipment. A room too small or drying racks that are too crowded, or both, will prevent proper airflow. Consider cutting down on the number of buds on each drying rack or expanding your space. You may also want to consider trimming your cannabis after harvest to make more space on each tray. Called “wet trimming,” this process removes the fan leaves and sugar leaves before drying. This way, there’s less overall plant material to dry, allowing for more space (and airflow) between plants. Proper ventilation is also important for drying rooms of any size. Fans can be a tremendous help, or you can double down on your HVAC system and rely on its fans to help keep things moving along.
#4: Harvesting the plant too early
- What’s the issue? If you harvest your cannabis while it’s still relying on nutrients from the substrate, you’re cutting down the plant when it’s at its highest water content. That will prolong the already-lengthy traditional drying and curing process by several days.
- How to solve the issue: Have a little more patience. Even if the pressure of time is weighing on your mind (and your production schedule), you, your harvest, and your customers will benefit in the long run. Wait for the substrate to dry up, as this will reduce overall water content and keep the drying time at its expected schedule.
#5: Rushing the process
- What’s the issue? Drying and curing cannabis takes time, with some cultivators swearing by months of carefully watched curing time once cannabis is dry. How much time you commit to the process directly affects the quality of the cannabis, the flavors it develops, and the overall experience it creates once it gets into the hands of patients and customers. Pulling out plants too early can result in mediocre flower at best and contaminated flower at worst.
- How to solve the issue: In general, you want to leave your cannabis to dry for at least two weeks, though that time may be shortened if your buds are smaller or were wet-trimmed. After that time, your cannabis should be hard to the touch, but not so dry that the twigs and branches become brittle.
#6: HVAC malfunction
- What’s the issue? The ideal cannabis drying room temperature is 55 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, with a relative humidity of 50 to 60 percent. Many HVAC systems, though, accumulate frost on their evaporator coils when working to achieve these conditions. HVAC malfunctions can result, which is especially problematic during the first 24 to 48 hours after a harvest. During this period, your HVAC system will undertake an especially substantial load as about half of your plants’ moisture is removed.
- How to solve the issue: Schedule routine maintenance appointments for your HVAC system. The more proactively you check for major issues, the less likely a malfunction is in the first place. Another proactive step: Upgrading to an HVAC system that’s designed to operate effectively as you strive for ideal temperature and humidity levels.
What makes a good cannabis drying room?
The key elements of a good cannabis dry room include:
- Consistent airflow and relative humidity. If air flows from left to right in your space, moisture will first evaporate from plants on the left side. The result is greater relative humidity on the left side of your drying room. That said, air that blows directly onto plants isn’t a solution, as it leads to overly rapid drying.
- Evenly distributed, well-spaced plants. Unevenly distributed plants bunched close together to hang-dry or rack-dry won’t have enough space for water evaporation. This can result in overly moist buds, not to mention microclimates with higher humidity in certain parts of your drying room.
- Powerful HVAC. Your HVAC system must have no trouble reaching and maintaining the temperature and humidity values best for drying cannabis.
- Positive pressure. When your drying room’s atmospheric pressure is positive, airborne contaminants cannot enter the room through open doors. Your harvests are thus less likely to grow mold or mildew, though both are still possible outside ideal humidity conditions.
- Low lighting. Minimal lighting, or even pure darkness, makes for a good cannabis drying room. Ultraviolet light is especially important to avoid, so at the very least, your plants aren’t exposed to sunlight in the drying phase.
- Adequate space. You could meet all the previously stated conditions and still struggle to effectively dry your plants if your drying room is too small. Traditional hang drying is notoriously inefficient on space, and wet trimming and drying on trays, though more space-efficient, still requires a large and expensive footprint. Technology like Cryo Cure’s minimizes your footprint while achieving an ideal final product.
Are drying and curing rooms in the same place?
Your drying and curing room can be the same place if space allows and if it works for the size of your harvest. Traditional curing methods involve placing your dried buds in sealed mason jars and placing these jars in a dark, HVAC-controlled environment. Stacking your curing jars inside large plastic bins in your drying room isn’t out of the question.
On the other hand, today’s very best cannabis drying and curing technology effectively eliminates this question. This technology replaces traditional cannabis drying and curing rooms with machines that simultaneously achieve both processes in an unparalleled shortened timeframe.
There’s an alternative to cannabis drying rooms: Cryo Cure
As we’ve highlighted here, a lot can go wrong in the cannabis drying room. Conditions can be thrown off, timelines may get crunched, and the lengthy drying and curing period only invites more opportunities for things to go wrong. With Cryo Cure, skipping the entire process is now possible – and with stellar results.
Our Cryo Cure machines reduce the drying and curing process to as little as two to 10 hours. Our machines take up little room when compared to the real estate and infrastructure necessary to dry cannabis the traditional way. One machine – which can be maintained by any HVAC maintenance professional – takes up a fraction of the square footage, and our models on wheels can be moved from place to place as needed. Talk about a time-saver and a space-saver!
By applying a precise calculation of time, temperature, and pressure to freshly harvested cannabis, Cryo Cure produces smokable flower with stabilized phytocannabinoid content and a preserved terpene profile that retains up to 95% of terpenes. The result is an unforgettable customer experience that dispensaries have labeled “platinum tier” – one that simply cannot be replicated by any other traditional dry and cure or cannabis freeze-drying technology.
Learn more about how Cryo Cure works – contact our leadership team today to learn how Cryo Cured cannabis can change your operations.
