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I guess I messed up during the drying process. Such a beautiful cola, too, but I forgot to take a pic before I noticed the mold - at which point I just started peeling away chunks at a time ☹️
What a bummer.
The moldy blur effect.
At least you learned how to not let it happen the next time.
How do you make sure it doesn’t happen?
I'd guess like any other mold prevention, moisture control.
I just hope I learned the right lessons 😅
Prolly need to break the buds up, lower the humidity, have more airflow … the usual mold mitigation stuff (that I thought I was doing right)
How did you manage to do that?
I guess because I was trying that "hang the whole branch to dry" method, with the same arrangement I had with the larfy harvest before it. I needed to increase airflow, I think? I dunno, but I think I'll stick with taking everything off the strm for now
What were your conditions? You should keep the air moving at all times.
Where I am it’s stupid dry, so I have to leave stuff on the branches or it’s over dry in days.
It was towars the upper edn of 50% humidity , and I had air moving around the room, but not specifically for this purpose ans I think with the level of humidity I should have had a fan or dehu going. I think it might work well when the weather is actually more wintery than it is now, but until then I have to be more diligent
I'd guess that there was already mold in the bud at harvest. It looks like a lot and I think it takes a few days for mold to spread that much.
You think? I have no idea - the plant seemed fine, and I didnt notice it until I opened it up, so I don't really know. I'll have to keep a closer eye, and maybe break the big buds up a little more before drying, just to check.
Thanks!
As soon as they develop buds I check them every day for mold. In both of my grows I discovered mold one day before the planned harvest and had to throw away some of it.
When the buds grow denser I even bend the bigger ones a bit to check its cores. I do this with rubber gloves or skewers because it's so very sticky.
Ah, sure. I'll have to keep a closer eye on it throughout the grow. Thanks for the insight!
Huh.
I usually set my exhaust fan to turn on at 60%rh and my humidifier (if I use it) to turn off at 55%rh. I keep my upper and lower canopy fans going 100%, but you want the RH to be up, but that’s why you want LOTS of indirect airflow.
You want a sealed climate, so a grow tent or you can rig up a tote if it’s a small enough batch or something.
Yeah, still working on getting everything dialed in and figuring out how to make my space work - I'll have to get some kind of tote or box or small tent or sonething. i know my set up wasn't ideal. Its not a sealed environment, and I didnt have as much airflow as i probably should have. Thanks for the tips and what your setup (that you know works) is like!
You mean the entire plant or individual branches with the fan leaves removed? Because the latter should be fine as long as there's some air circulation and the relative humidity isn't too high. That's how I've always dried them and I've never had mold. Few times I've moved them drying elsewhere after the surface has still felt moist after like 4 days of drying.
I removed the fan leaves, and even did most of a wet trim. I think I didn't have as much air circulation in the part of the basement this was hung in as i did the other spot. It was just one main stem with 2 separate and smaller branches. Nothing fancy over here until I can make one that comes out right from start to finish
That sucks 😭 did you salvage anything?
Sadly, no. It all looked great on the outside, but everything had this inside. Most of it wasn't visible until I broke the buds open, but once I noticed it, I just went cutting through each one. It was too much to be worth risking, and after thinking on it all day we decided to call it a lesson
It was a sad lesson, anyways
Hey subsub if you haven't thrown it all away yet you can salvage it by making bubble hash.
Damn, yeah - we have some various allergies and sensitivities to molds ans mildews, so we didnt wanna risk it and threw it out right away. I also thought of a tincture or something - maybe alcohol would kill the shit tgat we're worried about? Dunno. Thanks tho, I'll have to look into that (even tho I hope this doesn't happen again, it seems like it'd be useful to know)
Thats a shame. Some lessons are best learned the hard way still sorry to hear your situation. You got this try again soon! Im sureyour next grow will dry better.
In the case that you do end up with moldy nugs or trim perhaps consider your options a little more thoroughly do their best to turn lemons into lemonade. Throwing away all that kief and thc along with the moldy plant matter is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I order legal hemp trim in bulk. Its real cheap stuff 110g for 30$. You better believe theres moldy trim in there. Its meant for processing down into concentrate or cannaoil.
Ive smoked at leasta zip of hash I made from moldy trim and ive eaten hundreds of cannaoil capsules made from moldy trim. I trust these methods enough to casually recommend them to anyone who isn't immune compromised and wants to turn trash to stash.
Perhaps you are both a little too concerned over mold and mildew allergy? If you or your GF have legitimate allergy issues to mycotoxins diagnosed by your doctor then thats understandable.
However assuming you are just regular healthy people spooked by the idea of breathing in or ingesting moldy bud, theres two things to consider.
*1. Theres ways to seperate the cannaoil out of the moldy nugs and trim while sterilizing any remaining spores
*2. Mold and mildew arent actually that scary. A lot of fear hyped around them is based on misimformation. Most molds and mildews and spores are absolutely harmless to ingest and breath in at a base. We've been sharing the planet with mold and mildew and spores as long as our species has existed. Our ancestors often had to pick eating moldy food or starving to death. Mold producing penecilin was used to cure and preserve our meats. Our bodies generally know how to deal with it without fuss. Its the few bad toxic examples that give the whole lineage a bad wrap.
The process of making bubble hash uses physics to seperate the good cannabanoid oil crystals containing thc from the plant matter. In this case moldy nugs but often enough moldy old trim also. The oil crystals is heavier than water so with some vigerous shaking in ice bath the crystals seperates from plant matter and sinks to the bottom. The plant matter including mold spores and mycelium is less dense than water so it floats to the top and can be safely skimmed out. You can even further wash the crystals after seperation until the water turns clear if it makes you feel safer. Then strain with bubble bags and you have yourself clean hash. Here's the video I used for reference when I got started. The guy is old school and uses traditional method without bubble bags but if you really want to do this go on amazon and get some bubble bags they make life a lot easier.
If you were instead to cook it down into cannaoil the heat of a simmer over a few hours would kill any mold and break down anexcellent mycotoxins making it safe for consumption. The Cannaoil cooking method I like to do actually has spraying the trim fown wth everclear alcohol before simmering.You strain out all the plant matter from the oil and its good to go.
I think alcohol tincture would work well. From what I kbow of mycology you use alcohol to sterilize surfaces to reduce chance of contamination. Real mushroom nerds argue about which ISO alcohol is most effective at sterilization but if you're doing tincture you best just use highest proof grain alcohol.
Thanks! Sounds like good info that I'll look into - at a minimum, I still have future trims, if not trash
I hope it wasn’t your only stash
Nah, thankfullyr
Boooooo!
Right?