Wet trimming is when you trim your flowers right after you harvest them, before the drying process starts. The advantages of a wet trim are that it is faster to do since the plant is much larger and easier to cut when wet, but more importantly it helps prevent mold that can easily appear during the drying process due to the fan leaves. If you live somewhere with relative humidity 60% or higher, wet trimming is crucial for you.

The disadvantages of a wet trim are that some terpenes can be lost during the drying cycle, thus affecting the smell and the smokability of the flower later on. It can also dry your flowers too fast, making them crunchy and overdried.

Dry-trimming is when you trim your flowers after the drying process has finished, which is usually 7 to 10 days after harvesting. The advantage of a dry trim is that it preserves more terpenes by trapping them in between the sugar leaves on the flower. If you live somewhere with an RH 55% or lower, dry trimming is ideal as it allows your flower to dry out slower, without becoming crunchy.

The disadvantages of a dry trim are that it takes longer than a wet trim since the flowers are now smaller (7 to 10 days instead of 4 to 7 days). It also requires more space for drying your buds since the leaves occupy more space.

In a nutshell, if you live somewhere really dry, a dry-trim will be better, but if you live somewhere really humid, you are better off with a wet-trim. 

However, at BudTrainer® we recommend doing a bit of both: a pre-harvest defoliation, which is a partial wet trim, and then a dry-trim later on to finish your buds off. You can learn how to do a pre-harvest defoliation in Lesson #5: How to Defoliate Cannabis.

After your buds go through the drying process and your stems are snapping, it doesn’t mean that your flowers are fully dry. It only means that their surface is dry, but the center is still moist. In fact, the core of your bud will always be more moist during the drying process because moisture flows from the inside out. 

This is not ideal because it means your weed has different levels of moisture content across its profile - the outside being dry and crunchy (at the ambient 55% RH) and the inside still being soft and wet (at more than 55% RH).

In order to make sure the internal moisture comes back out, you need to cure your buds. Curing involves placing your recently trimmed flowers into airtight containers (we recommend using mason jars that sell everywhere) until the moisture from the inside of the bud has come out and evened out with the dryness from the outside.

During this process water will be moving from the center of the flowers to the outside, and from the outside into the airtight container. Eventually the relative humidity inside the container will start rising, which is why it is recommended to use a 2-way humidity control pack. These humidity packs have a fixed humidity rating and they either bring the moisture level up or down inside of your container. Here at BudTrainer we recommend curing cannabis at a relative humidity of 55% to 62%.

Since there is still a significant amount of moisture to come out of your buds, it is essential that you open your containers (AKA burping) at least twice a day for a minimum of 5 minutes. This will allow the high-humidity air from inside the jar to come out and be replaced by drier air from the outside. To help you know the exact humidity inside your jar, you can buy mini hygrometers on Amazon like the one in the photo below.

Curing usually takes 2 to 4 weeks, and this amount of time depends on how much you dried your plants before. Cannabis can be cured for only 1 week and be ready for consumption, or it can cure for 3 weeks and still need longer to go. In our experience, 2 weeks is the ideal time to cure before consuming.

Since every strain is different, the easiest way to tell is by consuming a small nug after each week, until you are happiest with the experience. We find that “putting it to the test” is the best way to tell when your plants are really ready to go.

P.S. Don't forget to label your jars!