drying too long vs too short

Well the "hay" smell is caused by nitrogen sugars cellulose etc, breaking down anaerobically with the high moisture content. It begins to ferment. This releases ammonia and acids giving the foul odor.
Up rh (instead of jarring and burping) lower temps, and increase airflow is the general prescription.

As to moldy bud, in general mold that eats dead material is bad, mold that eats live material is good ie budrot. Which is also the "noble rot" creating fine dessert wines. Though it may not be pleasing to smoke you can filter it out of your hash oil easy enough without any worries

qwizoking said:

Well the "hay" smell is caused by nitrogen sugars cellulose etc, breaking down anaerobically with the high moisture content. It begins to ferment. This releases ammonia and acids giving the foul odor.
Up rh (instead of jarring and burping) lower temps, and increase airflow is the general prescription.

As to moldy bud, in general mold that eats dead material is bad, mold that eats live material is good ie budrot. Which is also the "noble rot" creating fine dessert wines. Though it may not be pleasing to smoke you can filter it out of your hash oil easy enough without any worries

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Exactly.. Unlike some experts here that claim you need to smother the plant from receiving oxygen so sugars can ferment, you actually want the oxygen so aerobic respiration can continue for as long as possible. Ideally, the end result is the the starch and sugar content are 75-90% gone within 4-5 days of drying. The rest of the cure is for that last 10-25% of starch, and for oxygen to break down chlorophyll.

Without oxygen, your weed will ferment... which is NOT a good thing. Ideally, with all the starches and sugars consumed in a proper cure, there should be very little left that can ferment or go stale. (think stale bread and compare it to mids. mids tend to be very starchy and crunchy rather than breaking up like 'angel weed')

If all went well during the drying process, it shouldn't really matter what happens after the first week. Almost everything that was going to happen already happened, so leaving it out longer isn't going to make too big of a difference. It's very hard to ruin by letting it sit out for too long.