First grow - Orange Gasm

Chopped day 64 of flower. Wrote up notes the day of harvest but couldn’t post them at the time due to technical issues with grow diaries. Pasted notes here: Was keeping my options open for harvest, and scoping the trikes today and seeing 10% amber and the rest cloudy sealed it for me. Decided to chop her down tonight and go for a nice long slow dry over the next two weeks. I am drying in my tent, so l needed to remove the light and an oscillating fan to make space. Unhooked the nets and moved the plant out of the tent for a full defoliating. It was validating to see her in normal light, the fade was way more obvious than under the grow lights. All fan leaves without trikes were removed. I then removed the top net so it would be out of the way, but left the first net as it was way too intertwined to removed off the whole plant. In hindsight the top net was unnecessary and just got in the way. I probably won't use a second net next time and will be more aggressive with the SCROG. My wonderful wife assisted me with getting the first chop done. She was even a good sport with the house stinking pretty bad! I've sealed up the tent and set the fan to vent only once the RH goes above 61%, and then will shut off entirely. One fan was left on in the bottom blowing gently into a wall to keep the air moving around. I'm following the method provided by the Build a Soil tutorials on tent drying with whole plants. I did not weigh the final wet mass, as it's not super relevant to my end goals. I will definitely be weighing the final dry product after trimming in two weeks. Smoke review: Dry temps ranged up to 74, but were always in the 70s throughout the dry period. Drying humidity was kept consistently between 59-62% throughout the dry. Kept the plant hung for 10 days, and pulled them after testing a few nugs for rH levels. Smell was super potent during and immediately after harvest, but around day three or four of the dry it because suddenly replaced with grass/hay smell, which is from the chlorophyll being degraded and is okay. Smell remained grassy until the end of dry. I initially was relying on the stem test (bending stems and waiting for the snap), but thought it seemed a little unreliable and found stuff online agreeing with my opinion (which let’s be honest is not hard online, but I think the point stands) so I followed recommendations to buck some nugs from various stems through the drying plant into a small jar with a hygrometer, and seal it up for a few hours. If the rH is in the mid 60s or higher, keep drying, otherwise start curing. My humidity was at 57-59, so I immediately stripped all of the buds off the stems, and placed them into grove bags with hygrometers. I kept a decent head space in each bag to avoid overfilling and to allow the buds to be shaken around. The buds are super sticky. I did a relatively through dry cure two weeks after harvest, and a few days after beginning the cure. I cured a couple days early because I did not have time for a full trim when the buds were done drying. Buds in grove bags are curing in the grow tent still as it stays nice and cool, dark, and dry. I ended up with about an ounce of good, top cola buds, maybe half an ounce of mids, and the rest of the flower was lower grade buds that were pretty loose and larfy. I have taste tested and of course smelled a lot of the final buds, and am conflicted. I can’t tell if I am nose blind to the citrus terps, or if they evaporated off at some point during late grow or the dry. Or maybe they’ll come back after more cure. The buds have some lingering grassy smell still currently but it’s lessened as they cure. I don’t notice orange or orange rind, but I will be letting the flower cure more before making my final conclusion. I’ve tasted some flower with my dry herb vape (my usual method of consumption), and smoked a little with my glass chillum just for completeness sake. Flavor wasn’t bad or grassy by any means, but I didn’t get any orange yet. Bud is potent AF, though, and hits like a train with both the dry herb vape as well as when smoked. I’ve tried pressing a few eights of larf and gotten okay results, but I am a total notice to pressing so I’m just glad I got anything to work. Rosin was again pretty potent. I’m thrilled with the outcome of my first grow, all things considered. I had a much bigger yield than I expected, and have more quality herb to toke on than I’ll need once I get the next grow going. Plenty of lessons were learned, and I’m excited to start again!