What RH are you guys actually curing at?

Been curing at 62% for years but i pulled a really terp-heavy pheno this run, like full on ripe mango and fuel, and i dont want to lose any of that to a bad cure. Makes me wonder if i should be dialing it back a bit. I've heard some people swear by 58% for preserving the louder, gassier profiles. The logic being that a slightly drier cure slows things down and keeps the volatile compounds from just evaporating off. Not sure how much of that is actual science vs forum mythology though. What are you all running and have you actually noticed a difference in the final smell between different RH targets? Especially curious if anyone has done side by side compares on the same pheno.

2 comments

2 Comments

Experienced4d ago

tried both on the same auto strain last year, same pheno, split the harvest into two mason jars at 58% and 62%. honestly the difference was subtle enough that i kept second-guessing myself. the 58% jar maybe had a slightly sharper initial hit on the nose but after 3 weeks they were basically identical. could have been placebo, i genuinely can't say for sure. what i think matters more than the exact RH target is how stable you're keeping it. i've lost more terps to fluctuating humidity than i ever have from being a few points off the "ideal" number. if your 62% boveda is holding steady and your jar isn't getting cracked open every day, you're probably fine. the volatile compound theory sounds plausible but i'd want to see actual data before i change my whole process around it. most of what gets passed around on that topic is someone read it somewhere and it spread. your mango fuel pheno is probably more at risk from heat and light exposure during the cure than from being at 62 vs 58.

Expert Grower4d ago

The stability point from the previous reply is solid, but i'd push back slightly on the idea that 58 vs 62 doesn't matter at all for terpene-forward genetics. From what i understand about the enzymatic activity happening during cure, those processes do slow down as moisture activity drops. Whether that's a meaningful practical difference in a 4-point RH range is honestly debatable, but for a really expressive pheno i lean toward 58-60 just as a conservative choice. Less enzymatic conversion happening, less chance of losing the precursors that hold the profile together. Probably marginal, but marginal matters when the goal is preserving something special. What i think gets overlooked is temperature. I cure in my basement at around 60-62 degrees and i'm convinced that does more work than the RH target. Cooler slows everything down, including the off-gassing of volatiles. Heat is the real enemy of a terpy pheno and most people control RH carefully while curing at 70+ degree room temp. If you've got something worth babying, lower temp and a stable 58-60 is where i'd land personally.