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fellow gellies,....
Rebstahhh, yes I sarw et las' night!
Hmmm,... some ground to cover here,.. generally speaking (and somehow contrary to your experience and fridge) both fridge and freezer are dessicating environments, as any older vegetables can tell you, or jars of some things left poorly sealed,......
... because it's so cool, the RH% may seem high, but remember-
- the R means
relative,... meaning the actual content of water vapor in there is quite low, despite what a high RH% reading offers; cold air doesn't hold doodly for actual amount of water vapor.... Besides, many hygrometers don't work for shit at cold T and very high T's, you need high Q' gear for accurate measurement of these,.... That said, I'm baffled that you got rehydration, unless the buds water content was so low as to actually absorb some of the vapor in the fridge,.. if it's an older kinda tired model, that may be a contributing factor for more moisture in your unit,... (
snicker! 
what?? ) ... Oh, just thought of this: if you open the jar in ambient air T and RH%, then put it into the fridge, the cold will force the vapor out of gas phase and into the bud as the T goes down, followed by the RH%,.. so if it's any kind of humid ambient, you will in fact be forcing the condensation into the bud as it drops out of gas phase and into "liquid",...buds absorb it readily, so no droplets will be seen,... this goes to your good advise about not filling the jars full, leaving more moister air to take it's place = more hydration effect....
... As for the terpene resurrections
.. I can only guess why they seem somehow magnified,... for sure, in truly air tight containers, the cold will preserve terp's and cannabinoid profiles, ratios because of minimal degradation and O2 exposure,... I'm speculating, but maybe the trich' heads membrane gets partly busted from the thermal contraction and expansion,....(oils expand quite a bit, that's why you shouldn't check your engine oil when it hot),....so when they come out, the fragile membrane may get ruptured partly, releasing the now warming, expanding terps,... all I can tell you is a basic law of the universe: matter can't be created or destroyed, only changed! I don't know that there's any sort of chemistry alterations in the terps due to this cold/warm cycling to account for this, but there might be? Only a genuine Organic Chemistry guru could maybe say if there's something going on within the trich' head that changes something about them under such conditions.... So whatever terp' aroma improvement you get is most very likely accountable to some sort of releasing of them from the physical process,...
The buds feel cool because they contain very little water, and the veg matter isn't a good conductor of heat/cold,.. and what actually touches your skin is a very small surface area because of the "fuzzy" surface texture of the buds themselves,.... Also consider how different plastic feels compared to metal at the same temp! :smoking:
Things I know about jars, and sealing... we've talked a little about this before,... I noticed my jars with lids and bands did not make a good seal reliably... sometimes I can smell the bud with no trouble, no matter how hard I tightened,... that's because they were make to get sucked down when canning by the cooling contracting air within,... that doesn't happen much if at all in room temp, certainly not to the degree of compression thatsuch temp extremes can produce,... So, I took to doubling the lids; better, but not consistent still, which beats the fuck outta me, I think I felt strong compression,... tested by putting the jars into a turkey-type material bag and closing up well,.. wait a few hours, open gently and snifffff,.... Best seal seem to come from lids plus the white plastic screw-on caps made for the jars, but not for actual canning as they don't seal alone well enough either,... beyond this, I've looked at all kinds of "airtight" storage containers, for foods,... most were not reliable for sealing either, or were made of plastics not recommended for cannabis (smell bonding, some terp's can actually dissolve some!).... Si gaskets absorb aroma badly! ... I have the Cannalope Haze in a Tupperware Brilliance container, and it's good! Right kind of polycarb' plastic, seal material is untested yet though for stank bonding,... And there's always the Seal-a-Meal bags!
Some years ago, my first ever real OD grow, I had a couple plants come down during warm moist weather, shit's for drying,.. I was mold-scared, and read up on the freezer dry method,... it did work, slowly, and terps' seemed OK, but it was harsher and looked murky in color,...
... As for cold curing, I'm of a mind that the subtle chemistry changes occurring after full dry need some reasonable T exposure and time to occur,... I personally wouldn't cold store my bud until several weeks to a couple months,.... after that, it's a pretty much time freeze for this, as long as the seal is literally air tight,.. O2 is a big "enemy",... overly strong dessication is just as bad, and together they will FUBAR the bud permanently! ...
@Ribbzzy is all over this already-
... well at least on the buds,.. but about the nipp's-
I dunno, I'd take
@blue's built-in temp gauges as a better measure!
Is anyone familiar with a cold bag cure? I was told by a dude that he cuts his buds and dries them in open paper bags in the fridge and he gets excellent results(and the terps stay in the buds and dont make the rest of the stuff in the fridge smell like weed). Dude had some really nice looking bud for sure, and he swore that it increased terps versus other methods of drying. Hmmmm so cold + dry relative humidity?? Maybe i will try a few buds from my upcoming harvest and see how it goes!!
.... that's makes sense Skelly, I read a study that showed up to 70+% of the terp's are lost during dry/cure,... lighter molecular weight terp's go first, so this is in part why live usually isn't the same as dried bud,... but as mentioned above similarly, the "death thoes" chemistry needs T and moisture content for some days to properly take place,.. starch breakdowns, chlorophyll, etc.,... I can't help but wonder if his bud comes out of the fridge dry harsher initially,...? I'd be stoked to see you experiment, as I trust in your evaluations, especially with bud strains you know well!
>>>
@Padawan1972 ...
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oh gawds, the scaring of the minds eye,
S!
hell yes! Another fridge cure for the win!!
