I go for dark cloudy on the buds. If you have the time. You can always snip a little bud. And then dry it. You will have a reasonable idea how it will be from that. If it needs longer. You haven’t chopped the whole plant yet. It sounds like it may have been ready from what you said. The 1/2 and 1/2. It may just be a strain you don’t care for too. I know some like my 6 shooter. And it was terrible to me. I am not really a smoker. Just my 02 I almost never see amber. I let one plant go till it was orange. And never saw amber. It just stayed dark cloudy. I have come to realize. Every ones grows want a little different attention to mine here. I figure it is our weather vs theirs. 
These guys are all giving great advise 
I’m growing inside
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I thought it was the strain too but the weed taste just like my first batch and my first batch didn’t taste good neither
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I meant to the jars where youre storing. You can put someone in there to reintroduce moisture.
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What does that do? The humidity is at the correct level will it being the taste back to the bud?
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I thought you were having issues with drying out too quickly. My apologies. Are you letting it cure? Once dried its still takes 5-6 more weeks of curing and maintaining conditions.
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Firstly, Don’t get too hard on yourself @LowkeyLee. Growing is a skill that takes a while to learn 
. Some people are lucky enough to be born with the green thumb, but for most of us it takes experience and a lot of little mistakes to learn what not to do 
. Looks like you’ve gotten some really good advice over the last few months, but also some that could be a little confusing or contradictory. I thought it might help to try to give a little more detail. My apologies if it’s too much. It’s gunna be a long one 
.
It looks like you’ve been harvesting rather early. I say this mostly because of all the bud structure and thick white pistils which normally shrivel up and turn red before the trichs ripen and buds finish fattening.The few trich pics you’ve posted aren’t clear enough to make a good determination, or are sugar leaves rather than calyxes. It can be tricky getting light, focus, and stability right for a good clear pic, but blurry or over lit pics often look clowdy or yellowish even when the trichs aren’t ready. It’s also important to note that plants usually ripen from the top down and outside in. So the top bud will usually ripen before the lower ones. It’s always a good idea to check several buds to see where the plant is as a whole. When they are close I cut a single calyx off a few buds then use the scope at my desk where I have better control and can get a good pic without sugar leaves getting in the way.
Now, that being said it is still possible that the trichs turn before most the pistils, but the only time I’ve seen this happen is with heavily stressed plants that recover mid flower and produce new pistils. In that case the plant just doesn’t have what it needs to reach it’s potential. We would need to know more about your grow to troubleshoot effectively, but it appears high temp, low RH, and soil/ moisture management may been issues.
Dry and cure could also be possible problems with flavor. First you have the dry in which your trying to remove enough water from the buds that mold won’t grow once sealed away and degrade chlorophyll which tastes terrible, but leave enough moisture to cure. Ideally that should take 10-14 days at 60 degrees and 60% RH. Smaller buds higher temps and lower RH will speed drying which we don’t want.Obviously it can be difficult to maintain 60 and 60 for 2 week, but we do the best we can with what we have. If it dries too fast then the outside of the bud gets too dry while the middle remains too wet.This is where burping comes in. Once jarred, the moisture in the bud equalizes and you can burp the jars to release extra moisture and prevent mold. If your interested I do have some hacks I’ve used over the years to get a decent dry in my harsh desert climate without a bunch of extra gear, but that’s a whole different post.
After drying the cure begins. During the cure you seal your buds in a jar to keep that moisture level consistent while they age. During this time is when the flavor really develops. A cure won’t make dirt weed into fine kind, but it will make the most of what you have. Cure takes a minimum of 30 days, but can go on pretty much indefinitely. I usually give 90 days or more to cure if I’m not hurting for smoke.
Your flavor issue could be any combination of these things. Wet weed doesn’t taste very good so It’s possible that it might get better with a little time as it dries and/or cures. If it doesn’t, and the flavor is unbearable you can still make butter for edibles and filter out most of the nasty plant matter. Also, IMO autos are not particularly new grower friendly. I know they are marketed that way sometimes, but photos give you the luxury of time to make mistakes and then correct them before starting the flower clock. When your just figuring things out it’s a huge benefit.
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This whole paragraph describes everything that has been going wrong with my grow my humidity being too low while in the flower stage, heat from my light but also my house since it’s a very cold winter. I don’t think I put a picture of my trich for my last grow but I checked that one almost everyday until I seen amber but the buds were still small and I would wonder if they needed more time to grow or if this is as big as the buds get. When I did smoke the weed that I cured one has a light smoke taste like it don’t give that pull that you supposed to get when it’s fire. Another batch that I cured makes a sound like the weed is wet but it’s not wet it’s very dry and airy. Then I have another batch that I haven’t even smoked because it has no smell so I’m a bit scared to try that one I keep worrying about mold.
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Yes it’s been curing for 2 weeks now almost 3 and it still smokes funny if you read my last reply I explained how it smoked.
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I did read back through your thread. The HPS light, do you have a way to check its output like phototone app? If youre in a 3x4, you need about 360 watts the get good light to the whole tent. I think if we systematically go through your set up we can probably get it figured out. I run Jacks in coco so im no help on soil or nutes. Looks like they veg pretty well and you had nice looking buds on that last one. Download the phototone app or something similar. Youll need a diffuser to get a good reading. Its just a piece of paper to filter the light to the phone. Lets make sure your light is pushing hard enough.
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absolutely, A pic of the nameplate from your light would be helpful. We can figure the rest out from there. It’s just a sticker or plate with all the electrical info on it. It’s probably on the side of the ballast, but could be anywhere on the exterior of the components. It will look something like this, but this one is for an A/C unit so yours will be slightly different.
I would point out that HPS lights produce a ton of heat that needs to be dealt with. I see you have 6" exhaust set up, what do you have for intake to pull fresh air into the tent?
I saw you were looking at lights a while back. A good LED light would probably help a lot with your high eat low RH, but we should probably go over the rest of your grow before you buy anything. Just something to think about.
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Whats up girlie!! Hows the plants treating you this beautiful day??
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@LowkeyLee the above message was 4 u too lol
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