For smoking quality, I have not yet noticed any consistent differences between drying methods. I fully expected the MHN dried stuff to be worse off because there's added heat and the drying time is so fast, but really it's hard to tell any difference at all that's not just regular variability between nugs once each treatment has had ~6 weeks curing time.

That said, I don't think I have enough data to really speak with any authority on that. We're still in anecdote land.

As for the smushing, yes, I did have the nugs smushing up in my jars. I tried to create little compartments with the silica packs, but the parts of the nugs touching glass will have the stigmata smushing into the rest of the cola. I suspect you could pull off similar drying inside of a non-permeable plastic bag, like something made of PVC (like these). I will be testing those exact bags (and others) against Grove bags later this week/early next week, so I'll be able to report back on the smush factor in those rather than inside of the glass test jars I used.

I'll take some pictures of the finished nugs when I get a free moment, and I'll let you know when they're in the shared folder on Google Drive.