Dry a pot properly to bone dry

Drying seems passive. Just leave it out, right? Wrong. How you dry determines whether the pot cracks.

The protocol

1. Take a freshly trimmed pot
2. Cover it loosely with plastic (not sealed tight; you want slow air exchange)
3. Dry over 5–7 days, flipping periodically so all sides dry at the same rate
4. After day 3, remove the plastic entirely in a draft-free area

How to know it's bone dry

• Feels room temperature to the touch (wet clay feels cool due to evaporation)
• Uniformly light in color, with no dark patches
• Sounds different when tapped (higher pitch than leather hard)

Common mistake

Drying too fast. A pot that's dry outside but damp inside will crack in the kiln. Slow and even is the mantra.