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AmaxB- Flue Curing Tobacco at Home: Wins & Fails

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AmaxB

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Some leaf had a little green vein yet but not much.
I am still unloading the chamber..
Next in will be A-56-N and Stolak 17
 

DGBAMA

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ALMOST??????????/

You must have very unreasonable expectations for yourself.

Wish mine looked that good.
 

DGBAMA

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And some of yall thought me crazy aah-hu
Hats off to ya big guy. I remember your first curing chamber post before iwas even a member here.....first thought was "this new guy has bit off way more than he can chew". You have done well.
 

Chicken

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The A.R. is good and is a good choice to grow (in my book) I shredded 3 leaves I'm not good at describing flavor but is kind of spicy, never smoked anything like it.
After I age it a little I am sure it is going to be one of my favorites and it does have nicotine.
It flavors my aged VA bright leaf nicely as it is on about a 50/50 mix.. :)
After growing my own and smoking leaf tobacco it will be very hard to find anything from big tobacco to match it.
If you don't want to grow than buy good leaf and age it. If you don't and buy packaged cigarettes your foolish or lazy

if that is true, then i must grow it next year,,,

because sounds like your mix there, would be a good smoke,

i like to make the highest % of my mix with va, bright leaf, with about 4 other bacca's added in,
 

AmaxB

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I'm not much on mixing Chicken, I'd rather just get a good tobacco and smoke it. I did that one just to see how it might accent the VA Bright.
Do grow the AR you will like it. It is a nice plant too.
The next one I am curious about is the A-56-N. It's a tall plant leaves are spaced nice (easy to sucker) and yellow on the stalk they are long and narrow
The plant is very slow to start seems like something is wrong wit it. Than all of a sudden look out cause it takes off in a big way.
 

AmaxB

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Samsun & Silk Leaf
The Chamber pack 250 - 300 leaves
Dry/Wet Bulb changes is more accurate 2F away from my digital control.
Have started batch 5 slowly raising temp to 93 vents closed RH control shut off. I want very high humidity to start my yellowing. After some hours I will drop it fast to avoid rot, and poor yellowing.
From 93 to 100F I will vent than close vents for a few more hours. After a total of about 12 hours I will vent normally.
.
Dry-Wet-Bulb-new-1.jpg..Batch_5-2_SM.JPG
PHYB2_Sm.JPG..Silk_Leaf_SM.JPG
 

AmaxB

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Batch 5 is moving along well, 56 hours running yellowing phase. 90% of the leaves are 100% yellow with little to no browning in the leaves or at leaf edges.
I have increased temperature 1F so now it is 103F will let it run another 4 to 5 hours then go to wilt phase.
 

bonehead

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just curious, do you think starting the yellowing in the cardboard boxes made a difference in the time for the yellowing phase in the kiln? you sure make that tobacco curing look easy. if i ever build a kiln i know whose i will try to copy. you seem to have every thing figured out pretty quickly and are willing to share so much information. thankyou. big tobacco must hate you by now.
 

Rickey60

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just curious, do you think starting the yellowing in the cardboard boxes made a difference in the time for the yellowing phase in the kiln? you sure make that tobacco curing look easy. if i ever build a kiln i know whose i will try to copy. you seem to have every thing figured out pretty quickly and are willing to share so much information. thankyou. big tobacco must hate you by now.
I agree, AmaxB has went out of his way to share all the information he has. I go back often to his thread on building his chamber and watch all the videos. Great information from a man that has taken the bull by the horns. I would like to say thank you for sharing with us, even your failures.
Rick
 

AmaxB

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just curious, do you think starting the yellowing in the cardboard boxes made a difference in the time for the yellowing phase in the kiln? you sure make that tobacco curing look easy. if i ever build a kiln i know whose i will try to copy. you seem to have every thing figured out pretty quickly and are willing to share so much information. thankyou. big tobacco must hate you by now.
I would not yellow in the boxes again I think it hurt the flue cure process and is why that tobacco cured brown.
If all the tobacco that went into the chamber had been pre-yellowed to a point it might be OK.
Even though it cured brown it smokes OK but lacks some flavor...
 

Knucklehead

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just curious, do you think starting the yellowing in the cardboard boxes made a difference in the time for the yellowing phase in the kiln? you sure make that tobacco curing look easy. if i ever build a kiln i know whose i will try to copy. you seem to have every thing figured out pretty quickly and are willing to share so much information. thankyou. big tobacco must hate you by now.

You can kiln leaf in a flue curing chamber and vice versa, but the two processes are totally different. Kilning is basically speed aging already cured leaf in about a month. A process that takes a year to naturally age, sometimes three or more for cigar varieties. Flue curing is a curing process that begins with green leaf.
 

DonH

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I agree with the above, but yellowing in boxes is great for air curing varieties like Turkish that tend to dry green.
 

Knucklehead

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I agree with the above, but yellowing in boxes is great for air curing varieties like Turkish that tend to dry green.

I tried yellowing Orientals in a box, but without air flow, some of my leaf in the center turned black in a matter of hours. I still have no idea what I did wrong, except maybe the airflow thingy. I did have a towel over the box, maybe that was the screw up.
 
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