curing Brazilian style

[Bigdog]

I think I might have a idea you guys can try: take a long piece of canvas, say 8X3 feet, devide your leaf into 2 equal piles and arange it lenghtwise on the canvas about 1 foot from the centre of the canvas, one on the left and one on the right. Roll your leaf into the canvas. Now you should have a 8 foot long sausage stuffed with tobacco in 2 places 2 feet apart. Secure the whole thing with strong twine or whatever you like. Now you need a crossmember or something similar to hang your sausage over so you have a pile of leaf on either side. Tie the two ends together and suspend a weight from the end. Now take a long pole or lever and wind the whole sausage up to the desired tension, the weight hanging from the end should take up any slack that you don't notice and you can just keep on tightening it until your baccy is done.

 

[Planter]

SmokesAhoy, how´s the experiment with the jars going so far?

 

[Ben Brand]

To complicated for me, I`ll just chop and hang them by the stalks.

 

[Planter]

I have run out of (stalk-) curing space, so this method looks interesting.

I have made a sailors-carrot with a towel and rope. The towel took care of excessive juices, no dripping. After two days I opened it, the "sausage" was nicely compressed and quite dry on the outside. I then put it into the press overnight (more juice coming out). Now the whole thing is nicely brown, the smell reminds me on the medium stages of dashboard curing (not green anymore, but no tobacco yet).

 

[Planter]

Update: I put the brown twist into a jar, where it developed well so far - similar to dashboard cured leaf. Another batch I made without towel but immediate pressing stayed green and moulded suddenly in the jar - both jars were kept at close to 50 degrees Celsius.