Pile curing

[gargynko]

Hello there!

Outdoor is too humid, indoor is too dry so I decided to try pile cure some of my leaves.

I made 3 piles containing about 70 leaves. Piles are about 40x40 inches lying indoor on textile canvas and covered by the canvas as well.

My concerns is to turn leaves yellow and then string them and let dry in attic.

Could you please give me some basic hints how to not screw things up and not turn the leaves to compost?

 

[deluxestogie]

Until you are familiar with how the leaf yellows, examine it each day, and rearrange the leaf. Depending on the temperature, it should yellow in 3 to 7 days.

Bob

 

[POGreen]

Just be sure that you check them piles every day I'd say , did pilecuring myself last year with a hole lot of leaves and it went pretty well I'll say.A lot of work with the amount of leaves I had......
Reorganise the piles every day , lets say leaves from the middle , take them up or down and the one's from higher/lower position in to the middle.
Temperature will raise , especially in the middle , open one of your piles one day and feel the difference.......and you'll see.
If you want to intensify the curing , throw a towel or somethin like that over each pile and heat/humidity wont escape that much.
I even had leaves in a box with a towel over them and those leaves was really sweating + colourcuring !

 

[gargynko]

Thank you. I will chceck and reorganise piles daily. I am not sure if 7 days is enough to yellow. My unknown strain of flue cured is curing a bit weird. I hung some leaves outdoor under shed but it took a week to just see some minor changes in appearance and colour. For example I primed few leaves with alligator skin and yellow tips about 5 days ago and they are still about the same...not even getting softer much.

 

[POGreen]

 

[BigBonner]

Tobacco piled up can make its own heat . When hot it will smell like peaches or green grass . I have pile cured some but keep a very close eye on it , turn it often .

If I load a load of tobacco on a 20 ft farm wagon at 7 pm is has to be off the wagon by 10 am the next morning or it could over heat .

 

[POGreen]

http://www.coffinails.com/curing_tobacco.html

Here's a link to coffinails about differnt ways to cure your tobacco

 

[deluxestogie]

Here's a link to FTT about different ways to cure your tobacco:

http://fairtradetobacco.com/forums/48-Curing-arrangements

Bob

 

[gargynko]

Thank you guys for links!

My pile curing goes just right. I am turning piles every day and my leaves are turning yellow nicely, slowly but nicely. I do not experience any compost turning or moulding. Just leaves on the bottom are sweating wet and I am always bringing them on air. August has not been like usually - hot and dry so I had to try pile curing. I will wait one more week and transfer my leaves into attic to fully dry.

About 200 plants still standing proud in my field. I wanted to harvest early to have second harvest but I changed my mind and I will rather let all the leaves turn pretty yellow and ripe and then move them into attic at once.

 

[POGreen]

Nice work gargynko , good luck on the attic !
You could probably take those plants up to the attic when the lugs are yellow and do a good stalkhang.
They'll ripe as they go along , slowly but surely.
A good idea would surley be to have some sort of circulation of the air up there , perhaps by a window in each end ?
What varieties did you grow ?

 

[gargynko]

The attic is really really dry and there is alsoo door that could be open anytime. I will try stalk curing maybe next year...this is my first year growing and this year I will let tobacco ripe thoroughly in the field and then move it into the attic.

I am growing just 1 variety. It is some unknown flue cured.

For the next year I will grow a lot more varieties because I love it...it is great hobby.

 

[Chicken]

In my past grows I never really focused on piling my leaves..

But this year I've piled since the first leaf I picked..and boy what a good difference I'm noticing..my leaves aren't as stiff..thus allowing me to get more leaves on my bacca sticks,..

And the yellowing of the leaves is a better quality.than hanging them still green..and letting them yellow up that way..

I'll be piling everything.from now on...
The end product is a much better quality. And makes the leaves easier to handle when running my wire thru the stem.