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Cavendish - Starting With Aged Tobacco vs. Starting With Unaged and aging the Cavendish

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Northern Light Up

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When making Cavendish is it necessary that aged baccy be used to provide a good finished product?

Is it best to use aged baccy or make cavendish style and then age it?

I'm wondering if the steam process is a style of fermentation. Does the steaming make quick work of some of the chemical changes?

I have this year's baccy crop packed up and in a kiln currently. It will be another 3 weeks until ready. In the meantime, I collected up a pile of scraps and put them on to steam. I figure I might as well try and learn something while waiting.

Is it possible the unaged baccy cavendish will be a smokable product?
 

deluxestogie

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All of the Cavendish batches that I have made used color-cured leaf that had not been aged or kilned. The steam is not a fermentation method; it's a cooking process. The leaf is smokable once brought into the proper case, but smooths out during the following few weeks.

The greatest challenge is to dry it down enough so that it does not mold. It won't be squishy like the store-bought humectified, flavorized stuff.

Bob
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I've got the kiln runnin. Maybe I'll throw the pressed plug into the kiln to dry out. It's running at 125 fahrenheit so mold shouldn't be able to grow.

Ever try that?
I know this is an older thread, but I was looking for an answer to this very question. Mold growth discussions online aren't necessarily that informative, because we don't store food or heat our homes at temperatures that high. I'm sure folks here with experience can say what the max temperature for mold growth is, but to be ultimately sure, going above the lethal temperature for mold growth is the most certain course of action. See chart.
125 degrees should be fine. However, I would recommend higher temperatures because it is faster, and you've already had it over 200 for some time when making black cavendish, so you aren't going to damage it.
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deluxestogie

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By the time a batch of Cavendish is done cooking, it is pretty much sterile. The problem with mold arises from the ubiquitous presence of mold spores in the air and throughout our homes. It's just there all the time. As soon as you open the cooker, and spread out the Cavendish tobacco to dry, it is inoculated with mold spores of various sorts.

At that point, we're not trying to kill mold, but simply establishing conditions in which the spores cannot germinate. Just dry it down to low case, and you're set. Storing the tobacco with enough moisture to feel like store-bought tobacco leaves it moist enough to allow mold growth.

This is also the case with any color-cured tobacco. Low case allows continued aging (and smoothing), while preventing mold growth. For newbies, low case is dry enough that the leaf makes a sound when handled (and maybe cracks if folded), but is not so dry that it crumbles.

Bob
 

ChinaVoodoo

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Understood. I think the concern in the preceding question lies in trying to dry out a brick that was wet, when pressed. It's very difficult to know how moist it is on the inside. I ran into mold after making a rope with steamed tobacco. My house was 20% humidity, and i left the tobacco on a food dehydrator grill on the counter. It began molding on the inside after 3 weeks.

Obviously drying it before making the rope would have been safer. Live and learn. But, in theory, if I had put it in my kiln, it would have both dried faster, and been at a temperature which inhibits mold growth.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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Did you start a thread or other documentation for this rope thing? I'm intrigued.

I just posted a photo of the end product in "what did you smoke today" post #149.

Let's see if this works.

Congratulations Hooligan. Best of luck.

Today I smoked some rope that I made. I steamed some WLT dark air until nearly black, and made a rope, wrapping it in WLT dark fire cured. I let it rest 5 days.
View attachment 15008
 
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