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Toscano Fermentation

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ChinaVoodoo

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I was looking for more information on fermentation, and came upon a scholarly article in which an analysis of the microorganisms involved in Toscano fermentation is done. I am amazed at the depth of the study. The number of bacteria species are numbered in the hundreds, for example. It mentions temperature ranges. Growth conditions. Lots.

First question is, as toscano uses previously fermented tobacco as a bacterial starter for their fermentation, has anyone tried to do the same? I imagine that the benefits would not only include speed, and consistency, but also inhibit mold because it gets colonized by other microorganisms first.

Second thought is that there is a bacteria used in organic gardening called BTK that is sprayed to prevent cabbage moths who's larvae eat anything brassica. It is mentioned as one of the denitrifiers involved. Bacillus thurigiensis. I'm not suggesting to actually add it to the tobacco, but perhaps using it as pesticide in you're garden will aid in having a healthy fermentation. Moreover, it suggests that anything which kills the bacteria, such as garden chemicals, alcohol, and pasteurization temperatures, will be detrimental to your fermentation.

Thoughts? http://aem.asm.org/content/73/3/825.full#ref-list-1
 

DonH

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Many of us use BT as a pesticide for tobacco. It works really well against hornworms. The brand name is Thuricide.
 

deluxestogie

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The "Toscano" approach to fermentation, discussed in the article, is a method often described as bethune (a secret potion), in which the leaf is subjected to microbe-laden solution, then allowed to steep. This is distinctly not the fermentation used on most tobacco, which is an enzymatic fermentation in which microbes play little if any role.

"Toscano cigars are a traditional product whose fermentation methods and sensory characteristics greatly differ from other commercial cigars ..."

The only traditional, Caribbean-style cigar that used bethune was Royal Jamaica, which (back in the 1970s and 80s, when there was still a tobacco industry in Jamaica) always had something of a grassy taste. Toscano cigars are very dark cheroots that are kiln dried--sometimes described as "hard salami", and not intended to be stored in a humidor.

If I'm not mistaken, BT applied to leaf in the field is easily rinsed away by rain, and rapidly destroyed by exposure to sunlight.

Bob

I should add that dark fire cured tobacco has often been heated enough to denature one or both of the primary oxidase enzymes in the lamina. So any further, significant chemical changes would need to be brought about by some artificial means.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I had some 15 year old Guaranteed Jamaican cigars. I followed them up with a bundle of new ones. There was a huge difference in the flavor profile. The new ones were grassy like you said the Royal Jamaicans were, but the aged ones were fantastic, complex and smooth.
Where can I read more about the enzymatic chemistry of the fermentation process?

In regards to perique, i read somewhere that it is an anaerobic bacterial fermentation. Is that true?

Are there commonalities between tobacco fermentation and black tea, where the leaves are wilted, they are mechanically "rolled" between two plates to get the cells to burst. The juices contain the enzymes that blacken the tea, and since they were wilted, and rolled, the juices cover the surface area of the leaves, thus initiating the process of oxidation.
 

Planter

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Are there commonalities between tobacco fermentation and black tea, where the leaves are wilted, they are mechanically "rolled" between two plates to get the cells to burst. The juices contain the enzymes that blacken the tea, and since they were wilted, and rolled, the juices cover the surface area of the leaves, thus initiating the process of oxidation.

I´ve just tried that with tobacco. Green leaves indeed developed a smell similar to "black tea", but did not get dark as much and fast as tea evidently does (where complete oxidation of bruised leaf seems to take just 2-4 hours). I ended up with quite dry and still rather green leaf. To get tobacco leaves brown and smokable that way takes significantly longer - keeping shred moist in jars in the oven or the "dashboard curing" method do work. If you want to try that, let your leaves wilt first.


Regarding the Toscano fermentation, it is also rather hot and short (average 14 days up to 69 degrees Celsius), which in my experience requires sturdy leaf. Last year I subjected several batches of cigar leaf to such conditions. Results were inconsistent, some bordering on rot, that may be because I did not start with the right bacterial cultures. (Toscano re-uses the fermentation containers, and the book by Testa/Marconi mentions that fermentation tends to fail with change of environment.) The good batches came close to Toscano leaf at least in aspect.
 

ladaok

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" Are there commonalities between tobacco fermentation and black tea, where the leaves are wilted, they are mechanically "rolled" between two plates to get the cells to burst. The juices contain the enzymes that blacken the tea, and since they were wilted, and rolled, the juices cover the surface area of the leaves, thus initiating the process of oxidation."

Do you think there maybe any enzymes still viable in dried tea leaves ?
would it be worth making a strong cuppa and dipping some leaf in and letting it air dry , .. se what happens​





 

ChinaVoodoo

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" Are there commonalities between tobacco fermentation and black tea, where the leaves are wilted, they are mechanically "rolled" between two plates to get the cells to burst. The juices contain the enzymes that blacken the tea, and since they were wilted, and rolled, the juices cover the surface area of the leaves, thus initiating the process of oxidation."

Do you think there maybe any enzymes still viable in dried tea leaves ?
would it be worth making a strong cuppa and dipping some leaf in and letting it air dry , .. se what happens​






I understand the questions completely, and the answers are no, and not really. First, I should mention I used to manage tea at a pretty major café. I've read a lot about tea, and most importantly, I've visited two tea estate in India and had first hand education about the process of making black tea at the factories.

Once wilted and rolled to get the intra cellular enzymes out into the air, covering the outside of the leaf, the oxidation process of black tea only takes a couple hours. If those very enzymes were in tobacco, those of us who have attempted the same with tobacco would have had success by now. I know I'm not the only one who had tried.

As for whether you could use processed black tea's enzymes to oxidize tobacco, it wouldn't work because tea's enzymes are destroyed intentionally with heat to stop the oxidation process.

The one exception is white tea which is not allowed to oxidize, and is dried at a lower temperature than green, oolong, or black tea. It oxidizes about 5% before it is dried out, after which oxidation merely slows because of lack of moisture even though the enzymes are still present. In theory, you could spend a lot of money on white tea to try this, but you have to ask if it's worth it. The tobacco cells are significantly more intact than tea cells, so your enzymes wouldn't have much axcess to them. Is there specific compounds in tea that are being oxidized, which tobacco lacks?
 

ladaok

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Ah, that's how the Boston tea party probably came about ... they found that the black tea wouldn't do the job, ... so it got hoisted overboard ?
 

bonehead

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i have a book and very old video from somewhere in europe that does that fermentation. there was a recipe for making the solution. in an old post i briefly described the process and everyone told me it does not ferment. i could not be bothered to argue it does. the first year i grew i used this method and it worked well. i said it does as long as the tobacco starter culture has not been pasturized. you make up the solution and it bubbles like a corn or barley ferment on a warm counter. then you put some in a squirt bottle and cut it with water and mist the leafs. it was an old european guy,his wife and daughter that did the processing.
 

ProfessorPangloss

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There could be any thousands of local yeast and bacteria responsible for that, providing a unique terroir, like Belgian lambic. This could be fun. Any microbiologists in the house?
 

Muskrat

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i have a book and very old video from somewhere in europe that does that fermentation. there was a recipe for making the solution. in an old post i briefly described the process and everyone told me it does not ferment. i could not be bothered to argue it does. the first year i grew i used this method and it worked well. i said it does as long as the tobacco starter culture has not been pasturized. you make up the solution and it bubbles like a corn or barley ferment on a warm counter. then you put some in a squirt bottle and cut it with water and mist the leafs. it was an old european guy,his wife and daughter that did the processing.

New guy here, and I'd love to read that post, but my search for "bonehead recipe solution" returned about 250 hits, each one being an entire thread. :-(
 

ChinaVoodoo

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The "Toscano" approach to fermentation, discussed in the article, is a method often described as bethune (a secret potion), in which the leaf is subjected to microbe-laden solution, then allowed to steep.

Bob, I've been looking up bethune, and all I can find are articles relating to the artificial darkening of wrapper leaf by painting it with bethune. I don't think that's what you were referencing in this post. It was a long time ago you made this post, but do you know if anywhere I could read about the type of bethune that's used for fermentation?
 

Alpine

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http://www.gustotabacco.it/sigari/5...tetica-della-fermentazione-dei-sigari-toscani

I have no idea what kind of translation can jump out of google translate... this is for the braves!
Jokes apart, if someone is REALLY interested, I can make a complete translation. On a side note, in some Toscanos is still used an heirloom Italian tobacco, the Brasile Beneventano, cured in a peculiar way called "infocatura" that develops some kind of acetic component (IIRC)

Pier
 

deluxestogie

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Bethune (sometimes, "petune") is a tough term to research. Royal Jamaica was one of the very few cigar manufacturers who admitted to (actually advertised) their use of bethune. It is generally the practice of soaking cigar leaf in a potion to achieve a desired quality. The rare descriptions of what that potion might be tend to be vague: mixture of herbs and spices, tobacco juices from a previous fermentation batch, spirits of various sorts, etc. If any major manufacturers of premium cigars--other than Royal Jamaica--bethune their tobacco (which I doubt), they don't admit to it.

For the record, my opinion of Royal Jamaica cigars, all of them, is that they always had a grassy, even weedy taste that detracted from my enjoyment of them.

I've scoured the 19th Century literature for descriptions of bethune. Not much is said. (Performing a text search on some of these 500-page books is not possible, since not all of them have been adequately scanned using OCR--optical character recognition, so the .pdf files downloaded from archives.org sometimes consist of mere images of the old pages, rather than actual, searchable text.) Some have said that bethune is added prior to fermentation, others suggest that it is applied to (or serves as a bath for) tobacco that has already fermented. But none of the authors seem to actually know about its use from first-hand experience. So I believe much of it is just tobacco lore--myth. It is true that 100+ years ago, some cigar manufacturers would secretly soak poorly-burning leaf in a solution of potassium nitrite--a practice that would be illegal today.

During the cigar boom of the 1990s, when there was a shortage of dark wrapper, some less than reputable entrepreneurs used molasses and other treatments to make lighter colored wrapper appear to be maduro. (Steaming leaf will darken it, though it alters the flavor and aroma.)

My general opinion on bethune use is that it may serve some purpose when dealing with less than ideal tobacco. I do not believe that microbes play a significant role in typical fermentation of cigar leaf, so transfer of microbes from the last batch (as is done in making yogurt, for example) is dubious.

Two excerpts from Loew's 1899 publication (available in its entirety from archive.org):

Petune:
Petune_Loew1899.JPG


Microbial role in cigar leaf fermentation:
FermentationMicrobes_Loew1899.JPG


Loew, Oscar: Curing and Fermentation of Cigar Leaf Tobacco. USDA Report No.59, US Govt Prnt Office, 1899.

Bob
 

Planter

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It is true that 100+ years ago, some cigar manufacturers would secretly soak poorly-burning leaf in a solution of potassium nitrite--a practice that would be illegal today.
Bob

Not so secretly, I think.
Recipes in books like the "Handbuch der Tabak- und Cigarrenfabrikation" from 1871 frequently contain saltpeter, and the authors point out that excessive amounts result "often in departure of the skin of the tongue".
Potassium nitrate is still used (among others) as a burning agent ( see sst.dk/da/sundhed-og-livsstil/tobak/indberetning-og-tobaksvarer/~/media/76D9B6F198BC409AA4BCD30DB4EDFA17.ashx ) and explicitly permitted in the German and Swiss tobacco regulations for cut tobacco and cigars.


Regarding Bethune, the aforementioned book may throw a light here, as it concentrates on the "improvement of raw tobacco leaves" from certain regions (in order to make them more similar to fine and naturally good-smelling qualities like Havana, Virginia or Yenidje). Roasting, steaming and lixiviation are examined, but "fermentation" found to have the best effect - "fermentation" used as a broad term for processes which lead to the release of ammonia. Methods which trigger that release include tight pressing in barrels, sweating in piles, external heat, the addition of sugar, yeast or substances like bicarbonate of soda.
Several chapters are dedicated to the "improvement of tobacco by good-smelling additives", namely herbs and spices and their essences, and sweet substances, esp. sugar, syrup, licorice.
There is for example a "sauce to give cigars made from German leaves a real Havana smell". It's prepared from an essence of cascarilla bark, vanilla, sugar and mastic gum in brandy.
Another sauce for cigars: For 10kg of leaves use 133g sugar, 33g saltpeter, 4g tea, 8g cinnamon, 8g Vanilla and 4g cloves, prepare the sauce by "slow digestion in the warmth".
It btw. also mentions that Havana filler leaves were stored in Cuba for 3-6 months moist in casks.
I have the impression Bethune could be any combination of said substances based on local customs and availability. If you take the cigar sauce above and leave the saltpeter out, you basically have a 1 percent sugar solution with slightly tannic additives and a nice smell; if you spray that on dry leaves just after colour curing in order to bring them into case, I don't think it would affect enzymatic fermentation negatively (or positively, except that some moisture is needed anyway). But stored and left to ferment like that, the leaves already smell more appetizing and the aroma is absorbed in small amounts over a longer time (I found in my own experiments that that's the "secret" to unobtrusive tobacco flavouring - smallest possible amounts and time).


Now, in regard to the Toscano, as far I know leaves are soaked just in softened water, and the filler is then mixed with discarded wrappers and cut-offs from the previous production cycle (which also contain the starch paste used as glue). The leaves are very wet and the fermentation vats hold 500kg, distributed from a preparation of 2000kg, which could have a somewhat "Periquening" effect, initially. Wrapper and filler do taste different (tested in the pipe), although it's (in the normal Toscano) "national" leaf for both, with the wrapper being much less alkaline even after 1+ year of aging (the wrapper seems to undergo just a slow enzymatic fermentation on the cigar in the factory's 6+ months storage).
 
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