NewZealand
David Walker
Just thought I'd share my minor successes and major frustrations with colour curing.
I decided to build an oven to control the temp and humidity during the colour curing phase. Its not very good because it's made of fibreboard which is held together with urea formaldehyde resin. That resin releases formaldehyde gas if it gets wet but I painted it so hopefully it will be okay. The oven has very good airflow with 2 fans blowing air all around. The temp and humidity are monitored by a DHT22 which is supposed to be fairly accurate. The ardunio (with PID library) controls the hot plate and ultrasonic mister using solid state relays. This arrangement pleasingly keeps the temp and humidity within 1 degree, and 3% of the set point targets. I've programmed a temperature ramp cycle using this system.
Here are some photos of my oven which my housemates dont seem to mind having in the house. Its just been switched on and thats why the temp is quite low.
My oven is basically a poor mans version of Brent's fantastic chamber which you can see you youtube here
Seems that Brent is colour curing at 102F (34C) and 96%RH
Brent's set-points are consistent with these documents which I found online. here and here
Unfortunately my tobacco doesn't seem to be yellowing correctly.
Here are some photos. As you can see one leaf is nicely yellow, the other is greenish and another is green with brown spots.
Those photos were taken after 3 days in the chamber (93% constant RH with temp ramp 75->102F @ 2F/hour, then maintain 102F)
Seems I'm doing something wrong here. Perhaps I picked some of it too early, or my soil nitrogen is too high? any suggestions appreciated.
Regards
Patrick
I decided to build an oven to control the temp and humidity during the colour curing phase. Its not very good because it's made of fibreboard which is held together with urea formaldehyde resin. That resin releases formaldehyde gas if it gets wet but I painted it so hopefully it will be okay. The oven has very good airflow with 2 fans blowing air all around. The temp and humidity are monitored by a DHT22 which is supposed to be fairly accurate. The ardunio (with PID library) controls the hot plate and ultrasonic mister using solid state relays. This arrangement pleasingly keeps the temp and humidity within 1 degree, and 3% of the set point targets. I've programmed a temperature ramp cycle using this system.
Here are some photos of my oven which my housemates dont seem to mind having in the house. Its just been switched on and thats why the temp is quite low.
My oven is basically a poor mans version of Brent's fantastic chamber which you can see you youtube here
Seems that Brent is colour curing at 102F (34C) and 96%RH
Brent's set-points are consistent with these documents which I found online. here and here
Unfortunately my tobacco doesn't seem to be yellowing correctly.
Here are some photos. As you can see one leaf is nicely yellow, the other is greenish and another is green with brown spots.
Those photos were taken after 3 days in the chamber (93% constant RH with temp ramp 75->102F @ 2F/hour, then maintain 102F)
Seems I'm doing something wrong here. Perhaps I picked some of it too early, or my soil nitrogen is too high? any suggestions appreciated.
Regards
Patrick