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Pre-Building Questions

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ZantetsukenSP

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I am planning on turning a refrigerator into a kiln. I have 2 that I can use. One is a small "dorm" fridge 4' x 2' x 2', and the other is 6' x 3' x 3'. I am planning on growing 30 plants. I have no idea as to how many leaves that equates. However, I suppose my question is how many leaves should each be able to accommodate. Also, about how many leaves would one get per plant(typical cigar varieties).

Thanks,
Scott
 

Jack in NB

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Hello Scott -

My plants give me an average of 25 leaves per, with 6 ft high plants. 8 ft plants - common in warmer areas - would probably produce more.

My kiln is 4 x 4, 8 ft (3 rows of leaves) high, and holds leaves from 130 - 150 plants. 4000 leaves or so. The leaves are pegged on nails spaced 2 1/2" or so on 4 ft strips - about 40 per strip. I dry them in a single layer on these strips, then combine them when completely dry to get 150 - 200 leaves per strip going into the kiln.

Strips are spaced about 5" apart in the kiln, so I get a maximum of say 1300 leaves in each layer, or about 80 per sq ft.

Pix of my setup are in the HTGT photo gallery, under my name - page 2, I think.
 

ZantetsukenSP

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I took a look, and that's a nice bit of tobacco that thing fits. Does fermenting leaves like that require any maintenance during the process? I have read in a few places that piling leaves in a kiln requires much maintenance, but I was thinking about going that route for increased space.

Thanks,
-Scott
 

BigBonner

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6 ft tall

You may need to top the plants earlier . This will make less leaves but the remaining leaves will be bigger , making more tobacco .
 

ZantetsukenSP

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6 ft tall

You may need to top the plants earlier . This will make less leaves but the remaining leaves will be bigger , making more tobacco .

I don't think that will work for me. I am growing pretty much exclusively for cigars. Worst case scenario, I will have to devise a method of storage between curing and fermenting.

Thanks,
Scott
 

BigBonner

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I say what ever works for you .

I raised Ct Broad leaf and it gets topped at about 4 ft tall and topped to a 10 inch leaf . I cut it at two weeks after topping . Topping lets all the growth that goes to the bloom and extra stalk go to the leaves . See the growth after a little over one week

uS4vK.jpg
 

ZantetsukenSP

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I didn't mean to say that I wasn't ever going to top it, but if I top it early then I believe that I would get less leaves. I don't have a great deal of land to grow my tobacco, and want as much leaf per plant as I can get. Am I off base?

-Scott
 

deluxestogie

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The easy answer: Go for the bigger kiln.

My kiln (made from an ancient 1'x1'x2' wooden toolbox) is a miraculous thing, but every day for the past two years, I've suffered from kiln envy. My capacity, with cured and pressed leaf going into open quart Ziplocks, is about 2 pounds of cured leaf per month. With 80+ plants this past season, the very last of my crop has yet to go into the kiln. Since I'll hopefully have ~170 plants this year (2012), I'll need a bigger boat.

Bob
 

ZantetsukenSP

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Thanks, I appreciate that. Here's hoping the wife will allow me to gut the bigger fridge. How exactly do you store your leaves in bags prior to fermentation? It is my understanding that they will be fairly brittle after curing. Do you just spray them w/water until they are flexible enough to stack and fold? Also, do you remove the stem from the leaves before storage?

Thanks,
Scott
 

deluxestogie

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My cured leaf hangs until I am ready to kiln it. A cheap box fan in the shed never stops.

I have saved up a number of very large, colorless plastic bags (~2'x3') from various sources--a trash bag will do. I put the individual crispy leaf (it's all leaf primed) into a large bag, mist it thoroughly with water, twist and close it with a clothespin, then check it the next day. Sometimes I can avoid this step if it has rained for a couple of days. At the point when the leaf is pliable, but the stem is still relatively firm, I strip the stem, then fold and press it to fit my quart Ziplock freezer bags. If you're going to hang the leaf in the kiln, you can just spray it where it hangs, and go from there.

The only reason I stem my leaf prior to the kiln is because my kiln is too small. (Hanging leaf may have some white mold on the stem. Although it's not likely to grow in the kiln temperatures [120-130ºF], by stemming it, the bulk of any mold ends up in my trash, instead of my kiln and finished tobacco.)

Bob

NOTE: It is my personal opinion that pressing the leaf (~1-2 psi), and the resulting close proximity of leaf surfaces while in the kiln, has little or no impact on the final product.
 

BigBonner

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I didn't mean to say that I wasn't ever going to top it, but if I top it early then I believe that I would get less leaves. I don't have a great deal of land to grow my tobacco, and want as much leaf per plant as I can get. Am I off base?

-Scott

No I didn't mean you had to top your tobacco .
It has been my knowlege that if you let tobacco grow too big and the stalk gets taller , all that growth could be going to the leaves instead of going to grow stalk and the bloom .

We top tobacco before bloom stage if we can . By topping early you will not have as many leaves but you will have better leaves .
Example . I top my tobacco after it blooms out a whole lot . I will have more leaves . The weight per acre may be around 2000 lbs .
Now if I top my tobacco before bloom stage with a lesser amount of leaves , these leaves will spread more get wider and longer .There will be more weight per acre compared to the late bloom topping .
In mass produced tobacco the less amount of work , in this case the less amount of leaves we have to strip to get the same weight or better weight save time and money .Bigger leaves more weight less picking to get 2500 lbs per acre .
 

Daniel

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I saw for myself the truth in what Larry is saying. I followed his advice about topping all plants back to a certain leaf size. THis is the impression I got from what I saw. If you look at a tobacco plant the largest leaves are on the bottom and every leaf as you go up the stalk gets just a little smaller. THis will continue all the way up to the top of the stalk until at teh top bud you have this little cluster of many many very tiny leaves. the plant is focused on growing this tiny cluster and the lower leaves are even left to start dying in the interest of this little cluster of leaves and the eventual blossom that will come from it. Remove that blossom along with that cluster of tiny leaves and the plant puts more focus on those lower leaves. for a while at least. It also start suckering in order to make a now tiny cluster of leaves to pay attention to.

Just below that cluster of tiny leaves are slightly larger but still numerous leaves. The plant if managed correctly can develop those small leaves into full sized complete leaves if it stops trying to grow that top bud. But it can only grow so many of them. The trick in this is being able to look at a plant and determine just how many leaves can that plant "Finish" out. Then cutting off all but that many leaves. NO there are not as many leaves, but all the leaves are winners.

Here is another observation I made. I want to share it because keeping it in mind as I looked at my tobacco actually helped me make better choices day in and day out.

A tobacco plant to me seems to start out with a few feeble pathetic attempts at producing leaves. these leaves will in fact become sand lugs are for the most part we consider them useless. It then seems to get the knack of things and produced 8 or more really magnificent leaves. THen the plant seems to get the ide of reproduction and begins to neglect it's finest work. In it's attempt to produce seed it makes some of the most pathetic leaves. It allows the first really good leaves to yellow and start to die and it never seems to get an interest in growing any other leaves to that degree again. THis is when we have to step in with a little correction in it's behavior. It is during this time we try to intervene and redirect the plants momentum back to the growth of leaves. The result is that not only are more of those upper leaves grown to the magnificent stage. but the lower original really nice leaves receive more attention as well. Fewer leaves results in better development of all leaves. Drastically so.
 

BarG

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My cured leaf hangs until I am ready to kiln it. A cheap box fan in the shed never stops.

I have saved up a number of very large, colorless plastic bags (~2'x3') from various sources--a trash bag will do. I put the individual crispy leaf (it's all leaf primed) into a large bag, mist it thoroughly with water, twist and close it with a clothespin, then check it the next day. Sometimes I can avoid this step if it has rained for a couple of days. At the point when the leaf is pliable, but the stem is still relatively firm, I strip the stem, then fold and press it to fit my quart Ziplock freezer bags. If you're going to hang the leaf in the kiln, you can just spray it where it hangs, and go from there.

The only reason I stem my leaf prior to the kiln is because my kiln is too small. (Hanging leaf may have some white mold on the stem. Although it's not likely to grow in the kiln temperatures [120-130ºF], by stemming it, the bulk of any mold ends up in my trash, instead of my kiln and finished tobacco.)

Bob

NOTE: It is my personal opinion that pressing the leaf (~1-2 psi), and the resulting close proximity of leaf surfaces while in the kiln, has little or no impact on the final product.

Where did your patience stem from. that is quite the regimen, I have all of last yrs, grow ageing in regular trash bags.Your a tough act to follow Bob.
 

Jack in NB

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Re stacking leaves: while the leaves in my kiln are hanging from nails in the slats, they are stacked 4 - 6 deep on each side, and the slats are usually squeezed together so there is significant compression.

There has been no apparent mould problem if the leaves are stacked up or consolidated onto one slat after complete drying. Early on I tried putting the green leaves 2 deep on the slats, but had some mould with that process, and I dropped back to single layers on each side of the slats until the midrib is brittle dry.

To remoisten, I slide a slat into a barrel-sized garbage bag, moisten well by spritzing both sides, and seal the bag up overnight in 50 - 60 deg temp. They are nice and pliable in the morning. After removal from the kiln the slats are hung to dry and wait til I have time to shred. At that time I use the same process to remoisten, and can then peel off the ribs without shattering the leaves.

And Scott - you asked earlier about maintenance in the kiln - there is some. Daily monitoring of temp and humidity level, and twice daily refilling my humidifier - 4 to 6 l per day.
 
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