Freeze/Thaw-Sun Cure Experiment

[Smokin Harley]

Came home from my parents house in Alabama yesterday ,including the half hour stop in Paducah for a little Christmas shopping , I drove 11 hours and 20 minutes straight through,solo...
It frosted here a few times while I was away and this morning I noticed this morning my 2 experimental "frost cured?"plants are looking wilted but not exactly dead just yet. Amazing how resilient these plants really are. I'll try and get a pic to post of them later today.

 

[CobGuy]

So ... if you had an unexpected frost you can just leave them out there to finish?

My Semois plants had a light freeze last night and this morning I sprayed them down before the sun hit them:

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

If you only get light frost, and there's no apparent damage, just pick it as normal. However, if there's moderate to serious damage, and it's sunny, AND you don't get additional frost, wait a couple days and pick it as normal.

Last year I had a number of frosts before I picked, I followed these principles and I only had permanent damage to less than 1% of my tobacco.

Here's a short study on the topic: https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&sour...h1F1_XYXKah6digQQ&sig2=CRUNJx9jgia015flWPurrQ

--- what we're doing here in this thread is an experiment to see if this even works, and more or less, to make a unique tobacco. I totally don't recommend you leave your tobacco unpicked.

 

[Smokin Harley]

Here's my comstock Spanish (left)and habano 2000 (right). You can see they are a bit wilted. Today we're experiencing high winds and low 30s until Monday when we will get back into the 50s.

 

[CobGuy]

However, if there's moderate to serious damage, and it's sunny, AND you don't get additional frost, wait a couple days and pick it as normal.

Sounds like I'll give it a few days and then bring it on in ... thanks.

 

[Smokin Harley]

My plants I just posted a pic of 2 days ago now after a long cold night below 26 look more like the lettuce when you leave it in the back of the crisper a little too long. its definitely been frosted and the cell walls have been ruptured...one side of the affected leaves look like they are tan but they may just be wind burned from the 2 days prior when we had winds over 30 mph all day and night long. Ok, fellow experimenters , what do I do next ... just leave them til spring?
We're not going to get anywhere near the 50's as weather predicted last week. we'll be lucky if we see 40 for the rest of the week.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I think there's no going back now.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Yep my stuff looks rough, but browning. If it survives the whole cycle the smoke reports will be interesting.

One thing may limit my own tests. I only let runts go, and contact with the soil will likely rot it. However for the tall plants that are holding leaf off the ground it may turn out some results.

From the very first, it seems that the places that were frosted were bleached by the sun over the days that followed, where the leaf that didn't freeze to death didn't have the dramatic bleaching.

Very interesting test nonetheless. If I could start in April and harvest again, an acceptable product the next April, I'd be pretty happy to say the least.

Harvesting while still frozen certainly results in crap as I'm sure most of us have already discovered.

 

[Smokin Harley]

I noticed mine has a black cast to what isnt still green or tan (sun bleached?)

 

[Smokin Harley]

This morning during the morning constitutional I was looking through a certain pipe and cigar sales catalog and had what I'm going to call a tobacco epiphany ...

During this whole freeze/ thaw experiment I still hadn't gotten out to do much plot cleaning so I got to wondering what am I to do with all the sucker plants consisting of mostly smaller leaves that assimilate to tip leaves that popped up to 3 ft tall and are now sitting there all frosted,cell fractured and turning black and tan. Also I have been researching some pipe blends (the one called "country gentleman" a pipe blend consisting of Va,Kentucky Fire Cured and Perique)...and then it hit me ...
Throw them in as hands into my smoker for a day or so ! Fire cured so to speak...I already have Va from last year and Perique from this year...and I have a few bags of smoking chips(Jack Daniels oak barrel)
Wheels are turning...side experiment !

 

[Smokin Harley]

Well now, I guess this wasn't so much of an epiphany after all. Looky here who actually wrote up a piece about it. Someone we all know and love...
http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4028

 

[deluxestogie]

That 2011 HTGT thread discussed the construction that I later used in 2014 to attempt Latakia production.

http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/5016-Making-Latakia-at-Home

The major difference between fire-cured and Latakia is the wood used to produce the smoke, and the duration of the treatment. You can get a persistent fire-cured flavor with smoking a few days to a week or so. The black color of Latakia comes from 1 to 3 months of fire-curing. (And despite the exotica that I burned and smoldered, I just couldn't get the distinctive aroma of mastic wood, which gives Cyprian and Syrian Latakia its distinctive character. My 2014 Blue Ridge Latakia is still aging, to see what difference that makes.)

For American-style fire-curing, my favorite wood is apple. Hickory is too suggestive of barbeque, maple too suggestive of a random wood campfire, and [my old barn board] oak (which is used for most fire-curing) too suggestive of lead paint--which wasn't supposed to have been used on that wood. My hickory and my apple cured leaf has been aging for a few years (~5 now).

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

Applewood , I have a bag or two of that, and cherry . I also have most of a bag of hickory,pecan,Jack Daniels whiskey barrel oak and alder wood chips .I saw a bag of peach wood chips once but I often wonder how that smokes . Rarely do I use mesquite as it is a grilling flavoring wood rather than a smoking wood, too harsh.
It actually didn't surprise me at all that when I tried to look up any type of DIY fire cure tobacco in a search engine, that it led me right back to one of your forum posts.
I'm thinking of a combination of fire curing ,periqueing and if need be, cavendishing the same batch of tobacco split into 3 progressive side experiments. That way it is the same tobacco each time ,to see the results of lets-see-what-happens-to-it-when-I-do-this...
I may get close on the fire curing , closer on the pressure/time curing of the same then completely lose it on the cavendish part...but if i dont try , I wont know.
curiosity may have killed the cat but its a diamond that proves that even a piece of coal comes out shining once its been under a lot of pressure for a long time.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I smoked some Japan 8 with choke cherry. It was a pretty tasty choice. It was lightly smoked. All I did was stick it on top of the chimney of my bbq.

 

[Smokin Harley]

I picked off quite a few decent sized leaves this morning from the frost wilted sucker plants,consisting mostly of Little Sweet Orinoco .all leaves were cell ruptured ,black cast on the leaves and some with tan dry areas appearing to resemble normal color curing,but for the most part looking like par-blanched spinach but not quite like totally steamed or boiled(i.e-mush). I started my smoker and put these leaves on the top grate ,with apple wood chips in the pan, I also placed a buffer pan between the two so that should a flare up occur it has a barrier . I'll check it at chip re-load time (45mins to an hour) and reposition the leaf.
this is only an experiment by a self trained amateur ,do not try this at home.

 

[deluxestogie]

...a self trained amateur...

On this forum, the polite expression for that is, "member."

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

smoked the leaf for 2 hours ,turned it twice. Its a not so nice a day out . Got a lot of other stuff to do including leaving for some errands so I had to shut it down for today...BUT I did notice that the leaves that had the black cast to them actually in a way color cured under the smoke and heat. This is turning interesting for sure.

 

[Smokin Harley]

On this forum, the polite expression for that is, "member."

Bob

Point taken and duly noted.

 

[Smokin Harley]

batch 2 in the smoker . first batch is lightly smoked and smells nice and sweet.

 

[CobGuy]

Following with interest ... I have some frost bitten leaf that looks as you described.

If smoking it even made it usable for snuff it would be worthwhile.