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Flojo viso question

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John41285

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The flojo viso I received is kind of crumpled up and hard to bunch with. I tried bringing the case up and working with it but it didn't really work for me. Is the flojo viso supposed to be like that? Whatever I do I cannot get it flat like the other leaves I have used. I pretty much have to cut it up and use scraps basically to roll with it.
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I understand what you mean. The Flojo is thick and crumpled. As long as it's not crumbly-dry, I find it really easy to work with. You don't need to stretch it out or flatten it. It's irregular texture makes it easy, as is, to bundle really tightly while still maintaining a good draw. I feel like flattening it would be detrimental. Mind you, I rarely use my mold, and my cigars generally take a tapered lancero shape. Try a narrow gauge puro, with a good strong binder, make it real tight. Look at a Toscano for inspiration. Trust me. It'll be delicious.
 

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Thicker leaves are the most challenging to case. You'll have to take the extra time and attention that they need for dense penetration. They end up over cased and will need to be dried some for assembly. extra time is the key.
 

deluxestogie

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Welcome to the forum, John.

We get spoiled with frog-legged, pre-flattened cigar leaf from the Caribbean and Central America. It makes the world seem more orderly than it needs to be. And many cigar rolling videos seem to suggest that filler should start out flat, then be convoluted according to an orderly plan. Try just tearing the crumpled flojo into the length needed for the proposed cigar, and compressing it into a cylinder with your bare hands.

I've noticed that the frog-legging technique used with flojo is not as tidy as with leaf from most other regions. (I don't know if that is African or Paraguayan workmanship.) This results in some fairly hefty edges of central stem being present for the length of the leaf.

I would go with ChinaVoodoo here, and embrace the pre-crumpled flojo leaf. I do check it for stem chunks that might puncture my binder, but otherwise just use it without moisturizing further, and without un-crumpling it. It's got to end up scrunched into a cigar, regardless.

As a home grower, I am accustomed to rolling cigars from leaf that has been stored in tied hands. It's not flat, and doesn't benefit from flattening, unless I want to use it for binder or wrapper.

Bob
 

John41285

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Do you leave in the majority of the stem? When I try to remove the thicker pieces i mangle the leaf
 

deluxestogie

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For all filler leaf, I prefer to remove any stem that is longer than the length of the cigar, since I don't want to be trying to chop across it with my cutter. So I basically frog-leg all the filler components, with only the thin portion of the stem of the leaf tip remaining.

Big, fat stem that is adequately dry burns just fine in a cigar. You can even make a cigar with nothing but stems for filler, but it's really ugly, and is usually much blander than the leaf from which it was removed. It's really hard to roll stiff, often crooked stems in the filler. And it is difficult for the torcedor to cut the foot, and for the smoker to clip the head. I would rather leave tomato peels in my pasta sauce!

Bob

EDIT: I will add that when I plan to roll an unusually long and thin cigar (e.g. 7" x 38), I sometimes include a section of sturdy stem right down the middle, reaching almost to either end of the cigar. This can lend and otherwise flimsy cigar some rigidity.
 

John41285

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Ok thanks. The stem on the leaf I went through so far was pretty thick. Was worried about that hurting the flavor
 

John41285

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No a fan of lanceros but I'll give it a shot. I have a 48rg mold so usually roll 6x48. When I roll with out a mold I make them around 5x44
 

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Stems do have a higher nicotine content. As well as leaf regions, stems have varying flavor.
 

John41285

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I sprayed them again last night and just checked them. Got them flattened out alot better than I thought I would. Should make it alot easier to roll. Thanks for your help. I've been rolling for about 3 months. Not consistently but rolled prob 50 sticks so far. This last batch turned out fantastic20180102_211850.jpg20180102_214552.jpg20180102_220419.jpg
 

MarcL

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I sprayed them again last night and just checked them. Got them flattened out alot better than I thought I would. Should make it alot easier to roll. Thanks for your help. I've been rolling for about 3 months. Not consistently but rolled prob 50 sticks so far. This last batch turned out fantasticView attachment 22725View attachment 22726View attachment 22727

That looks really nice.

If I'm not mistaken, stem nicotine is nearly always lower than lamina nicotine.

Bob

Is that right? I may have been swayed in my experiences by what I remember hearing but, I'd have to get to finding some references.
 

deluxestogie

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I may have been swayed in my experiences by what I remember hearing but, I'd have to get to finding some references.
From a logical standpoint, nicotine is actively produced in the roots, and actively accumulated in the laminar cells. The stems are just the plumbing that gets it from the roots to the lamina.

It wouldn't surprise me if the nicotine content from upper-stalk stems exceeded the nicotine content of lower-stalk lamina, but I think it safe to assume that within a given leaf, its lamina will contain a higher nicotine concentration than its central vein.

J.W. Gorrod said:
The nicotine level of processed stems is low and is normally about 25% of the nicotine level found in the lamina.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-...EIbDAO#v=onepage&q=nicotine leaf stem&f=false
The quote above is with regard to stems processed and used in cigarette manufacture. No doubt the processing method reduces nicotine to some extent, but probably much less than 75%

Stems have often been used in the past for making insecticide. I would guess that the lower nicotine in stems is well offset by the cheaper cost of stems (essentially tobacco production waste), compared to the cost of using lamina for that purpose.

Bob
 

MarcL

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From a logical standpoint, nicotine is actively produced in the roots, and actively accumulated in the laminar cells. The stems are just the plumbing that gets it from the roots to the lamina.

It wouldn't surprise me if the nicotine content from upper-stalk stems exceeded the nicotine content of lower-stalk lamina, but I think it safe to assume that within a given leaf, its lamina will contain a higher nicotine concentration than its central vein.


The quote above is with regard to stems processed and used in cigarette manufacture. No doubt the processing method reduces nicotine to some extent, but probably much less than 75%

Stems have often been used in the past for making insecticide. I would guess that the lower nicotine in stems is well offset by the cheaper cost of stems (essentially tobacco production waste), compared to the cost of using lamina for that purpose.

Bob

I see. well I'll have to re-visit my experiences and pay attention. thanks Bob.
 

ras_oscar

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I saw a youtube video of an elderly british sailor demonstrating the method used to make a "perique" from raw tobacco leaf for smoking in a pipe. In the video he mentioned he would strip out the central stem and return it to the retailer to be processed as snuff. I had always been led to believe snuff was a more powerful form of nicotine, and made the connection that stem=more vitamin N. However, I have no empirical evidence other than that sand can easily be swayed by better resources. Here's the source link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sqhu11WjC4
 

deluxestogie

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Philip Morris USA Research Center: Annual Report Tobacco Physics. 6 JAN 1984. said:
page 39
[Speaking of Bright Tobacco and Burley] Both laminas contain more nicotine than the stems and burley lamina contains about twice as much as bright.

https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=gtlf0028
TobaccoLeafComposition_UTenn_600.JPG


http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1160&context=utk_agbulletin
Lamina contains higher concentrations of nicotine than the midribs or the stalk.

Bob
 

MarcL

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I can't imagine cigar tobaccos being that much different then the burley studies done but, videos like this (not the only one) influenced me I think.
 
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