Pile Fermenting at home

[mwaller]

Have any of you tried 'pile fermenting' cigar leaves at home? How did you do it, and how did it turn out?

 

[deluxestogie]

From 2015: Deluxestogie's Unheated Foam Fermentation Box Fiasco

Bob

 

[mwaller]

That's an interesting read. How do you measure moisture content of a hand of tobacco?
BigBonner notes that tobacco which is baled at 24% will start to self-heat...

From 2015: Deluxestogie's Unheated Foam Fermentation Box Fiasco

Bob

 

[Jitterbugdude]

With one of these.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-Mo...777145&hash=item56abcf4e10:g:PCsAAOSw-o9amUx1

 

[burge]

Leaves in a bale ferment so I think if you were to get a pile of leaves and even put them under a book or a weight will aid in fermentation.

 

[deluxestogie]

Leaves in a bale ferment so I think if you were to get a pile of leaves and even put them under a book or a weight will aid in fermentation.

A really big book...

To make bales, the boxes of perfectly dried tobaccos are placed under an hydraulic press that can produce up to 1,200 pounds of pressure and will convert the 125 pounds of tobacco into a bale.

https://www.famous-smoke.com/cigara...af-classification-stripping-drying-and-baling

Bob

EDIT: If we take a wild guess that the surface area of a bale is 2' x 3', then 1200 pounds will exert ~1.4 psi.

 

[mwaller]

Bales are usually for ageing, not fermentation, right?

 

[deluxestogie]

Bales are for shipping and storage. Aging and fermentation are the same process, just at different rates. For cigar leaf, fermentation is usually done in huge piles. But under specific conditions of moisture and temperature, the same thing happens within bales.

Bob

 

[burge]

Fermentation is not hard but it takes time. When someone says they have a bale that is 3 years old grab it.