BarG
Founding Member
Can a leaf that has been air cured be fire cured? Lataquia tops for instance. [I bet its spelled wrong].
I would disagree. I've done three fire-cure batches over the past couple of years--in a trash can on top of a smoker. The leaf needs to somehow lose its green before the leaf dries. In each batch, I waited until the leaf was at least yellow before starting up the heat and smoke. I suppose that in a commercial setup, the heat and humidity could be carefully controlled, so that it quickly yellows, as happens with flue-curing, before the fires are increased.
The fire-curing is so overwhelming a process, compared to the yellowing, that I would assert that it makes little difference if the leaf is yellowed (color-cured) without smoke. One point that may or may not make a difference is the rapidity of the yellowing phase. If the sugars are fixed by rapid yellowing in heat, is there still any trace of that after four or more weeks of intense smoke and heat? I don't know.
Last year, the fire-cure batch was Shirazi, which has a strong tendency to dry green. I hung it inside the galvanized trash can, and allowed the sun to keep the closed can at about 110-115ºF during the day, without allowing the humidity to dissipate. It required about two weeks to fully yellow. Then I stoked up the smoker, and began 4 weeks of fire-curing in the can (it had holes drilled into the bottom).
The details: http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4028
Historically, fire-curing was simply a method to slowly dry a barn full of green tobacco. Initially, flue-curing was the same method, but one which channeled the smoke of the fires away from the leaf, to avoid the smoky flavor. Only later was the rapid, high-temperature flue-cure method developed.
Bob
If you can get Shirazi to color-cure without green, it's fairly nice leaf.Bob , That is highly prized leaf you cured by that method. It had to be a labor intensive process?
Coral reefs wants to be able to set it and forget it like ronco. LOL, Hey do they have a setting for darker leaf or lighter like a toaster ? sorry man i couldnt resist if you saw what i'm puttin together the blasting would go on for days !