Hello out there.

[longashes]

Hey,

This is my third year "attempting" to grow tobacco and I'm actually doing it this time. With lessons learned over the last two years and some patience, I have a nice crop coming up and in the ground now. I'll be on the forums looking for advice on growing, curing, and fermenting. I will be making cigars with the tobacco.

My current plan is to hang them in my attic to color cure them, then I wanted to build a kiln to do a quick fermenting. I have three different varieties of leaf: pennsylvania red, dixie shade, and havana 263. I'll post a grow log eventually. I'm also on howtogrowtobacco.com under the same name.

I've smoked cigars for about 11 years now, and I run my own cigar review site at http://crapnetwork.com as well with a few of my buddies. I'm in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. If things go well, I thought about growing in larger amounts next year and I'm sure I will need some help with that. Thanks for inviting me to the forum JitterBugDude, and I'll be on the look out for BigBonner and his crops.

 

[LeftyRighty]

I would be hesitant about using an attic to color-cure the tobacco leaves. Generally, attic space is warm enough to allow quick curing and drying of the leaf, but the humidity is usually way, way too low - resulting in dried-green leaf.

If you have another facility, it would be better, where the relative humidity can be adjusted, or an outdoor space where the ambient relative humidity would be that of the humid days of late-summer.

 

[longashes]

Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll stick a hyrometer up there in the attic. What should it be at? I know when I go into my attic (above my garage outside), it's REALLY hot in there. Like death hot. Also feels pretty humid too but I could be wrong. Thanks again.

 

[BarG]

2 things come to mind. By the way welcome. If your attic has loose insulation that could accumilate on your tobacco, and unless you have addequate flow through ventilation it will be dry as a tinderbox up there. How many plants are you curing?

 

[Grundle]

2 things come to mind. By the way welcome. If your attic has loose insulation that could accumilate on your tobacco, and unless you have addequate flow through ventilation it will be dry as a tinderbox up there. How many plants are you curing?

Imagine inhaling that fiberglass into your lungs. Sounds pretty nasty.

 

[longashes]

Yeah I didn't even think about that I guess my next question is, does curing tobacco really smell bad? I have a smoking room that I could hang them in. Problem is, I turned my garage into a smoking room so no garage to hang them. I'm hoping to have about 50-80 plants at the end of the season.

 

[Michibacy]

Imagine inhaling that fiberglass into your lungs. Sounds pretty nasty.

Yeah, fiberglass in one's lungs IS nasty, VERY nasty...

 

[Rayshields]

Welcome to the forum, Longashes,
As you can already see, there is a lot of informed members on this site and they are really quick to share their expertise. Glad to hear that you are off to a better start this year. This is my first year of growing tobacco, and right now the prospects look good, but I sure need some rain.

 

[indianjoe]

Welcome, I have to agree that the attic sounds like the least of the best options. In an open envrironment, curing tobacco has no greatly obnoxious odors, heck, I'd rather sleep in a tobacco barn, lol.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to FTT.

What smells good or bad is a matter that seldom finds a consensus. My impression of hanging green tobacco is that it smells similar to freshly cut hay. As it begins to color cure, the aroma takes on what I consider to be a "raw" tobacco smell. This often lasts until the leaf has aged in adequate humidity and temperature for many months, or until the cured leaf is kilned. After this "aging," the aroma is the more familiar aroma of commercial tobacco.

It turns out that if you allow an aqueous solution of nicotine alone to sit and oxidize, it takes on both the dark brown color as well as the familiar aroma of tobacco.

I would say that the only down side of "living" in the tobacco hanging space, provided that it is ventilated adequately, is that you will have difficulty distinguishing raw, color-cured tobacco from properly aged tobacco by smell.

Bob

 

[longashes]

So a few questions, is there ammonia coming out during color curing and if so does it smell or is it harmful if I'm in a room with ventilation (house fan and window air condition), and what is the proper temperature and humidity for curing? I plan to use a kiln once they are brown. Is it 70/70 like cigar humidors or something else?

 

[deluxestogie]

The major component lost by curing leaf is water (about 80% by weight). If not ventilated, it may cause moisture issues within the room. Aiming for at least 70% RH during color curing, I believe, is likely to work for most varieties. The leaf needs to at least yellow, before it dries. The temperature becomes a delicate dance with the RH and ventilation.

As for the harm of ammonia, I don't have any quantitative specifics, but with ventilation, I would imagine that it will not be a health issue. (When the ammonia is generated within the closed space of a kiln, it can be quite noticeable when the kiln opened.)

Bob

 

[johnlee1933]

I spent a lot of years in the lab. The olfactory sense is amazing. For many things you can smell (detect a few parts/million) it way before you get to harmful levels Ammonia is one of those things. If you smell it and ventilate the levels will be way below toxic. Just consider how strong the smell is when you open a bottle of household ammonia. I used to use a gentle sniff to clear up a stuffy nose when I had a cold.

Bottom line -- Don't worry about ammonia. It will annoy you and you will clear it out long before it gets toxic.

John

 

[Chicken]

welcome,,,

and dont feel alone,,, my first year attempting to raise some baccy

was a ultimate failure, i didnt even have germination, much less a single plant to experiment on,,,

truly the starting of the seeds, is the difficult part, but once mastered even that isnt hard,,,

good luck,, and feel free to ask any questions, we have some avid cigar only baccy growers on this board,

 

[BarG]

welcome,,,

and dont feel alone,,, my first year attempting to raise some baccy

was a ultimate failure, i didnt even have germination, much less a single plant to experiment on,,,

truly the starting of the seeds, is the difficult part, but once mastered even that isnt hard,,,

good luck,, and feel free to ask any questions, we have some avid cigar only baccy growers on this board,

Longashes ,good luck,Youll do fine! and Chicken, Don't remind me of my failures, my first year, I do that my own self.. Try germinating seeds like a champ but failure to have a finished product that combusts properly. .That will make you stand up and pay attention to the best advice for producing a seed to finished product. I think you done passed tha zone with your plants.

 

[webmost]

Woke up at 3 a.m. with the hamster brain runnin. Couldn't sleep. Thinking about options where I could cure my habano. Best thing I can think of is my garage attic. Gets good and hot in there on a summer day. There is no insulation in there. Repeat: No insulation in the garage attic. I can run a humidifier in there if I need to; though it can get sticky here in summer. Got a nice plywood floor to run round on. Can make space. I can fix up a fan to air the place, or just leave the drop door down and let air go out the vent. So I came here and did some searching and found this thread.

So what do you guys think? Considering I don't have to worry about insulation and I like a smelly man cave, is that there a good place to cure leaves, you think? Thinking I can arrange to hang six ten foot poles easy enough.

 

[Knucklehead]

That should make a nice curing space as long as you can section off an area with plastic or something. You will need to be able to control the heat and humidity and you've listed ways to do that, so yeah, my opinion, I think you've found your spot. Sectioning off part of it will allow you to control the environment in a smaller area, rather than try to introduce moisture, heat or cool to the whole space.

 

[johnlee1933]

Just be sure to keep your humidity up. Drying green really saddens the heart.

 

[webmost]

Why? Not that I intend to, you know; but right now I have five Alec Bradley Nasty Hooligans in the humidor which I am really looking forward to... and they have candela wrappers. My first bundle of cigars was Factory Throwout Claro, which are about as green as these candelas. I like the mild grassy flavor of that wrap. What's the diff between drying green and candela?

But these are habano seeds. I want to get dark brown with a reddish tint. That's the best habano in my opinion.

 

[Knucklehead]

Damn good question! I wish I knew the answer. Stogie knows. Lets ask Stogie.