Air-curing questions

[ne3go]

I made some mistakes this year at air cure, so want to know what's the perfect conditions for good color cure leaves.
1. What is the safe humidity range, so a leaf won't dry green? Is it better to have low or high humidity?
2. Why some leaves color-cure from green to brown without getting yellow first?What are the difference in flavor? Is the maturity of the leaf that determines that?
3. Is it good to have ambient light when air curing (garage) or it's good to have dark (inside a curing chamber)?
4. The method called air-cure, so the air is important. But how much air? Just recycling the air of the room, or is it good to have a breeze so the leaves are slightly moving when hanging?
5. How important is the distance between leaves when hanging? The leaves have to touch each other, or be apart so air can flow between them?
6. Must the leaf stay pliable during the green to yellow stage? Or is it ok to dry and then re-hydrate?
7. What is the average timing from green to yellow? 3-5 days? When the curing completes? 1 month or more? After what time do you know that a leaf is dried green? How many days?
Anything else that could be useful, please share.

 

[Knucklehead]

1. You want an average of around 70% humidity. If you get a few days above approximately 80% the leaves will mold. If you get a few days in a row of low 60% you can dry green. Low and high humidity can both create devastating problems. Try to keep the average around 70%.
2. I'm not sure, but maturity and variety could both be a factor. I think as long as you go brown without mold or drying green, you're in good shape. Aging or kilning will take care of the rest. The more mature a leaf, the stronger it will taste and it will have higher nicotine than an immature leaf. A mature leaf will be easier to color cure.
3. I think either is fine as long as temperature and humidity are within specs.
4. Air curing is just a name for the natural curing of the leaf, as opposed to flue cure or sun cure. It doesn't really refer to air flow, although airflow can help in high humidity situations to prevent mold.
5. This is driven by environmental conditions. If the humidity is low, bunching the leaves closer together allows them to share the moisture from each other as they dry, allowing them to dry slower and helping to prevent green drying. If humidity is high, you can spread the leaves further apart so the moisture they give off during the drying is dissipated into the air, rather than reabsorbed by the close leaves. This can help prevent mold. If you live in a hot, dry area, it helps to bunch the leaves. If you live in a humid area, it helps to spread the leaves apart.
6. It's best for the leaf to stay pliable. Curing is slowing down the death of the leaf while certain things or compounds in the leaf break down or convert to something else (starches, sugars, carbs, crap like that. stogie knows. I worry more about the how and let the why take care of itself). If it gets dry, it's dead.
7. It varies from one variety to another and is different from one year to another and one area to another. When it goes full brown you can start letting it dry out. You want the midrib dry, dry. So it snaps like a dead twig.

 

[ne3go]

Knucks very analytic answers thank you!
It seems growing has a level of difficulty, but curing is really hard part...at least for me.

 

[BigBonner]

If you let the hot sun hit cigar varieties after priming for a short period of time it will cause them to cure green in streaks or spots .
Fast curing causes color cured green as well . To cold will set in green , frost or freezing .

 

[skychaser]

1. 70% is perfect. Under 60% and it will dry green on you. Over 90% and you will have mold. Short periods over or under those numbers won't matter as long as the daily average is near 70% you're fine.
2. Some types will go yellow before turning brown. Others go right from green to brown. It all depends on the variety. Ripe leaf colors easier. Very immature leaf my not color up at all.
3. Indirect light is fine but you don't want direct sun on them unless you are sun curing. I use my greenhouse to color cure leaves because it's easy to get up to the mid 90's and control the humidity, but I hang a shade cloth inside to keep the direct sun off them.
4. Air flow around the plants isn't that important to curing, but it is often necessary to prevent mold and keep the air an even temp and humidity surrounding the leaf. I run a fan just to keep the air from layering up and keep things even.
5. Depends on your situation. If you have high humidity you want space between the leaves to allow max air flow to prevent mold. If it is very dry where you are you can pack them much tighter. I do this to prevent them from drying to fast. I also have to add buckets of water to my curing shed to keep the humidity up. In the greenhouse I soak down the floor and fill the watering benches as needed.
6. Never let it get dry before it colored. If you do and it dries green you are pretty much screwed. You can rehydrate it and hang it in the sun and it will "bleach" some of the green out but it will never be as good as it should be.
7. Some types color up quickly while others may take 2-3 weeks or more. Once the green is gone you can dry it as quickly as you want. The faster it drys, the lighter the finished color will be. Be sure to dry it until that main stem snaps like a twig and then bring it back into case for handling and storage. If the stem is not 100% dry it will mold later on and ruin all the leaf it is stored with. Unless you like the taste of mold spores, get that main stem bone DRY before packing it up for storage.

Curing is a bit of an art and you have to adjust the method to fit your situation. Once you get it figured out, it's pretty easy. Hope this helps some.

Sky

 

[ne3go]

Thanks for the answers guys.
skychacer very helpful answers, i agree it's an art that must practice.
BigBonner what's the short period of time that primed leaves cannot stay in hot sun?1-2 hours or more?

One additional question: When strong air broke down an izmir plant, i primed the leaves and hang them in garage(obviously immature all of them). They did dried crispy pale-green (for over a month).
When i put them in my kiln (RH 70%) for 2-3 weeks, they started to yellow, and some are brown now! Only 1/3 of leaves remained green...How is that possible if the leaf is dead?

 

[johnlee1933]

Thanks for the answers guys.
skychacer very helpful answers, i agree it's an art that must practice.
BigBonner what's the short period of time that primed leaves cannot stay in hot sun?1-2 hours or more?

When my professioal friend has a crew priming they place the leaves in boxes that will hold 50 or 80 leaves. Each box has a canvas cover that is flipped over the leaves for transport to the barn. SO, for them the answer is a minute or less. I cover mine with a towel as I pick. They are never exposed to the direct sun for more than a minute.

 

[deluxestogie]

As I prime leaves, I stack them on the nearby grass, always in the shade created by the tobacco plants. It's not a good idea to lay leaf on bare soil, since that will increase the likelihood of rot while hanging. As JohnLee pointed out, wrapper leaf will wilt rapidly in direct sun.

Bob

 

[BigBonner]

Thanks for the answers guys.
skychacer very helpful answers, i agree it's an art that must practice.
BigBonner what's the short period of time that primed leaves cannot stay in hot sun?1-2 hours or more?

One additional question: When strong air broke down an izmir plant, i primed the leaves and hang them in garage(obviously immature all of them). They did dried crispy pale-green (for over a month).
When i put them in my kiln (RH 70%) for 2-3 weeks, they started to yellow, and some are brown now! Only 1/3 of leaves remained green...How is that possible if the leaf is dead?

Personally I would get them in the shad with in 15 min . I cut some broadleaf a few years ago and let it lay for the two hour that is normally done in CT . But my sun burnt the leaves and I was left with color cured green in them and it will hardly come out .
If the tobacco doesn't sun burn and still turns green after it dry's let it age and it will / should turn brown .Aging in and out of case like a kiln is what makes a color change .

Burley is one tobacco that can be left out for days at 85 degrees or less to wilt . It will sun burn but it will not hurt it . If burley and Maryland has color cured green in it , aging for one year while hanging will bring the color cured green out .

Maryland , Ct Broadleaf , Havana , Dark fire , dark air and some other varieties will sunburn easily .

One more thing when leaving the tobacco in the shade , remember that the shade moves . I did that with Havana tobacco on a wagon one time .

 

[istanbulin]

Man, I read your problems about air curing from your grow blog. Last year I had same problems too. I think your leaves are not turning directly from green to brown. As I saw from the photos, they're turning to a greenish color.

My suggestion is, take it easy ! Wrap the packed leaves with clean paper and put all of them in a waterproof (no need to be 100 % waterproof) baggage, plastic bag, box etc. Putting a thick mesh (or an absorbant cloth etc.) at the inside bottom of the baggage is a good idea because there may be water condensation inside. Check it everyday, vent out the leaves for a while. They turn yellow in few days. For making them brown, lower the humidity.

BTW, I make the leaves wilt a little before packing.

 

[ne3go]

It seems that make a lot of mistakes this year and a lot of leaves dried green...In first prime leaves left in the balcony for about an hour in the evening sun (not very hot).Maybe that cause also trouble.
So if age green leaves in a kiln for a year, maybe will become brown as BigBonner said.
Istanbulin your suggestion is about my greenish leaves or for the new that i'll cut?

 

[istanbulin]

It's for fresh leaves my friend. It's a good and easy method for yellowing the leaves. The yearly average RH in İstanbul is 76 % but it's very unstable, while one day it's 95%, other day it may be 45 %, which doesn't allow proper air curing. So I had to use this method at least for yellowing stage.

 

[DonH]

It's for fresh leaves my friend. It's a good and easy method for yellowing the leaves. The yearly average RH in İstanbul is 76 % but it's very unstable, while one day it's 95%, other day it may be 45 %, which doesn't allow proper air curing. So I had to use this method at least for yellowing stage.

I use this method for everything but the white stem varieties. But I just stack them in boxes and don't seal them. It's important to hang them once they are yellow and before they start to compost.

 

[ne3go]

It's funny though that the method called "air-curing" and you have to ...close the leaves into some bags or boxes with so limited air!
It should be called "enough humidity until yellow-curing"...at least for those areas that have relative dry climate.

 

[bonehead]

i really like this thread. there sure is more than one way to get problems with air humidity and temp. straightened out to overcome common weather related problems.

 

[TarantulaDan]

Man, I read your problems about air curing from your grow blog. Last year I had same problems too. I think your leaves are not turning directly from green to brown. As I saw from the photos, they're turning to a greenish color.

My suggestion is, take it easy ! Wrap the packed leaves with clean paper and put all of them in a waterproof (no need to be 100 % waterproof) baggage, plastic bag, box etc. Putting a thick mesh (or an absorbant cloth etc.) at the inside bottom of the baggage is a good idea because there may be water condensation inside. Check it everyday, vent out the leaves for a while. They turn yellow in few days. For making them brown, lower the humidity.

BTW, I make the leaves wilt a little before packing.

I know this is an old thread ,do you wrap it in bundles in the paper or separately?

 

[istanbulin]

I wrapped them in bundles, approx. 10 leaves together.

 

[TarantulaDan]

I wrapped them in bundles, approx. 10 leaves together.

ok thanks and the paper ,is it like paper towels or something thicker

 

[Knucklehead]

ok thanks and the paper ,is it like paper towels or something thicker

What will your curing conditions be like later? The paper and stacking was a remedy for a specific problem. ne3go lives on an island with hot, dry conditions.

 

[TarantulaDan]

By the time i need to start curing this wear it will start getting a bit dryish with slightly cooler temps than we have now though i am not sure since we have been having rather unseasonably hot weather this side lately in the 30c(about 86F region) so not too sure what it will be like when I harvest my rustica,I was considering hanging it under my mother's house since she lives in a house on stilts, (landlord is a bit eccentric) its shady and dry under there that might do fine