A decent pipe blend from only homegrown ingredients?

[Rectifier]

I've got here some colour cured brightleaf and some partially dried green brightleaf. CT157. I grew tobacco this year on impulse, that's what they had at the feed store.
I plan to Cavendish the partially green stuff when I get some time as winter sets in. Maybe I could try to make some Perique, if I feel brave.

Most blends I've seen posted here include Latakia. I don't plan to try and ever make Latakia, too much work!

So, something simple with just VA and Cavendish for now. Maybe a shot of vanilla on the Cavendish for room note like this aromatic blend I have sitting here. "A sweet and unassuming blend of Virginia, Burley and Cavendish with a lovely dressing of Vanilla." That is a decent smoke and doesn't sound fancy, unless unlisted ingredients are lurking!

Totally new to blending. What kind of proportions should I look at here, how much Cavendish should I make?

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I don't really like what vanilla extract does to the flavour of pipe tobacco. You need to add a lot more than you think, too. If you do, though, find one which uses alcohol, rather than propylene glycol because if you use one with pg, you can't use as much without it becoming excessively sticky. I think you'll find that once you make black cav, you won't need to add flavour because the pressure cooker cavendish brings out all kinds of citrusy flavours.

I like 50-50 flue cured and black cav, or anything less than 50% cav. I also recently tried blending black cav with Latakia blends. It's really good.

Other flavour thing I like is, instead of using water when making cavendish, use rum.

I recently added a few drops of some good quality bitters to some Japan-8 cavendish. It rounds it out in a way I can't explain.

 

[Rectifier]

Yeah, this blend (RJ Clarke's #1) is one of my favorite aromatics, not sticky at all and has just enough vanilla to smell nice for the wife without being overdone. It looks to be about 30% black cavendish at a glance and the rest must be VA and burley, I guess.

I'll try and make "regular" black cav first, and try some different blend ratios. Then I might play with some flavorings like rum. As I only want vanilla in the room note and not in the flavour, will I get away with a small amount?

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Yeah, this blend (RJ Clarke's #1) is one of my favorite aromatics, not sticky at all and has just enough vanilla to smell nice for the wife without being overdone. It looks to be about 30% black cavendish at a glance and the rest must be VA and burley, I guess.

I'll try and make "regular" black cav first, and try some different blend ratios. Then I might play with some flavorings like rum. As I only want vanilla in the room note and not in the flavour, will I get away with a small amount?

Oh, yeah. You're more likely going to have it in the room note than in the flavour. You might also try deerstongue if you can get a hold of some. Not quite vanilla, but the scent is related. Since you'd actually be putting leaves into the blend, it would be easier to determine the quantity you think works best.

 

[Rectifier]

Interesting. I think deer's tongue grows in the pasture but most of the wildflowers are gone this time of year.
As coumarin is the active ingredient in deer's tongue, have you ever tried sweet clover? There's no shortage of that around the farm and it's known for its coumarin content.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Interesting. I think deer's tongue grows in the pasture but most of the wildflowers are gone this time of year.
As coumarin is the active ingredient in deer's tongue, have you ever tried sweet clover? There's no shortage of that around the farm and it's known for its coumarin content.

I have not tried any other plants which contain coumarin. I do believe any plant which is not seriously toxic and smells good is worth experimenting with as a flavour. I believe you are thinking of deerstongue grass Dicanthelium clandestinum. The traditional deerstongue plant used for tobacco flavoring is Carphephorus odorata, or something like odorata, and is in the aster family. Before it flowers, it looks something like a dandelion plant. It grows in the deep south, and i believe in the woods.

I myself plan on growing sweetgrass Hierchloe odorata next year and seeing if I can cure it brown. I have grown deerstongue Carphephorus, but it was extremely difficult.

 

[DistillingJim]

I have a friend who swore by clove cigarettes. Never tried them myself

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I have a friend who swore by clove cigarettes. Never tried them myself

I have to confess Djarum and Sampoerna are tasty. I'm not sure how they flavour / case the tobacco. Problem is, it turns your mouth numb-- clove oil is analgesic --and the following cigarettes taste progressively worse until you can't hardly taste anything.

 

[Rectifier]

Did some research on sweet clover and found "The dried plant has been employed to scent snuff and smoking tobacco and may be laid among linen for the same purpose as lavender" so I guess it's fine to try! No clover left now though, so this will be a next year's experiment.

 

[deluxestogie]

"...laid among linen for the same purpose as lavender" sounds like a quote from a century ago. Any contained coumarin is probably safe to smoke. I would not be as confident using it in snuff.

Bob

 

[Rectifier]

It is from a century ago! It's quoted out of some old herbal.

I was just looking for some proof that it had been used in a smoking blend at some time in the past. As humans have tried to smoke just about everything in the world, if it hadn't been used then it would be pretty much proof it was not worth trying! It's certainly more accessible than deerstongue, heck we are planting 120 acres of it next year for green manure. Maybe I'll have to try laying some among the linen as well

It appears that the "average" sweet clover leaf contains 0.2 - 0.8% coumarin by weight, which is roughly the same as cassia cinnamon. I can't find any data on deerstongue.

 

[deluxestogie]

Abstract
Fresh leaves of deer’s tongue contain large quantities (more than 10% of the dry weight, in some cases) of o-hydroxycinnamic acid (o-HCA). Both cis- and trans-o-HCA are present, and both isomers exist in the fresh tissue predominantly as glucosides. Cured deer’s tongue leaves contain relatively high levels of coumarin and lower amounts of o-HCA glucosides. It is probable that during the curing process cis-o-HCA glucoside is hydrolyzed by an endogenous β-glucosidase, and that the liberated cis-o-HCA lactonizes spontaneously to form coumarin.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/agron...204&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

Bob

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I can't find any data on deerstongue.

Here's some: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/5454-Deer-Tongue-Tonka-Beans-Safety-and-Use?highlight=coumarin

 

[Rectifier]

Haskins FA, et al

It's nice that this entire paper is available for free. There is some interesting data in there regarding curing, it appears that fresh deerstongue (and other coumarin-containing plants, sweet clover is also mentioned) does not contain any coumarin. It must be cured to convert the precursor glucosides to coumarin, at which time the 10% becomes closer to 3%.

I would suspect the 0.2-0.8% for sweetclover is in cured sweetclover, i.e. "hay" since this is what they would study for livestock feed. In any case, it only contains a third of the coumarin that deerstongue has. However since deerstongue is used in such small quantities, perhaps slightly larger quantities of sweet clover could have the same effect.

At haying time next year I'll hang up some sweetclover to cure to experiment with. Sure there is some cured in bales right now, but it would both be hard to tell from the alfalfa and not worth the risk of getting mouldy stuff that is toxic!