Another method of curing - Twist Rope

[ChinaVoodoo]

Come to think of it I have 2 suckers of a cigar variety that were harvested after a hard frost. They were dark green after thawing. They should be in the attic still. I'll take pics and edit them into this post after I wake up tomorrow (at work now).

They were from 2012, hard frost caught them, even the stalk was frozen.

Getting lighting was hard. these were babies, don't even know why I saved them. They are in the basement now taking on moisture, I'll roll a puro once ready, so normally the frost is mid sept, so these are basically exactly 4 years old, no idea when the green left them as I haven't thought about it till this discussion. I'll give an honest account of the flavor, should be ready tomorrow.
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Heavy rain last night, got some flooding in the basement

SmokesAhoy,
How did the puro go?

Along the topic of the rope, two days ago I made a small little roll of Costello Negro, about the size of a corona, with green but ripe leaf. I didn't have any string so I pressed it in a little single cigar mold I made out of oak. When I pressed it brown juice came out. After one day at 60F, the roll was still totally green. I put it in my kiln at 122F, and this morning after another day, it's dark brown. The mold is loose now, so I'm probably going to have to pick up some string. I see already after two days why they re-tighten the rope.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Sorry about that. It tasted pretty bad, I'm not 100%sure it was from the frozen harvest or just a mix of immature, variety not being well suited for puro, etc. I'm not convinced that a better, more mature plant would not have given me a better experience

The green is gone although I'm not sure 100%. Odd tint to the leaf sometimes. That may be totally resolved under outside conditions, but I'd tend to agree that once dead and dry, anytime it gets wet enough to have leeching of the chlorophyll it should have leeching of alkaloids too.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

To the original topic, if there were a material that could allow evaporation while the leaf was being pressed into a mold that might be an easier way of accomplishing the same process. Does such a thing exist? If so would probably be plugged up with the sap.

Maybe a process that combines periodically pressing with short periods of airing?

I don't know. That rope seems to work well but the tools are huge and seems to require a ton of leaf. Well suited to production environment obviously though.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

This got me thinking, puro isn't very fair.

So I did a solid core of this tobacco, and a binder of pa wrapper. It was good, but if you look at the sunlight picture of the butt you can see a shade of green or gray. So while it tested decent once mixed, there was a faint but distinct hint of candela, kind of like a normal candela wrapped cigar, faint.

So, unless you absolutely hate that I'd say a frozen, aged plant is at least salvageable in this case.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

The other thing about frost damage is you're recommended to not pick it and to leave it in the sun because the sun breaks down the interstitial chlorophyll which came out when the cells ruptured. A lot of people panic and pick it right away even though the next couple days might be frost free.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Yeah, will definitely try a couple like that, just to observe what happens. Was nice to have something like I did have though just to see another outcome from freezing. To sum it up I'd say fresh frozen air dried makes candela, which is very different in flavor from tobacco that is simply unaged. It didn't have that overwhelming raw quality.

I made another carrotte of uncured wilted green rustica today. These I know come out great.