BarG's 2012- second season Grow Log

[BarG]

Some of my stored tobacco has not suffered just hanging in hands on my back screen porch.

Indianjoe, I made the mistake of leaving a bunch of tops hanging too long on my porch and was away to much to notice the mold before it was too late. This year I'm getting everything in as soon as the leaves are cured and in order to handle for tying.

White oak is what they use for whiskey barrels also. What would the charring do for the tobacco?

 

[SmokesAhoy]

I dunno, my attic is made of that and pine and the tobacco is amazing after sitting in it

 

[BarG]

I dunno, my attic is made of that and pine and the tobacco is amazing after sitting in it

I love the smell of cedar.Maybe I'll stick a hand or 2 in the chest for a few weeks as an experiment. I had a big walk in closet lined with it in my last house and have my current entry hall lined with red cedar and white oak. Your attic must be finished out as a room I guess, Is it the eastern red cedar or the western cedar.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

i dunno man, whatever is cheaper its all rough cut and over 60 years old, i cant tell which is which. the aroma in the height of summer suggests cedar but i dont see any of the rough cut that i would say, oh thats cedar.

i would think eastern red because it grows on the property and this house was built by a handyman, i'm sure he'd have used whatever the local roughcut sawmill was selling. and it probably would have been something local.

i've split and burned a lot of red cedar and the attic doesnt smell that strong, maybe the time has mellowed it.

 

[BarG]

i dunno man, whatever is cheaper its all rough cut and over 60 years old, i cant tell which is which. the aroma in the height of summer suggests cedar but i dont see any of the rough cut that i would say, oh thats cedar.

i would think eastern red because it grows on the property and this house was built by a handyman, i'm sure he'd have used whatever the local roughcut sawmill was selling. and it probably would have been something local.

i've split and burned a lot of red cedar and the attic doesnt smell that strong, maybe the time has mellowed it.

Smokes, 2 ways to tell is to sand or scrape a small area, if its red cedar you will smell it, another visual would be to look for the white early wood, there is a stark contrast between earlywood and heartwood even in rough cut. The western is what you see for fencing, however my last house 1 1/2 stories was finished 75% in western cedar, the guy who built it got a deal on a semi load. It always smelled great when you walked in the door. The red cedar is rarely used with rough side showing to enhance the color and effect.
Regardless if it has a desirable effect on your tobacco then no worries.

 

[BarG]

We got a cool front yesterday and humidity dropped way low. It put a damper on my tobacco tying. I'm almost done with the bursa and I could mist with the hose 2 or 3 times ,wait ten minutes and strip 60-80 tops shake them out [lugs and middles are done] and by the time I finished tying the other stalks would be too dry again. I could definitely see growing tobacco as a full time job to grow commercially, during spring summer and fall.

 

[BarG]

Heres my rendition of deluxestogies cheese press.

I'm hoping it will serve many tobacco purposes.

 

[Steve2md]

Looks good man! If I had the space, I'd do something like that. I'm thinking of using c clamps though, much more pressure, so maybe shorter press times?

 

[leverhead]

Damn BarG, you could break things with that! The good thing about the lever press, is no hydraulic oil to leak all over the work.

 

[BarG]

Those leaves were barely in case to press, they rebounded as soon as I bagged.

 

[BarG]

Steve, any kind of clamping pressure achieves the same results for pressing. I was curious and want to use this press in the future fore wrapper leaves to flatten stems and veins for storage. Have you ever bought any from Don? That is how I would like to store my wrapper leaves.

 

[BarG]

Heres a blast from the past; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpGEeneO-t0 Crimson and clover ba wah wah wah wah wha

 

[leverhead]

I laid up all of my Turkish in flat piles. I started in the morning when everything was pretty flexible, I flattened a leaf on my thigh and did the same to the next leaf on top of it. I did that until the pile was thick enough to be a PIA and set it aside. I ended up with enough piles to let the first pile rest for about an hour. Then I started on the first pile again. After three passes, everything was pretty flat, after that I just shuffled piles on top of each other to get the moisture content down to a safe level. The stems were worrying the hell out of me, so I stemmed them. I put the leaf on my thigh and pulled the stem between two fingers that were straddling it. I need to make a video of it. Bigger leaves would probably need to be done on a table.

 

[leverhead]

Heres a blast from the past; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpGEeneO-t0 Crimson and clover ba wah wah wah wah wha

That was before my time.

 

[BarG]

I laid up all of my Turkish in flat piles. I started in the morning when everything was pretty flexible, I flattened a leaf on my thigh and did the same to the next leaf on top of it. I did that until the pile was thick enough to be a PIA and set it aside. I ended up with enough piles to let the first pile rest for about an hour. Then I started on the first pile again. After three passes, everything was pretty flat, after that I just shuffled piles on top of each other to get the moisture content down to a safe level. The stems were worrying the hell out of me, so I stemmed them. I put the leaf on my thigh and pulled the stem between two fingers that were straddling it. I need to make a video of it. Bigger leaves would probably need to be done on a table.

I got some real pretty hands of bursa by destalking in high case . and they still look great but it took a few days to get them in a sealable condition and was to time consuming. BigBonner could show us some tricks for handling tobacco I'm sure.

 

[johnlee1933]

I got some real pretty hands of bursa by destalking in high case . and they still look great but it took a few days to get them in a sealable condition and was to time consuming. BigBonner could show us some tricks for handling tobacco I'm sure.

I'll bet BigBonner could show us tricks about a LOT of things.

J

 

[BarG]

I got some real pretty hands of bursa by destalking in high case . and they still look great but it took a few days to get them in a sealable condition and was to time consuming.

BigBonner could show us some tricks for handling tobacco I'm sure

.

In fact he would put us to shame

 

[BarG]

I just pulled a hand of Marilyn 609 from my final cure area. I swear I would leave it there all year if it would not interfere with other activities. It is in perfect case to handle and smoke.

 

[deluxestogie]

That's a great press, Tim. The leverage is impressive. A 5 gallon bucket filled with water is about 40 pounds. As you may know, you multiply that by the ratio of the two lever segments (from piston to weight, and from pivot to piston) to get the effective pressure on the piston. If the piston is in the middle (half-way between the pivot bolt and the weight, that is 1/1) then the pressure is 40 pounds. Moving the piston and pressing box closer to the pivot increases the pressure. So if the piston is located 1/3 of the length of the beam from the pivot (2/3 of the length from the weight), you get a a ratio of 2/1, and you double the effective weight to 80 pounds.

Divide that by the surface area (length x width in inches) of the top of the pressing box to compute the psi (useful for Perique pressing, in which you aim for ~40 psi on the tobacco). These calculations ignore the weight of the beam itself, which in your case is significant with a 4" x 4".

My cheese press can hang a total of 1-3/4 gallons of water (~14 pounds), and generates about 105 pounds with a piston position closest to the pivot. I've found that a mere 2 psi works perfectly for simple leaf pressing.

Bob

 

[BarG]

Bob, I certainly appreciate the formula that the press generates. I read the first time you posted but My memory sucks.I will always be able to find this time. The piston was 42" from pivot and the weight was 57" from pivot with 4.5 gallons. I had a great pic. to build from. The area was 11" x 13". I'll do the math later. The first time I looked at your press it stuck in my mind.

Edit; I can suspend my weight from it for a few seconds before I think the 3 screws holding it to table might give,