Norrlander
Active Member
I did a thing...
Living off-grid brings its share of challenges, especially up here in Northern Sweden. Not least of those is a lack of 'spare' electricity, making it very difficult for me to consider certain curing methods.
Now although my preference is for pipes, I was fascinated with the idea of making a few cigars to share with friends. So I hit upon the (crazy) idea of putting some leaves through the pressure-cooker Cavendish process, then carefully unrolling them, drying them down and then rolling them.
Pictures famously speak a thousand words each, so my essay on the experiment is as follows:
1: Ribs removed, rolled loosely, ready to cook.
2: After cooking. Yup, looks like sh#t.
3: Semi-successful unrolling (next time will be better, learning all the time).
4: Wrapper wetted down.
5: Filler extra dried, binders selected.
6: Finished!
The result was a very mild, pleasant flavour but a little hard to draw (suspect the filler was a bit too 'lumpy', or not quite dry enough, or both).
Anyway, nobody hated them so I think at least one more attempt is in order!
Living off-grid brings its share of challenges, especially up here in Northern Sweden. Not least of those is a lack of 'spare' electricity, making it very difficult for me to consider certain curing methods.
Now although my preference is for pipes, I was fascinated with the idea of making a few cigars to share with friends. So I hit upon the (crazy) idea of putting some leaves through the pressure-cooker Cavendish process, then carefully unrolling them, drying them down and then rolling them.
Pictures famously speak a thousand words each, so my essay on the experiment is as follows:
1: Ribs removed, rolled loosely, ready to cook.
2: After cooking. Yup, looks like sh#t.
3: Semi-successful unrolling (next time will be better, learning all the time).
4: Wrapper wetted down.
5: Filler extra dried, binders selected.
6: Finished!
The result was a very mild, pleasant flavour but a little hard to draw (suspect the filler was a bit too 'lumpy', or not quite dry enough, or both).
Anyway, nobody hated them so I think at least one more attempt is in order!
