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drying tobacco

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deluxestogie

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Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. A little background and detail of what variety of tobacco you are growing, and how you are attempting to cure it may be helpful in answering your question, and offering suggestions.

Bob
 

ChinaVoodoo

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some of the leaves, which are dry, are still green even so they are dry. What to do?

Before finding this forum, I ended up with green tobacco twice. I was unable to do anything with it, well, not in any way that made it actually taste like tobacco.

The problem is, it dried too quickly. This is a result of a number of factors: low humidity, tobacco not mature, too hot.

Sorry about your luck. Stick around the forum and read about how people cure. Next year will be much better.
 

Alpine

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Welcome to FTT
In my first year, I lost a good amount of my crop trying different methods of curing, but my biggest mistake was harvesting too soon. Ripe (and I mean RIPE) leaves cure with much less hassle than mature leaves. Leaves neither ripe nor mature are a nightmare to cure (I ended up with either green dry leaves or moldy/composted baccy). The positive side is that you’re not going to do the same mistakes next year.

pier
 

deluxestogie

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Garden20160905_2270_Corojo99_matureToRipe_400.jpg


The earliest to harvest a leaf (until you become an expert at judging degree of maturity for your varieties) is when at least the tip of the leaf looks like this. A fully ripe leaf is all yellow--really yellow.

Bob
 

OldDinosaurWesH

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Really yellow.

Tobacco seedlings 8-29-18 first pickings 73 leaves Chillards.jpg

These have lost most of their color before picking. About a week in a high humidity environment and they are totally bleached out (no more chlorophyll.).

I'm in my third year, and still learning how to cure tobacco. I've lost a lot in the past to green flash or to rot. It's all part of the learning curve. You'll get better over time. Plant more next year!

Tobacco seedlings 9-1-18 East garden different angle.jpg

These are about 1/2 of this year's plantings. Approximately 80. Notice a lot of yellowing leaves. I don't pick 'em 'till they are pretty ripe. Photo taken 9-1-18.

Wes H.
 

thomaspeter123

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Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. A little background and detail of what variety of tobacco you are growing, and how you are attempting to cure it may be helpful in answering your question, and offering suggestions.

Bob
yea ,i have grown virginia tobacco. It is the first year i am trying to cultivate tobacco, well i do wonder why some of the leaves keep being green, even they are dry.
 

thomaspeter123

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Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. A little background and detail of what variety of tobacco you are growing, and how you are attempting to cure it may be helpful in answering your question, and offering suggestions.

Bob
Well I grow virginia tobacco. now I am drying the leaves. it is my first year of growing tobacco. I think it will cut down my expenses of bying tobacco, I am only smoking pibe.
 

deluxestogie

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The harvested leaf should be maintained in some humidity (60-80% RH) until all the green is gone. This is known as color-curing. The leaf can do this only if it remains alive during that time. Once it has dried, any remaining green will be quite difficult to clear. After the leaf is entirely yellow, or yellow and brown, then you can go ahead and dry it.

Bob
 

CT Tobaccoman

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some of the leaves, which are dry, are still green even so they are dry. What to do?
Nothing you can do once leaves dry out green. Try my trick. When you pick the leaves, put them in a plastic bin, several leaves between layers of newspaper. Turn them each day, and if any leaves have visible moisture on their surface, dry the moisture. After 4 days or so, the leaves will turn yellow. Once they are yellow, it is safe to hang them to dry and cure. A yellow leaf can only turn brown. Once they are yellow they cannot go back to green. I use this method to air cure Virginia flue cured tobacco and it works very well. I get nice light brown leaves this way. Try it!
 
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