Fermenting

[Ben Brand]

A air-cured tobacco farmer friend of mine planted 300 plants for me last year with his pipe tobacco crop, cured it and fermented it with his tobacco. The tobacco are completely different than the tobacco that I ferment in my freezer fermenter. It smokes and smells better, the overall quality are just better.

My friend decided he`s going to do flu-cured tobacco, so that`s it for my nice tobacco.

HOW AM i GOING TO REPLICATE THAT FERMENTING PROCESS???

My freezer fermented tobacco is not of the same standard as the pile fermented tobacco!

Still going to plant 300 plants, but would like to try and ferment it in a pile all at once.

My ideas,

Wrap the pile in 2 or 3 electric blankets, or put all the tobacco in a huge plastic drum, the wrap it in a electric blanket!
Anybody that tried electric blankets, or any other ideas??

Any help please!!!

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

How about inside a thick bag buried in your compost heap?

 

[Ben Brand]

Good idea, never thought of that. Thanks

 

[deluxestogie]

Ben,
At what temperature, humidity and duration are you running your freezer kiln?

Bob

 

[mwaller]

How did your farmer friend create his piles, and how long did he ferment?

 

[Ben Brand]

Ben,
At what temperature, humidity and duration are you running your freezer kiln?

Bob

Bob
Try to keep it about 55 deg C ( 130 deg F)

 

[Ben Brand]

How did your farmer friend create his piles, and how long did he ferment?

He was planting air cured tobacco, so he packed his tobacco in huge stacks to ferment.
My problem is that I might not have enough tobacco for a big enough stack to ferment.
I think he ferments his tobacco according to heat, if the stacks don`t heat up anymore, he breaks down the stacks, I reacon about 6 weeks??