From the looks of that beauty, I'd say right round 25,000 or so.
How to get cigar to burn razor sharp?
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Ben Brand
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Rolled a few cigars with only Volado, even wrappers were Volado. Smokes quite nicely, no burning issues. The only problem is the ash flares (if you know what I mean), it doesn't hold the shape of the cigar, also the ash falls quickly, don't stay on like a propper cigar. But that being said not a bad tasting cigar, ot ppretty but nice.
Ben
Ben
Gdaddy
Well-Known Member
My guess would be around 300 give or take.
Gdaddy
Well-Known Member
Very interesting! What if you used as a binder one seco leaf and one volado leaf or 2 volado leaves for a binder only(not sure it's strong enough) and the rest of the cigar regular seco/ligero filler. After all, the burning issues seem to originate from the outer perimeter of the cigar. The middle always burns fine so why use volado in the middle?
It would appear that the reason it doesn't hold it's shape is the same reason it burns so well and that is because it's not a very dense leaf making it easier to ignite.
The volado is not in there for taste but for combustion.
A typical factory cigar roller will knock out between 250 and 300 cigars a day. I've rolled probably about 8000 cigars, which equates to about 3-1/2 weeks of "experience." So I am still a newbie. I continue to see improvement in my cigars--week by week, rather than day by day at this point.
One learning advantage that we have over the torcedors and torcedoras is that we smoke nearly every cigar that we roll. Those talented folks just send them over to quality control. So, I think we learn some aspects of rolling faster than factory workers. But still, it's a continuous learning process.
Bob
One learning advantage that we have over the torcedors and torcedoras is that we smoke nearly every cigar that we roll. Those talented folks just send them over to quality control. So, I think we learn some aspects of rolling faster than factory workers. But still, it's a continuous learning process.
Bob
Gdaddy
Well-Known Member
A point I'd like to add is(with all due respect)... they don't produce hand rolled cigars at those numbers. The Lieberman bunching machine has made rolling a cigar much faster and less skill required. Actually much less skill. They take a certain amount leaf and put it in the device and push the handle. Bingo out comes the rolled bunch. This does NOT take that much skill and allows the bunchers to produce many more cigars than a true hand rolled cigar. Very, very few factories roll a true hand made cigar. The Lieberman device is widely used and even though this 'machine' is used extensively throughout the industry it's still acceptable to label the cigar 'Hand Made'. It is NOT hand bunched. The wrapper IS hand applied but that has minimal effect on the draw and burning quality of that cigar. The 'bunch' is the 'meat and potatoes' of the cigar and it's mostly machine done.
The lady in the video produces a truly hand rolled cigar from start to finish.She produces very few cigars though she is very skilled. Many events and tours have their best rollers out front rolling hand mades for people to see for show BUT the reality is back in the factory the Lieberman is doing the rolling.
Here's where I realized the difference... I went to an event for La Flor Dominicana. They had a woman roller,from the factory, out front and the deal was buy a box and get 5 hand rolled cigars. I bought them. The hand rolled cigars were NOTHING like the regular line of cigars. Not even close. She was nothing more than a prop to create the illusion of their cigars being hand made.
This is the reason I wanted to learn true hand rolling because I was amazed at how much better the hand rolled cigars were over the ones in the box. Beautiful draw and flavor and had no relation to the regular line of cigars that are machine rolled.
So I think it boils down to quality instead of quantity and though I am a noobie with very little experience my cigars are better than most I can buy at the B&M that have been machine rolled by the thousands.
The lady in the video produces a truly hand rolled cigar from start to finish.She produces very few cigars though she is very skilled. Many events and tours have their best rollers out front rolling hand mades for people to see for show BUT the reality is back in the factory the Lieberman is doing the rolling.
Here's where I realized the difference... I went to an event for La Flor Dominicana. They had a woman roller,from the factory, out front and the deal was buy a box and get 5 hand rolled cigars. I bought them. The hand rolled cigars were NOTHING like the regular line of cigars. Not even close. She was nothing more than a prop to create the illusion of their cigars being hand made.
This is the reason I wanted to learn true hand rolling because I was amazed at how much better the hand rolled cigars were over the ones in the box. Beautiful draw and flavor and had no relation to the regular line of cigars that are machine rolled.
So I think it boils down to quality instead of quantity and though I am a noobie with very little experience my cigars are better than most I can buy at the B&M that have been machine rolled by the thousands.
Cigars Magazine said:
I don't know how reliable this information is. So, I'll concede the point. Now both of us has twice as much "experience" as my previous calculation.
Bob
Gdaddy
Well-Known Member
Nothing beats a cigar properly rolled 'entubado' by an expert roller completely by hand. It's the pinnacle of cigar construction and yields the best smoking properties.
The Lieberman method was devised not to make a better cigar but a tool devised to greatly speed up production with the added benefit of requiring less skilled workers to make them.
So if you were to make two identical cigars using the same tobacco one with the Lieberman and the other by an expert roller there would be noticeably better cigar by hand rolling. So yes the Lieberman would be inferior.
Bigdog
Well-Known Member
The conclusion that I draw from this thread is
1 Know your tobacco and construct your cigar so that the better burning material is on the outside and the poorer burning in the centre.
2 Use the tube method.
3 Get experience
Thats all folks, good luck.
1 Know your tobacco and construct your cigar so that the better burning material is on the outside and the poorer burning in the centre.
2 Use the tube method.
3 Get experience
Thats all folks, good luck.
Gdaddy
Well-Known Member
Agreed. I'm finding this to be the secret to a good burn. Since the wrapper is the outer most leaf a thin easy burning leaf has given the best results.
I'm drawing different conclusions based on my experience.
1. Using Don's tobacco, I put the wrapper leaf on the outside and the filler leaf in the center. Burning qualities are what they are and can vary within the same shipment and variety.
2. I guess what I'm doing is called the book method? I stack the leaf up, cut in half, restack, and scrunch up the whole bunch.
3. From my first to last cigar, all have burned extremely well. I can't roll a pretty cigar, but they all burn like a house on fire. I may have only rolled about thirty cigars but the more you roll the better you will get at it.
Different strokes for different folks. This works so well for me that I haven't even tried the tube method. Try different ways and use what works best for you.
In terms of burn, the "book" method works best with fairly dry filler. If it's too moist, it will compress too much, and burn poorly. The "tube" method is a little less sensitive to the moisture content, but can still be compressed too tightly if too damp.
Some varieties of relatively thick wrapper (particularly those dark, oily-looking maduros) burn remarkably well. It just depends on the burn qualities of the leaf. I've touched a glowing cherry to a segment of CT Broadleaf (dark and thick), and watched the lamina spontaneously turn to ash all the way to the secondary veins--excellent burn.
Bob
Some varieties of relatively thick wrapper (particularly those dark, oily-looking maduros) burn remarkably well. It just depends on the burn qualities of the leaf. I've touched a glowing cherry to a segment of CT Broadleaf (dark and thick), and watched the lamina spontaneously turn to ash all the way to the secondary veins--excellent burn.
Bob
Your description of dry filler being a necessity may explain my luck, I roll with the filler not crumbly but almost crumbly. My wrappers can be sopping wet.
Cigar rollers who demo the fully hand-rolled craft at trade shows and special gatherings (with the assumption that the freshly rolled sticks that they hand out will be smoked fairly soon thereafter) use very dry filler. Their bunching method might be described as a quasi-semi-hemi-demi-tube method. The folks I've seen (including Nick Perdomo) just scrunch each leaf strip, bunch them and scrunch them all together. The bunch is then squeezed in both hands, while slowly releasing, rotating, then re-squeezing it, until it forms a nice, tight cylinder. The binder is then applied.
Bob
Bob
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