How to make strong tobacco more mild and smooth

[burge]

Bob sent me a sample of two different dark air tobaccos from India. He told me he had only ever used very small amounts because they were very strong.

Well, I smoked it all. It was easily smoked, smooth, and not high in nicotine. I think the years of sitting in storage, no kilning, no special technique at all, caused it to get significantly better in all aspects.

Partially the reason why I don't grow and buy my tobacco. Even 6 months makes a difference.

 

[Muggs]

Enzymes eating you tobacco.

 

[burge]

Pretty much the chemical breakdown and fermentation. Bob would be a better authority I do know the 5 year old tobacco had the smell of ammonia

 

[deluxestogie]

Ammonia comes from continued break-down of proteins, which reduces harshness. I have not had the impression that age or kilning or steaming or dark of night reduces nicotine, but certainly improves the balance and harshness. "Steaming" in a manner that results in icky black juice means that the leaf is soaking and washing nicotine out of the tobacco and into the water (where the nicotine then oxidizes, and turns the water black). When my Cavendish produces such a juice at the bottom, I carefully pour all that yucky stuff back onto the leaf prior to drying it, in order to preserve the nicotine. Steaming in a way that does not produce black juice at the bottom of the container produces much nicer tobacco.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I wonder if you took the steam juice from multiple batches and added it all to a single other batch, if you would create something worth smoking.

 

[Muggs]

Hum i wonder,wouldn't steaming the tobacco like you would vegetables work.
I'm thinking on a bamboo steammer.
I seen somewhere on the Web,they sale nicotine in a bottle

 

[Muggs]

I watched a video the other day of a guy processing tobacco.he took a pot added water,syrup,Glycerin.honey,an semmerd.the tobacco in that for an hour.then shredded it an place the tobacco in the over on 350 until dry.
Now I'm wondering what the Glycerin will do.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Glycerin is a humectant like PG, but it also increases the perception of sweetness which PG doesn't. I started using it when I make black cavendish because of that. I wouldn't if, say, I was working on an English blend.

 

[Muggs]

Hum rewarded a trophy.
You know, I came on here to learn how to process my own tobacco.
All I find is this Might work.are No Dont do that.
I have tried some of the Suggestions on here and LOL
...

[Unhappy user. Unfortunate attitude.] deluxestogie

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Strange. I thought I answered the question about glycerin. If anyone is wondering, the steaming in a colander is clearly covered in Bob's thread on making cavendish which you can find in the Key Forum Threads.

 

[FmGrowit]

I fear we are retrograding from a "DIY" mentality and headed into a new era of "tell me what to do so I know how to do it".

 

[burge]

Newbies have lots of questions. I buy leaf in advance to age it. The flavour of exceptional leaf changes and even a virginia is complex. Time and patience mellows out tobacco. Some find whole leaf can be strong harsh and overwhelming I thought so at first then you leave the tobacco rest the tobacco remoisten and you would think its different tobacco. The tobacco from 2 orders ago is really good. 1 year 8 months and wow its good I don't smoke much. That lemon from 5 years ago is wow. It takes time. First bit of lemon I got from my first order I found it harsh so I put some water in the bag swished it quickly and it was really good. the second baf I opened tasted differently. It wasn't bad and posted when I went fishing leaving it in my hot car when fishing to something totally different could not believe it was the same tobacco. The Gentleman at church that I stayed with had some too and had some McClelland Virginia or McBaren that he liked for his pipe. He liked the lemon better. I would try some of his in a tube and vice versa some of Dons in a pipe. That tells you the quality of the tobacco. Again though it takes time

 

[deluxestogie]

Newbies have lots of questions.

I believe that the members of this forum (the most knowledgeable source in the world!) do their sincere best to repeatedly answer the questions of newbies. But some folks can't accept the sometimes wildly differing opinions of those who offer that help. When a newbie demands a yes/no answer to "I read somewhere that...", and then curses at the forum for not providing the hoped-for response, well...they're toast.

Grumpy Bob

 

[burge]

I can be patient. I find a lot of newbies expect immediate results. I read through Muggs responses and the last one I did not appreciate. I would just send a email enough I do think he was really trying to learn.

 

[burge]

Best tobacco you can buy but as a suggestion a complete newbie section. with the instructions we are knowledgeable and experienced. It takes knowledge time and practice. I have posted a few times for newbies on leaf just to get it out. It is a unmanufactured product and takes time in some cases. I can say I had one issue emailed Don and said lets give it a month. I knew what to do with the lemon to get a taste and it worked. WLT your dealing with the best tobacco in the world. It just needs some TLC

 

[Propsjonnyb]

My grandfather was a Tabacco/herbalist 50 years ago, which meant he rolled cigars and cigarettes , commercially for sale in the local community. He always used a citric spray solution , to ‘calm’ down the nicotine, and used a tannin spray to almost eliminate the nicotine for those patients/customers who’s medical condition meant they could not use full strength . Unfortunately I don’t have the ratios , but I’m sure some research would provide an answer.

 

[ras_oscar]

i am firmly convinced that there is leaf processing going on between the farm and the roller that don't get published routinely.

 

[burge]

i am firmly convinced that there is leaf processing going on between the farm and the roller that don't get published routinely.

I know what we get here is the exclusive non commercial tobacco which is used in the finer blends of tobacco while commercial grade tobacco is grown for mass production. There is a huge difference. There is no complexity in taste on mass produced leaf. The competition that is all they sell and it lacks in taste I aged some of there CDN and it's taste stayed the same. With WLT it gets better and better with age. If you want the good stuff stay here. A guy on the pipe forum on facebook got some with my recommendation and now he can have a blend that he thought was gone along time ago. A Dunhill luxury pipe blend. Now he can have it again thanks to WLT

 

[phallca]

They are like little hard rocks and will destroy most grinders

Just a thought, but if you brewed the coffee first then evaporated the water off to concentrate it down to a usable amount, wouldn't that save the wear and tear on the grinder? I understand it's adding extra steps to the procedure but a little extra time and work to save having to replace a relatively expensive piece of equipment would seem to be worth it.

 

[Michael Zarnott]

Greetings,
This is my first post on this forum. I'm sort of new to making my own cigarettes at around 10,000 made thus far but I wanted to share some experiments that I have done this week in an attempt to make a cost effective casing to "smooth" tobacco.
I've been experimenting with making my own casing using citric acid for flue cured types. My first attempt at using a 2% concentration of citric acid and distilled water sprayed on shredded virginia did not significantly change the "raw" aspect of the flavor. Since i don't have a meter that would give me actual ph readings, I tasted a prepared commercial based casing and then mine. I determined my 2% concentration was substantially weaker than the commercial casing. I mixed a 4% concentration and repeated the experiment and the results were a much improved tasting cigarette. To help you understand how much of the 4% solution, I used on a lb of shredded tobacco, after resting for 12 hours in a sealed container, the moisture content of the tobacco was 26%.
My next experiment will be to mix a 50/50 combination of citric and malic acid to approximately the same 4% total concentration. I will also give you the exact weight and moisture content of my tobacco pre-casing and the total weight post casing to help with understanding how much of the solution is used in total for my trial.