Leverhead's Flue Cure experiment

[BarG]

All the Southern Beauty I HAD growing, this rain has really taken a toll! I'm going to wait to see what the next month brings before I call the season.

I hope you weren't in the area that got 10" in a 24 hour period. Youv'e obviously been getting more than I have.
We've been getting showers everyday but nothing severe.

When you are flue curing can you prime and pile to yellow and then fix the color?

 

[leverhead]

leverhead,
That first attempt looks very promising. It's hard to tell from the photos if the green areas are dried green, or still moist. But the fully yellowed leaves look excellent, except for the unfinished stems. The goal of the final two days of higher temps is to dry the stems and denature the leaf's oxidase enzymes. I think you're nearly there. Congratulations!

Bob

Thank you! One of these day I might buy a better camera, There's a little bit of green left, I've read somewhere that it will go away with a little bit of aging. There's also a little bit of scalding that doesn't show well. How's your classified work going?

 

[leverhead]

I hope you weren't in the area that got 10" in a 24 hour period. Youv'e obviously been getting more than I have.
We've been getting showers everyday but nothing severe.

When you are flue curing can you prime and pile to yellow and then fix the color?

Yup, right in the middle of it, plus the run off from the back yard! The shed saved some of the Southern Beauties, I've been running all day picking what I don't want to rot. It's more than sad, but I've still got some good pictures of it in it's prime.

I don't know about prime and pile! I've got lots of yellowed leaves to try it on, I just don't want to blow my "simulator" time if I have good leaf coming. If I had planted a couple of weeks earlier this would have made a perfect time to try it.

 

[deluxestogie]

How's your classified work going?

The research team won't allow me to peek. Something about disturbing the ambient conditions. All I can see is a thermometer slowly creeping its way upward on the side of a ... well, I can't discuss that yet. Smells like green beans cooking! That can't be too good.

Bob

 

[Chicken]

i been thinking of your design, and what the end product was that comes out o0f the hose, and got to thinking,

my box i used as last years kiln, is obsolete to me right now,

if i took this box, and run the exaust of the clothes dryer, in it,

with leaf. proablly some hands in there, if it would be benificial, for drying it more thouroughlly,

or if it would smell like a fabric softner sheet?

perhaps, i'll use it for a drying, purpose, with a dry run,

no clothes, or sheets in there, ,, just dryer heat?????

well my woman just informed me she doesnt use, dryer sheets,

i wonder if this idea would work,???

 

[johnlee1933]

i been thinking of your design, and what the end product was that comes out o0f the hose, and got to thinking,

my box i used as last years kiln, is obsolete to me right now,

if i took this box, and run the exaust of the clothes dryer, in it,

with leaf. proablly some hands in there, if it would be benificial, for drying it more thouroughlly,

or if it would smell like a fabric softner sheet?

perhaps, i'll use it for a drying, purpose, with a dry run,

no clothes, or sheets in there, ,, just dryer heat?????

well my woman just informed me she doesnt use, dryer sheets,

i wonder if this idea would work,???

IMO -- That is an awful lot of heat. The temp rise would be fast. Better be a pretty big box. I'd only use it as a waste heat use. To run the dryer for that exclusively would cost a lot.

John

 

[leverhead]

The research team won't allow me to peek. Something about disturbing the ambient conditions. All I can see is a thermometer slowly creeping its way upward on the side of a ... well, I can't discuss that yet. Smells like green beans cooking! That can't be too good.

Bob

With bacon fat and onions? Tobacco is sooo strange, it can smell like different things to different people. Don't give up the ship! If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer.

 

[Chicken]

the box is pretty big,,

about 4' by 3' and 5 foot tall,,, and if she dont use no dryer sheets then the smell should get absorbed by the baccy???

thats my main concern is that the baccy would taste like TIDE,???

IMO -- That is an awful lot of heat. The temp rise would be fast. Better be a pretty big box. I'd only use it as a waste heat use. To run the dryer for that exclusively would cost a lot.

John

 

[leverhead]

i been thinking of your design, and what the end product was that comes out o0f the hose, and got to thinking,

my box i used as last years kiln, is obsolete to me right now,

if i took this box, and run the exaust of the clothes dryer, in it,

with leaf. proablly some hands in there, if it would be benificial, for drying it more thouroughlly,

or if it would smell like a fabric softner sheet?

perhaps, i'll use it for a drying, purpose, with a dry run,

no clothes, or sheets in there, ,, just dryer heat?????

well my woman just informed me she doesnt use, dryer sheets,

i wonder if this idea would work,???

I tend to agree with John, it would be expensive to run. The blower could be useful, the mechanical parts of the heater (electric) are a keeper and could be redone pretty easily. I'm really liking electric heat right now, it's easy to control. I'd want to wash everything down before using it around tobacco.

 

[johnlee1933]

the box is pretty big,,

about 4' by 3' and 5 foot tall,,, and if she dont use no dryer sheets then the smell should get absorbed by the baccy???

thats my main concern is that the baccy would taste like TIDE,???

OUCH ! What a way to f__k up a batch of tobacco.

J

 

[leverhead]

I don't mean to be a PIA. Does any body know how and how much water (if any) gets used up chemically while the leaf is yellowing and converting starch to sugars? I'm thinking it might be my leak, maybe I'm just tired.

 

[FmGrowit]

Commercial flue curing uses only the water within the leave for the entire curing process. I've heard of introducing steam when the process is finished, but that is to bring the leaf into case so the barn can be unloaded.

Do you have the wet bulb/dry bulb chart?

 

[leverhead]

Commercial flue curing uses only the water within the leave for the entire curing process. I've heard of introducing steam when the process is finished, but that is to bring the leaf into case so the barn can be unloaded.

Do you have the wet bulb/dry bulb chart?

View attachment 1356

I've got several different charts I've be using for reference. I'm really killing time nit picking my list of issues. It's a real small load for the volume, but I've added almost a pint of water on the "T" shirts in 24 hours to keep the wet bulb temperature where I want it. The vents are closed and I think everything is sealed up, I just can't find were the water is going.

 

[FmGrowit]

The problem is most likely with the blower. The blower is increasing the barometric pressure inside the chamber and whatever small gaps there are, is where the moisture is going. There is probably considerable back flow through the blower itself.

A heat exchanger isn't pressurized, so there is only loss of moisture through evaporation out the controlled venting.

 

[FmGrowit]

Just looked at the first picture again...wherever your fresh air intake is, is likely where you're losing the moisture. I don't think you can fully enclose the system without risk of loss to the motor from excess moisture unless the blower was enclosed within some sort of paper filter housing that would allow air to pass through the filter and trap the moisture. The moisture would then just evaporate back into the chamber until it is vented.

 

[leverhead]

Just looked at the first picture again...wherever your fresh air intake is, is likely where you're losing the moisture. I don't think you can fully enclose the system without risk of loss to the motor from excess moisture unless the blower was enclosed within some sort of paper filter housing that would allow air to pass through the filter and trap the moisture. The moisture would then just evaporate back into the chamber until it is vented.

Thank you, you were still thinking while I went to sleep. The problem goes away during the wilting phase and hopefully won't be there with a bigger load. Either way I have a work around for it, during the boredom phase the little problems bug me.

 

[leverhead]

Well I'm in the home stretch. It's at 138 F going to 165 F to dry/kill the stems. There's some new additions to the line-up.



From left to right, dry bulb, wet bulb, Watts, thermostat, dimmer and switch. The second picture is the inlet temperature (top of the center pipe). The first dimmer switch crapped out in the middle of the night trying to ramp up to 118 F for wilting, the worst possible time for it to go out, so I got some browning from that. The difference between the dry bulb and the thermostat is, the dry bulb is about an inch off the bottom and the thermostat is at the top. I'm using the dimmer and the Watt meter to control the rate of temperature rise and it's working pretty well. The Watt meter will record the KW/hr, so at the end I can figure the cost of cure. In the last 28 hours it's used 3.6 KW/hr, the next run will have a much larger load, I'll post the total for that run. More pictures probably on Sunday.

 

[Tom_in_TN]

Been reading your thread and the experiment is going pretty good. Keep up the good work 'cause it looks like you are going to get this prefected.

 

[Chicken]

you got so many different electrical wires going in every direction,

im sure if i built that thing, i'd have allready been shocked at least 4 times, { a electrician i am not }

 

[leverhead]

you got so many different electrical wires going in every direction,

im sure if i built that thing, i'd have allready been shocked at least 4 times, { a electrician i am not }

Neatness doesn't count yet, when I get through the season I'll make some more changes and make it neater. No shocks yet and just one burn, I left the heater going with out the blower going. I think it's ready for a real load now, the leaves are getting sticky again now that the big man got over his hissy-fit. I've got a day or so to coast, so I'm going to!