Making Black Cavendish Pipe Tobacco

[Smokin Harley]

No, it all still looks about the same. top to bottom ,inside to outside. just hershey bar chocolate brown. the holes are pretty good sized and when I add water , I toss em around a bit . I could try window screen . I'll have time tomorrow .

 

[deluxestogie]

All that brown in the water is where your dark color has gone.

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

so how do I keep the color in the leaf?? next time I steam a new batch, should I save the water and reuse that ?...

 

[deluxestogie]

Insulate the lid of the pot, so that the steam temperature is maintained in the vicinity of the leaf. This will reduce the water condensation on the leaf.

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

I'm trying a new batch today ...only Little Dutch leaf since a few leaves from my first picked batch from the curing barn are nice and dark and smell really nice too.
I have the pot of water boiling as I rehydrate and wash the dead critters and other schmegma off the leaves . 10 leaves . After washing I folded them tip to stem then over again and set them in the steam pot ,4 on the bottom ,the next layer got laid on top like brick fashion . the remaining two leaves went over the top center . Lid on, covered the lid with two layers of foil and got it all snugged down around the rim of the pot. Seals it and creates an insulating air layer on top of the lid . Holding more heat in , maybe more like a low pressure cooker .Already I can see the foil "breathing" as the steam builds up inside it . I'm going to guess its working. Counting from 7:15am ...not peeking unless I add water, I'll check it at 10 for water level. Saving any juice I happen to have in the bottom pot to case flavor it later...maybe even add some back to the first batch I did last week.

 

[Smokin Harley]

Already 2 hours into this batch and it already smells about 2 hours ahead of the first batch ,starting to smell fruity,like apricots again. I think the double foil lid wrap is working better.
Will check on color with water addition in an hour. Might even give it a layer of foil under the lid as well. Been seeing a few mushroom clouds of built up steam escaping the foil. not quite a pressure cooker scenario but its got a little oomph in the steam.

 

[Smokin Harley]

Did a water check...even after all the huge steam clouds have escaped for the last 3 hours, theres still more than 50% of the water left in the pot, but I added another 3 quarts anyway and letting it boil up again before I turn the heat down to just maintain a good rattly boil. Water in the pot is colored a bit , but not much ,looks like weak tea. I checked leaf color , not much different than when I started ,but its not soggy like last week . Rearranged the leaf a different way , like spokes on a wheel. So every leaf is exposed to the steam just as much as the others . I put one layer of foil under the lid this time along with a layer on the outside of the lid , so now its double insulated . I'll let it go as long as I can this afternoon without peeking now that I know its not using half the amount of water as last time. Check back about 4 or 5 pm.

 

[deluxestogie]

Water in the pot is colored a bit , but not much ,looks like weak tea. I checked leaf...not soggy like last week .

Excellent!

Good idea to rearrange the leaf. I'm pretty sure that it's exposure to the steam, rather than cooking, that turns the leaf dark.

Bob

 

[Smokin Harley]

I don't know Bob...Water looks now like weak coffee (clear) but nothing like the first batch did. That was strong coffee from a truck stop. I looked at the leaf when I rearranged it then and it wasn't too much darker than when I started .I'm sure it getting steamed darkened it a bit but I think once it dries out it'll return to about the original color. I haven't smelled the transition past the apricot aroma yet...maybe I'm not supposed to .Wondering if I need to toast it in the oven . I do have time Saturday to go at steaming some more. Besides the water refill again at 2 ,its going on a solid 9 hours today. I did a quick water level check and I should be good for another 30 minutes. Regardless, I'm shutting it down at 5:00 so I can get the water pot cleaned out ...
I need it before the little woman gets home for pasta by 6 ,lol.

 

[Smokin Harley]

pot stopped steaming at 4:45 ,yes 10 minutes ago. took the steam top off and was barely a shot of water left in the water pot...so I took the leaf out and hung it up on a skewer in the garage to dry tonight ...which the leaves are in fact much darker now than they were at 2 ...there was dark brown juice in the bottom of the water pot. I took the batch from the other day fluffed it up and let it suck up the brown juice. turned that back to a nice rich dark brown like I intended .put it in a baggie and in the fridge to marinate. Now I have the option to either dry it as is or give it another steam session , maybe see if it will darken any more. Much better results this time. Thoughts on options please.

 

[Smokin Harley]

before
after 9 solid hours of steaming

 

[ProfessorPangloss]

I have nothing whatsoever to add except that I admire/appreciate your work and am interested to see how this shakes out, since I will hopefully be doing same with some of my leaf.

Also, this:

 

[Smokin Harley]

its not hard, just time consuming...but I sure appreciate what you said .

 

[Smokin Harley]

After hanging the steamed tobacco up on a bamboo skewer ,rested it in the upside down gunwales of my cedar strip canoe to drip dry . Yesterday as my wife and I were passing through the garage , I stopped in my tracks to a wonderful chocolate aroma. My wife has a cologne that has a hint of chocolate so I had to ask her if she was wearing it...no...so I reached up to the skewer and pulled the dark leaves down to take a nice deep (inhaling slow,eyes closed,savor the moment type of) whiff. I had to call my wife over to enjoy this . She agrees it has a chocolate aroma and is just wonderful. Now remember this is only Little Dutch I used in this batch.
I may steam another batch of something else today just to see if I can get to another aroma , fruity is the goal . Then another on another day that may give me something else, like nutty . Anyone know of what cigar variety leaves will give other specific tried and true results once steamed as cavendish?
This is turning out nice.

 

[Smokin Harley]

8:45am...started a batch of 10 Madole leaves since it was color cured and I really don't have much from my grow to do much else .
Time will tell .

 

[kullas]

I just put 8 leaves of Va gold on the steamer been there for almost 2 hours already and already smelling fruity

 

[Smokin Harley]

Nice to know. I almost did a Va Gold batch,but that may be next...please keep me posted on your progress and results.
So far I added water at 12 . I just lifted the entire lidded steam pot top off to add a couple quarts of hot tap water, original water in the pot was still half what I started with and hardly any color to it ,like weak tea. I'm not even peeking at the leaf this batch,trying not to release any steam or get any kind of cold air to retard the steaming...not until I'm shutting it down around 4-4:30pm.

At 2 pm its smelling like week old wet grass from under the lawn mower, and slightly yeasty...hmmmm.

 

[kullas]

I'm ising a water canner with the with the jar rack hanging on the sides and the baccy ontop of the jar rack. Just added water and I'm going to let mine go untill 7. After I remove the baccy I am going to reduce the water down and let it cook and use it for bug spray on the remaining leaf I got out there.

 

[Smokin Harley]

the second batch I did which was little dutch , I had about maybe 1/4 cup or less of reduced beautiful dark rich tobacco juice. I added it back to the first batch of steamed leaf I had done which was a triple variety ,that I had unfortunately let go almost to the point of burning off the juice entirely. The pre-cavendish that had resulted from that debacle wasn't quite as dark as I had originally planned . Adding the Dutch juice back to it cased it nicely and let to soak back in...turned it a very incredibly dark brown molasses color . I added that cake of leaf to this sessions steam pot ...so that now has steamed for an aggregate of 24 hours.
I just jumped up from the keyboard and shut off the stove top . Sure enough , about a 1/4 cup of brown juice is left. just enough to case back into the leaf before drying. Hoping for a good taste out of the first leaf.

 

[kullas]

The Va gold came out good. I took my fav clay pipe and shred up a bit and smoked it. My wife loved the smell of it said the smoke smelled kinda like a swisher sweet. Kinda had that sweet taste to it like a ss.

I took a pinch of each tobacco I got corojo wrapper, corojo seco, criollo ligero and doninican binder and smoked it in my pipe pinch by pinch. I didn't like the binder to much so I rolled me a cigar with my Va gold as the binder some seco and ligero and some Va gold as the filler. I will let ya know how it turns out in a cigar