A follow-up on technique
Several weeks ago, I pressure cooked a batch of MD 609 (from BigBonner). I trimmed the edges of a disposable pizza pan (so it would fit inside the large, canning-size pressure cooker), and punctured it with small holes.
In order to keep the tobacco from soaking in liquid, the pizza pan was supported by a stack of metal objects inside the pressure cooker.
The leaf was first stemmed, and folded into thirds, so that it would fit inside the cooker. I firmly stacked about 16 stemmed leaves, and rested it on the pizza pan.
The cooker was running at 16 psi for 5 hours. I initially began with 2 cups of water in the cooker, and discovered (by the waning of the hissing sound) that another 2 cups was needed about every 2 hours. Since the leaf was supported over 6" above the bottom, I could have added 6 cups to start with, but it would then have required a longer time to reach pressure, and I wanted to monitor progress along the way. Each time the cooker needed to be opened, I removed it from the heat, then tipped the pressure regulator weight to entirely vent the pressure before attempting to open it.
The cooking aroma was...well...who cares? No spouse here.
At 5 hours, some of the leaf was dark black, while some was only a dark brown. At no time did the leaf sit in liquid. The remaining water in the cooker was only slightly brown tinged, so little of the leaf alkaloid was removed. (The cooker and the included metal supports were relatively easy to clean. Due to its fragility, I did not scrub the pizza pan.)
After cooking, I placed the soggy leaf onto a baking sheet in a warm (below 150ºF) oven, and checked it every 10 minutes. It required about 20 minutes to dry down to a dry but mostly flexible state.
Below is a small, representative sample of the whole leaf strip.
I scrunched the leaf as though I were compressing filler for a cigar, then closely shredded it with my Khun Rocoh Kulu to a medium width pipe shred.
In proper case, the black Cavendish burns well, and has a subdued though pleasant flavor and aroma. A pipeful packs quite a punch, so all the nicotine is still there. I find that I enjoy it straight, in a pipe, more than any commercial Black Cavendish I've tried. A single whole strip blended into cigar filler broadens the flavor profile, and merges well with cigar aromas.
I used it in a pipe blend to make a delightful English style mixture. ["Parts," below, are out of a total of 16, so it can be directly converted to ounces required to mix up a pound.]
- VA Bright (flue-cured) ~4 parts
- Black Cavendish ~3 parts
- Perique (pressure processed, from FmGrowit) ~3 parts
- Shirazi (dark fire-cured) ~3 parts
- Xanthi-Yaka (air-cured and kilned) ~3 parts
Although this mixture doesn't have the intensity of Latakia, the dark-fired Shirazi does give it a distinct smokiness. I would asses this mixture as a tasty, medium-strength, well balanced English pipe blend.
SUMMARY:
- pressure cooking 5 to 6 hours gets the job done
- keeping the leaf out of standing liquid (subject only to the steam) preserves the nicotine
- drying down gently, and not toasting, seems to help retain the leaf's flavor and aroma
Bob
Has anyone tried beer or malt syrup? 
