Great experiment so far!
If I had more time (and didn't already have pounds of Latakia) I'd join you in this adventure.
Keep up the good work and I can't wait to see the end results!
~Darin
Great experiment so far!
If I had more time (and didn't already have pounds of Latakia) I'd join you in this adventure.
Keep up the good work and I can't wait to see the end results!
~Darin
On the weekend- pretty much 24 hours a day. During the work week twice a day - from 5am till the fire goes out ( the wife says around 10) and from 5 till 12amIf you start with green leaf, be sure to keep the temperature below 104°F, until the leaf has yellowed (4 days to about 2 weeks).
How much time in each "day" is the firing active?
Bob
Emphasis is my own. Each of us is making Latakia with different firing materials, each one of which contributes easily a dozen aroma components. I'm suspecting that so long as the collection of firing materials excludes certain strong, recognizable, incorrect components and includes certain strong, recognizable, essential components, that all the other odor variants tossed in there simply serve to "generalize" the overall aroma to a Latakia-ish aroma. I can just about guarantee that in Cyprus, the exact materials and exact quantities of each differ from year to year, and even batch to batch.Weiss T et al: Perceptual convergence of multi-component mixtures in olfaction implies an olfactory white. said:In vision, two mixtures, each containing an independent set of many different wavelengths, may produce a common color percept termed “white.” In audition, two mixtures, each containing an independent set of many different frequencies, may produce a common perceptual hum termed “white noise.” Visual and auditory whites emerge upon two conditions: when the mixture components span stimulus space, and when they are of equal intensity. We hypothesized that if we apply these same conditions to odorant mixtures, “whiteness” may emerge in olfaction as well. We selected 86 molecules that span olfactory stimulus space and individually diluted them to a point of about equal intensity. We then prepared various odorant mixtures, each containing various numbers of molecular components, and asked human participants to rate the perceptual similarity of such mixture pairs. We found that as we increased the number of nonoverlapping, equal-intensity components in odorant mixtures, the mixtures became more similar to each other, despite not having a single component in common. With ∼30 components, most mixtures smelled alike. After participants were acquainted with a novel, arbitrarily named mixture of ∼30 equal-intensity components, they later applied this name more readily to other novel mixtures of ∼30 equal-intensity components spanning stimulus space, but not to mixtures containing fewer components or to mixtures that did not span stimulus space. We conclude that a common olfactory percept, “olfactory white,” is associated with mixtures of ∼30 or more equal-intensity components that span stimulus space, implying that olfactory representations are of features of molecules rather than of molecular identity.
Weiss T et al: Perceptual convergence of multi-component mixtures in olfaction implies an olfactory white - PNAS December 4, 2012 109 (49) 19959-19964
Brief inspection inside the smoke barrel: Bob is right when he said the blacking would speed up toward the end of the 6 week run. The leaves are really blackening on day 36.
Uncle! Uncle!
It's almost as painful as my 8 year old cousin pinching my nipple when I was 7. I just can't take it any more, after nearly 8 weeks of doing this. I have now ended my Latakia firing, and filled a large paper bag with the leaf. Some is quite black, while some is unimpressively, still brown. Oh well. My hands are now sore from using a bristle brush to clean them, after touching the leaf.
Once it's dried down, I'll possibly double-bag it, and toss it into my kiln. The aroma is better than with my previous attempt, but I believe it's still not quite right. I guess that's not too surprising. All of you participants in this endeavor will get to be the judges next June.
Bob
We discuss any variety of tobacco, as well as numerous approaches to growing, harvesting, curing, and finishing your crop. Our members will attempt to provide experience-based answers to your questions.