My Cigars Won't Burn

[koceff]

@Alpine Yes, they are kilned for month and a half. Now, I know that I have made some mistakes kilning, it is my first time, a big portion got mold and i threw them away. The kiln was not on some nights and the temperature was dropping to 50f. Is it possible to see somehow if they are kilned enough? All I can tell is that the color is different from before kilning, it is more evened out and darker and the smell is a lot different, it smells sweet now.

 

[Alpine]

I have never kilned cigar leaves, but my experience with burley is that it needs more than the usual 3 or four weeks of uninterrupted kilning. One crop of mine (from 2017 if I recall correctly) remained in the kiln 10 weeks, and was horrible to smoke after months of rest, to the point that I put it away in a cardboard box in my garage and forgot about it. Three (3!) years later, it became a wonderful ingredient of my daily blend. Try to kiln the leaves for a few more weeks, and set them apart until this autumn, maybe your leaves need just some more time.

pier

 

[deluxestogie]

@Alpine makes the excellent point of not discarding leaf that you consider to be unsatisfactory. I have maybe two dozen varieties of leaf that disappointed me, but are stored away (some a decade old). Whenever I try them years after harvest, they are always better than my initial tastings.

Bob

EDIT: And with poorly combustible leaf, I simply plan on always blending it with very combustible leaf.

 

[koceff]

The filler i left out is quite dry,Burned a leaf and it was burning much better now. I was waiting to roll my own cigars for over a year now, I am going to find a way to make them burn!

 

[koceff]

One question. I am making a bunch, accordion, entubado doesn't matter. Should i really squeeze the bunch i the binder? I mean really compress it and make it hard, mold or no mold. I think i make them too loose and that might be the reason for not burning. After i put the binder on I can easily bend it, not all the way but still.

 

[koceff]

This is how my leaf is "burning", completely dry, 5 seconds under flame.
So, it is not my rolling skill, that I can be sure of. IMO it is too much chloride or not kilned properly. I am goiing to se aside for a month, the weather should be nice then and kiln them under the sun for a while. We'll see what happens. Going to try to roll in the meantime with Prilep,small leaves but they were good last summer, i assume they will be even better now. The bigger problem for me would be if there is too much chloride in the soil. Is there any way to check this on my own, without lab analysis?

 

[deluxestogie]

If your municipal water is chlorinated, then I would assume that is the underlying problem. Chlorine in soil dissipates with time (weeks to months), rain and tilling (aeration). (A more worrisome problem would be a garden location subject to salt intrusion from nearby coastal water.) For next season, search for clearly labeled, low-chlorine fertilizer, and plan to water as little as possible, once the tobacco transplants have established themselves.

Proper color-curing also improves burn by reducing any residual carbohydrates and albuminous proteins. Aging may help.

Bob

 

[koceff]

@deluxestogie I watered with municipal water during the seedling stage,it is chlorinated but when they went in the garden they were watered with water from a pump, well water. We have no coastal water here, landlocked country, nearest sea is 200 miles, nearest lake 100 miles. I am going to check tomorrow the fertilizer i used. What is the limit for chlorine in fertilizer? Does the soil ph influence the burning characteristics?

 

[deluxestogie]

Here in the US, salt applied to road surfaces during the winter has become a significant problem. My own well water is loaded with minerals, but not excessive chlorine compounds. For low-chlorine fertilizer, the chlorine should be less than about 1% by weight. (The science here is not clear.)

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

University recommendations in tobacco growing states:

Fertilizer recommendations for float tray seedlings:

https://tobacco.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-con...ion-in-the-Greenhouse-Float-System.pdf?fwd=no

http://darktobacco.ca.uky.edu/files/floatsystems-greenhousesweba.pdf

Fertilizer recommendations for field:

https://www.uky.edu/Ag/TobaccoProd/FactSheets/PDF/Revised%20Nitrogen%20Fertilizer%20Recommendations%20for%20Tobacco.pdf

https://darktobacco.ca.uky.edu/files/tobaccofertility.pdf

Fertility - Nutrients

Nitrogen Nitrogen (N). Nitrogen has a greater effect on tobacco yield and quality than any other nutrient. Too little nitrogen reduces yield and results in pale, slick cured leaf. Too much nitrogen may increase yield slightly but may also make mechanical harvesting and curing more difficult...

tobacco.ces.ncsu.edu

Fertilizer recommendations for organic tobacco:

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/nitrogen-fertility-management-in-organic-tobacco-field-production

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/nitrogen-fertility-management-in-organic-tobacco-greenhouse-production

https://cals.ncsu.edu/news/organic-tobacco-better-ways-to-get-off-to-a-good-start/

 

[GIL]

In my opinion, it is not the (incomplete) fermentation that is to blame for the weak burning. My tobacco isn't fermented yet and it still burns pretty well. I'm attaching a picture of a cigar I smoked in the morning. Two years ago, I had a somewhat fireproof tobacco, climbed into the attic of my house, and forgot about it. As a precaution, this year I did not put water from the network even on the seedlings.

 

[koceff]

@GIL I plan to do the same. If I should not use network water then what should i use, destiled, botteled, boiled water?

 

[Alpine]

Tap water works fine if you spill it a day or two ahead of watering the plants. If you leave the water in an open container, all the chlorine evaporates in a day or two. My wife regularly uses this method for her orchids.

pier

 

[Yultanman]

This is how id go about troubleshooting this:

Get some 58% humidity packs. Place a leaf of each variety in a mason jar with a humidity pack and leave for a week in 75f ish ambient temperature

Get out your cutting board and chaveta and shred enough of each leaf to roll a cigarette get some regular burn cig papers and test each variety/position. Identify if you have a problem throughout all your leaves or just certain ones.

Also are you using distilled water when casing? If not, then grab some of that to ensure you are not inadvertently adding something that is affecting burn quality from your municipal supply.

If its all leaves, pack them up and put them away and hope they are better next year or the year after. If its only some then practice blending with the ones that burn better.

Once you’ve evaluated the leaves individually you can get back to rolling cigars with the insight into the burn qualities. Make sure you put thos slow burning ones into the centre of your bunch

 

[koceff]

@Alpine & @Yultanman Very useful info, tnx. The tap water here is choliranted and I've used that in the seedling stage, later in the kilning process and now for casing the leaves. I did not think of that at all. Can this be the reason? If so, will simply airing them out for a week or so would get rid of the chlorine they've absorbed?
The fertilizer I've used in the garden is 16:16:16 and it contains Amonium Chloride but it doesn't say how much. The manufacturer is Acron from Russia and I can't open their, due to current situation there I guess.

 

[GIL]

You can touch the edge of the leaves with a lighted cigarette, and notice if it lights up, if so, notice how far the fire goes in the leaf. Depending on this you can group the leaves ..... just an idea of mine. Today I received about 1 kg. kno3.I do not plan to use it on the leaves, but I will do an experiment to see how the leaf burns with and without that substance.

 

[deluxestogie]

Acron from Russia and I can't open

"This site can’t be reached
Check if there is a typo in www.acron.ru."

Same here.

With the assumptions that 1) the Acron fertilizer is for general agriculture and that 2) mineral chloride sources of potassium are significantly cheaper than the non-chlorine sources, the combustion issue is likely the fertilizer Chlorine content.

Bob

 

[Skif]

"This site can’t be reached
Check if there is a typo in www.acron.ru."

Same here.

With the assumptions that 1) the Acron fertilizer is for general agriculture and that 2) mineral chloride sources of potassium are significantly cheaper than the non-chlorine sources, the combustion issue is likely the fertilizer Chlorine content.

Bob

Link, I'm sorry there in Russian

Азофоска (нитроаммофоска) | справочник Пестициды.ru

Азофоска (нитроаммофоска) – комплексное, твердое, сложное, гранулированное азотно-фосфорно-калийное удобрение. Содержит фосфор в полностью водорастворимой форме. Применяется для допосевного (основного) и припосевного (припосадочного) внесения, а также для подкормок независимо от типов почв.

www.pesticidy.ru

Receiving

Extraction or thermal phosphoric acid, weak nitric acid and potassium salts serve as raw materials for obtaining azofoski. Technological schemes differ in methods of neutralization of phosphoric and nitric acids.


Nitroammophoska brand 17:17:17 is obtained as a result of the introduction of potassium chloride as a potassium component. With the introduction of potassium sulfate, a mark of 16:16:16 is obtained

 

[koceff]

I am looking for a week now and i can't find pottasium nitrate nowhere.

 

[Oldfella]

In 2011 the stop bank gave up and allowed the ocean to flood the place.

My tobacco patch was under water (salt water, sea). I noticed no problem with it. It carried on growing, cured nicely and burned fine. So is chlorine the main problem here? I don't know.
Oldfella