Pics of your sticks!!

[deluxestogie]

Yabbut...how you like that WLT Ecuadorian shade?

Nice question. It's nice.

Nice color. Nice, subdued taste. Burns nicely. Comes into case nice and quickly. Not so nice: it's a whole lot more fragile than most of the darker wrappers, so your binder has to do all the work of compression and smoothing.

Bob

 

[waikikigun]

Yabbut...how you like that WLT Ecuadorian shade?

Nice question but somewhat moot one, too--from the POV of those of us who don't have any--since they don't currently carry it and Don C says they don't plan to carry it again on account of bad recent shipments.

 

[deluxestogie]

Sorry. I wrapped nothink. I saw nothink. I tasted nothink. I smelled nothink. My Long Red stogie, he is nothink.

Sgt. Schultz

 

[D0CH0LLIDAY]

After a few months of various attempts learning how to roll cigars, I think I have my technique down now.

Here is my first cigar I made back in February:



Then from reading here and watching youtube videos, I learned about using a rolling pin to try to crush the veins down. That helped a lot, but it does make your leaf thinner so more chances at tears. It still had some veins slightly sticking up after wrapping. The thing I was missing was when the rollers use the chaveta after wrapping and roll the cigar under the chaveta, that smooths out the last remaining veins. I don't use a chaveta. I use a rotary wheel cutter, so I didn't have anything to use to do that last step. I bought a 10" stainless joint knife on amazon and used that and it worked great. Cigars are looking much better (except for the 1 that I wrapped inside out... must have been sleepy. haha) Here are the ones I finished this morning:



Those were wrapped with a criollo98 wrapper. I left the foot on just for the fun of it. I really enjoy this blend. I think I got it from on here, but can't remember. Anyway, it is:

1 1/2 leaves Criollo98 Seco
1 leaf Criollo98 Viso
2 leaves Nicaraguan Habano Seco
Nicaraguan binder
currently experimenting with wrappers, corojo are very good with it, ecuadorian seco are decent as well. will try the criollo ones this weekend.

Thanks for all the info on the site to help newbies learn to roll their own cigars!

 

[MarcL]

After a few months ....

Nice D0CH0LLIDAY! Thanks for sharing. Looks good. I see your a first time poster. You should get over to the introduce yourself thread and start one for us so we can welcome you.

 

[MarcL]

5.3 " freehand san vic, mata fina, dom mojo, bezuki corojo bound, corojo wrapped.

 

[deluxestogie]

DH, nice looking cigars. Welcome to the forum.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

MarcL, I like that shape.

In a manner similar to a bout of hiccoughs, sometimes I roll a number of cigars with a tapered foot. Then the urge just goes away. I think I may do that when I notice that the foot of my bound bunch is a little soft. But it just happens. Nearly all of my cigars, though, taper gradually toward the head. I like smoking a fat cigar, but don't like the mouth feel of a fat cigar.

Bob

 

[MarcL]

Your trumpet cigar inspired me to do something freehand. I didn't intend to taper the foot but... typically I'll do a tapered foot first before I put the wrapper on with the trimming but this time it was done after.
I'm the same way with a fatty, can't put it in my mouth. I just sip it. this one turned out to be 30-40-51-30

 

[deluxestogie]

Habano 2000 Burn Quality

Webmost sent me several pounds of beautiful WLT Habano 2000, to kiln it, in an effort to improve its burn quality. I plan to kiln it for at least 4 weeks, with the leaf hanging bare in the kiln as tied hands.

In order to establish a baseline of its current burn quality, I hastily rolled a binderless cigar, with the filler being a handful of my long scraps of who knows what. [Why waste good filler on a cigar that won't burn?]

The result is what you see in the photos above. I'm a bit puzzled. It seems to burn fairly well--not great, but it's certainly not fireproof. In fact, the filler (since my long scraps tend to be heavy on wrapper and binder scraps) is in a higher case than I usually use for filler. It was doomed to fail. But it didn't.

I'm smoking this outdoors. The ambient relative humidity is 49% at the moment, which is probably not as high as is more typical of Delaware evenings. The humidity here is expected to get up toward 90% tomorrow evening. So I'll roll a serious cigar with the same wrapper, and light it up then, to see the difference.

Regardless of the wrapper's current burn quality, I will still kiln it, to see if the burn improves.

Bob

 

[MarcL]

I never did like the term fireproof. I didn't want to say user error. thanks for doing this Bob.

 

[greenmonster714]

Nice color in that leaf. I have a cross germinating that's supposed to be a Hanson 2000 x VA Gold. Not a clue if it's legit or not but maybe it's a box of chocolates. I like a surprise now n then.

 

[greenmonster714]

Those look delicious DH. Nice job.

 

[deluxestogie]

I believe the fermentation issue with H2K wrapper was solved over a decade ago, which makes it unlikely that WLT obtained any of the earlier, less-fermented leaf. Under the best of circumstances, H2K has a so-so burn, similar to my Machu Picchu Havana. With the latter, I have to consciously match it with tobacco that burns very well. Even then, high ambient humidity noticeably affects it. I think this is also true of the H2K that I have used in the past, and presently use.

But webmost's description of it's burn issues seems more troublesome than that. One or two other members have made similar comments. So it's an open question as to what's going on with the H2K.

To add to the confusion, I usually roll with filler that is quite dry, nearly crumbly. So my notion of the short scrap being moister than my usual filler may mean that it was closer to what most others routinely use.

We'll see what extra fermentation does.

Bob

 

[MarcL]

John Oliva Jr., 2014 “The problem was the bad reputation that Havana 2000 had for not burning well. People blamed the seed strain, but that wasn’t the problem at all. Cigar makers were putting the wrapper on their cigars right out of the barn and weren’t giving it all the extra fermentation time it needed.”

It seems that it was not the tobacco. it is the cigar maker that has the final influence on the cigar.

 

[deluxestogie]

I believe what John Oliva, Jr. was alluding to was the need for the H2K leaf to be "aged" longer than was typical for wrappers. Since "aged" means fermented longer, it seems that this particular type of leaf clears its carbohydrates and proteins more slowly than other wrapper varieties. (Maybe a genetically-determined oxidase enzyme that is less active?)

Bob

 

[MarcL]

I like it. that makes sense to me, it does seem to have a certain kind of vigor to it.

I think the point I'm trying to hit home is that as cigar makers there's a sensitivity to leaf readiness that needs to be developed.

Its what I mean by "Know your leaf". how do you teach something like that on a forum.

 

[deluxestogie]

I'm smoking this outdoors. The ambient relative humidity is 49% at the moment, which is probably not as high as is more typical of Delaware evenings. The humidity here is expected to get up toward 90% tomorrow evening. So I'll roll a serious cigar with the same wrapper, and light it up then, to see the difference.

Delaware Comes to the Blue Ridge

Today, the relative humidity here is 95%. I rolled a cigar of my Corojo 99 mid-leaf, with a self binder. The wrapper is webmost's Habano 2000--the remaining half of the same leaf that I used in the previous burn test.

The Corojo 99 always burns well, and did so with this cigar, but the wrapper, which started off burning fairly well, became sluggish and uneven. My guess is that this Habano 2000 wrapper is quite sensitive to ambient humidity, and rapidly increases its moisture content when smoked in high humidity.

I'll see in a few weeks (when it comes out of the kiln) if it still exhibits this characteristic.

Bob

 

[webmost]

Smells real tasty tho, dunnit?
Hope you can make it useful.

Delaware Comes to the Blue Ridge

Today, the relative humidity here is 95%. I rolled a cigar of my Corojo 99 mid-leaf, with a self binder. The wrapper is webmost's Habano 2000--the remaining half of the same leaf that I used in the previous burn test.

The Corojo 99 always burns well, and did so with this cigar, but the wrapper, which started off burning fairly well, became sluggish and uneven. My guess is that this Habano 2000 wrapper is quite sensitive to ambient humidity, and rapidly increases its moisture content when smoked in high humidity.

I'll see in a few weeks (when it comes out of the kiln) if it still exhibits this characteristic.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

It's not about looks.

This cigar consists of filler with 3 leaves of home-grown mid-stalk Corojo 99, plus one leaf of WLT Flojo viso. Binder is home-grown Nostrano del Brenta. Wrapper is WLT Honduran Corojo.

For me, a fat cigar is a richer, more flavorful cigar. But (unlike a Nub cigar) the head needs to be tapered, in order to be comfortable. Another advantage, so far as rolling is concerned, is that the fatter the cigar, the more forgiving the draw. [It's a Bernoulli equation thing.] Skinny cigars are more difficult, for achieving a perfect draw. Fat cigars are a foolproof.

About the filler: my home-grown Corojo 99 (Robaina) is truly delicious and smooth. But the slight bitter edge of the flojo deepens the flavor profile and interest.

Getting a clean burn on a tapered foot is trickier.

Bob