Potassium Content in Tobacco and Combustion

[PressuredLeaf]

Well some good news. I was able to dig up the authors email and sent them a note. They were very kind and connected me to a YouTube video of the ppt

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=35UwWLXOMKg
. The first half is more focused on the challenges of shifting from flue cured and burley to wrapper leaf in NC. The fertilization study starts around the 35 minute mark. If you have the time and are interested, I found it very interesting.

A few key take aways:
1. The goal was producing wrapper and binder quality leaf to maximize profitability for the farmers considering this.
2. N had the biggest impact on yield
3. K did not effect yield, but did effect leaf quality. Not as in “how does this taste or burn” but rather the mechanical qualities of the finished leaf. For example Bob mentioned some of the K “deficient” leaves cited look more like ripe leaf. I agree with Bob, but the farmer perspective was that the tip yellowing and mottling from insufficient K resulted in cured leaf that was more likely to have holes or tear, rendering it non-wrapper quality.
4. Low N tobacco molded really easily compared to the high N stuff. This one caught me off guard. I would expect larger amounts of N in the curing leaf would be beneficial for mold. In the sense that: you can’t thrive off of carbs alone, you need some protein too (bad analogy but you get the idea). Surprisingly to me, the high N leaf had almost no mold. In fact, they said you could visually walk into a barn and see which curing leaves had low N because they were so much more prone to mold.

Really interesting stuff. Again, commercial farmers probably know this pretty well, but it’s cool to bring it down to the homegrower. I’m also emailing with one of the authors to learn more about K fertilization and if they studied the stuff we care about - like combustion and sensory qualities. I’ll let everyone know what I learn.

 

[PressuredLeaf]

I have something interesting to share about the k carb solution.

I found another bag of fireproof tobacco from a year or two ago. This one spent a few months in the trunk of my car kilning last year. It smells great, like good pipe tobacco. I took the bag of bone dry leaves, probably around 4 oz or so. I rehydrated it with 1% solution of carbonate. I didn’t want to use 2% here because I wanted to see if less could be helpful. Anyway, the next day it was rehydrated, and it seemed the bag that it was in was slightly warm. So just to be sure I put a thermocouple on the outside of the bag and tried to roll it up to keep it in place. Ambient temp in my residence is 25-26C, after about 30 minutes the bag surface is reading 27.9C. Not a lot, but interesting to me.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I have something interesting to share about the k carb solution.

I found another bag of fireproof tobacco from a year or two ago. This one spent a few months in the trunk of my car kilning last year. It smells great, like good pipe tobacco. I took the bag of bone dry leaves, probably around 4 oz or so. I rehydrated it with 1% solution of carbonate. I didn’t want to use 2% here because I wanted to see if less could be helpful. Anyway, the next day it was rehydrated, and it seemed the bag that it was in was slightly warm. So just to be sure I put a thermocouple on the outside of the bag and tried to roll it up to keep it in place. Ambient temp in my residence is 25-26C, after about 30 minutes the bag surface is reading 27.9C. Not a lot, but interesting to me.

Waiting for news about smoking quality and characteristics.

 

[PressuredLeaf]

Waiting for news about smoking quality and characteristics.

I took two prilep leaves and split them down the middle. One half was brought to high case with 1% k carb, the other was left alone. I did a crude burn test by just hitting it with the lighter, the untreated immediately went out with little smoke and pure black carbony ash. The treated one went out immediately, but smoldered for a second or two, and left a black line with a white grey edge. I haven’t smoked any yet, but I’ll try and dry a few leaves out tonight to bring them to low case. The treated leaves take a lot longer to dry v the regular nomex tobacco. I’ll snag some photos too if I remember.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

That bag that seemed to have an exothermic reaction. Any interesting smells from it?

 

[deluxestogie]

the regular nomex tobacco

There's a word I don't see every day. I happen to own a few garments made of Nomex.

Bob

 

[PressuredLeaf]

That bag that seemed to have an exothermic reaction. Any interesting smells from it?

Yes. When dry, that bag had a familiar sweet grape nut cereal smell. I associate it with kilned pipe tobacco varieties.

As the bag hydrated, it maintained the same basic smell with maybe the tiniest hint of something vegetal or ammonia-ish. Individual leaves have more of the kilned pipe tobacco smell, but much less intense. A fair bit of the leaves have that sort of old cigar tobacco smell. Hard for me to describe, not the “spicy” Caribbean cigar smell, but that earthy leathery smell.

Interesting notes on the exothermic bag after checking them today: the max differential recorded was 28.6c with an ambient of 23c. This occurred the next morning after my residence cooled off over night. Today the bag was within 1-2c of RT. I am currently airing out the tobacco because I’m worried about mold. The drying individual leaves certainly have a different smell. I don’t know how to properly describe it. It kinda reminds me of earthy x floral. Closest thing I can think of was sticking my head in the bag of stacked basma I got from wlt, almost rose water like but darker.

There's a word I don't see every day. I happen to own a few garments made of Nomex.

Bob

It’s pretty awesome material. Why do you have nomex garments, I’m a little jealous.

 

[deluxestogie]

Why do you have nomex garments, I’m a little jealous.

From when I was on flying status in the USAF, back in the 1980s.

 

[PressuredLeaf]

Alright, smoke report for the treated prilep leaf. I took two treated leaves out of the bag and let them dry overnight to low/medium case. I stripped the leaf off the vein, rolled it up and sliced it. I left it another day to dry to low case and loaded up my cob.

Easy to light. I normally flame the whole bowl, puff a bit, then let it go out. Then I tamp and relight. This worked well and I had no issues with it going out too soon. The taste was mild, slightly acidic, and very smooth. I haven’t smoked a straight oriental in a while, but it seems similar to the stacked basma from wlt. The room note was quite pleasant for an oriental. Sort of that perfumery smell you get from the un burned leaf. It wasn’t great, but definitely didn’t have that “cigarette” smell some orientals have. The burn was pretty quick, which is not surprising given how thing the leaves were.

Overall I’m extremely pleased. I think ideal situation is giving the tobacco ample potassium free of chloride and sulfate while it’s growing. So far, this has been a great compromise to rescue beautiful leaf that would otherwise be completely unsmokable.