SnuffmeisterUK
Well-Known Member
TLDR: air cured smells like tea after 10 months.
Sorry for the essay.
Hi beloved folks, my seedlings are late this year but having them starting to get bigger now (uk weather has been awful) I'm getting ready for my second growing season.
Last year I grew multiple strains, dark burley, dark virginia, little dutch and rustica. All successfully air cured to a dark brown or at lightest a gold/yellow (other than the rustica which was trickier as expected).
During the curing process I had all the leaves in hands, hung in my spare room. Some days I'd walk in and be overwhelmed by the beautiful scent, at points the room smelled like cuban cigar wrappers, there was always a hint of green tea to it which I assumed was just it's very young age but a very obvious tobacco scent hung in the air.
I made a snus with my burley and Virginia about 2 months after jarring and it was foul. Tasted like fetid vegetables, tea and rubber. It isn't the fault of my recipie as I've used commercial tobacco and cigars to make snus that have turned out good/ok.
I made a snus again last month (now 9 months old) but reinforced it with a blend of gawith hoggarth black Irish twist - the snus is now perfectly useable but dominated by the mere 10% of twist I used in the recipie.
Tonight I sat down and opened all my jars of burley and emptied them into a large bowl to examine what 10 months of aging has done.
About 2 months in I put a RAW terracotta hydration stone in the centre of each jar, packing leaves around them.
Sadly, in all jars, across all my strains there is STILL a green tea tinge hanging out above a very mild rolling tobacco smell.
Leaves more enact and higher in case smell tantalisingly similar to Marlborough gold, the smaller scrappy bits are pure green tea.
Does anyone have any idea why aging is not seeming to have much effect yet?
Last year I grew with snus-making in mind so didn't even consider any form of fermentation, in the last 6 months I have found the joy of pipe smoking so am now opened minded to trying out easy fermentation techniques if any of y'all think this might help get this green tea out my jars.
I've fallen down the wondeful rabbit hole of this site many times in the last 12 months but not quite seen this situation covered.
It's late in the UK, forgive my bedtime essay.
Sorry for the essay.
Hi beloved folks, my seedlings are late this year but having them starting to get bigger now (uk weather has been awful) I'm getting ready for my second growing season.
Last year I grew multiple strains, dark burley, dark virginia, little dutch and rustica. All successfully air cured to a dark brown or at lightest a gold/yellow (other than the rustica which was trickier as expected).
During the curing process I had all the leaves in hands, hung in my spare room. Some days I'd walk in and be overwhelmed by the beautiful scent, at points the room smelled like cuban cigar wrappers, there was always a hint of green tea to it which I assumed was just it's very young age but a very obvious tobacco scent hung in the air.
I made a snus with my burley and Virginia about 2 months after jarring and it was foul. Tasted like fetid vegetables, tea and rubber. It isn't the fault of my recipie as I've used commercial tobacco and cigars to make snus that have turned out good/ok.
I made a snus again last month (now 9 months old) but reinforced it with a blend of gawith hoggarth black Irish twist - the snus is now perfectly useable but dominated by the mere 10% of twist I used in the recipie.
Tonight I sat down and opened all my jars of burley and emptied them into a large bowl to examine what 10 months of aging has done.
About 2 months in I put a RAW terracotta hydration stone in the centre of each jar, packing leaves around them.
Sadly, in all jars, across all my strains there is STILL a green tea tinge hanging out above a very mild rolling tobacco smell.
Leaves more enact and higher in case smell tantalisingly similar to Marlborough gold, the smaller scrappy bits are pure green tea.
Does anyone have any idea why aging is not seeming to have much effect yet?
Last year I grew with snus-making in mind so didn't even consider any form of fermentation, in the last 6 months I have found the joy of pipe smoking so am now opened minded to trying out easy fermentation techniques if any of y'all think this might help get this green tea out my jars.
I've fallen down the wondeful rabbit hole of this site many times in the last 12 months but not quite seen this situation covered.
It's late in the UK, forgive my bedtime essay.
