Redleaf
Well-Known Member
Just for fun I thought I would see about imparting some smoke flavour to some of my Virginia gold leaves. The leaves hung in the shade to colour cure and had gone through many cycles of overnight dampening from heavy dew and daytime drying to the point of being crisp and brittle. This bundle was hanging in a shed and was once again brittle and to quickly bring up the moisture I hung it in the shower. I needed to have it moist for transport to my neighbour’s who has an excellent smoke house. He was already in the process of curing a batch of sausage and summer-sausage when I got there. We hung the tobacco in with and he finished curing that batch. The next day the smoke was maintained again and then left to hang for a couple days. The wood for smoking was simple chunks of poplar without any bark on them. The leaf has a somewhat brownish cast to it after the process and definetley smells of woodsmoke, (it is very noticeable in my garage). I mixed it out with some previous pipe tobacco I had prepared and I have to say I am very pleased with the flavour it brings to the mix. I’m sure this type of thing is old hat for some of the old hands here but for me on the path of my first year of homegrown tobacco it was an exciting development and a very pleasant surprise in the pipe bowl.
