Sparkly Tobacco

[mr1992]

I've observed a strange phenomenon in my tobacco that sees crystals forming on the leaves after fermentation, making it all glittery. And with glittery, I mean it sparkles like it was sprinkled with some glitter powder; the taste is fine, it doesn't appear to affect it in any way, but I don't know at all where it may come from. It's occurred without fail on every leaf. I cure the leafs in small jars that are sat on a heating cable at around 52°C/125°F; changes in heat didn't cause any change in crystal-formation.

The leaves are lightly pressed in, and mostly there's not much air over them, so perhaps that may be contributing. The crystals definitely are some sort of salt as someone had suggested in another post; gave it a like and they were quite salty. It's not like they're a problem, probably won't end up rolling cigars, and if, it might be quite fancy if it sparkled in the end , my girlfriend quite likes it as well. I'm just curious what the hell this is and why it occurs. There's a strong smell of ammonia at times when I take them out when fermentation has completed, could that have to do something with it? I vent for ~20 minutes a day, but I presume gasses may not easily escape. Any thoughts are very much welcome

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

This happened to one of my tobaccos, Kumanovo, a few years ago. I assumed it had something to do with the horse manure fertilizer in that plot, as well as the variety's particular characteristic of nutrient uptake. Other tobacco in the same plot did not have crystals. The tobacco has since turned out great.

 

[mr1992]

Oh wow, who'd have thought. I used lots of horse manure in my field, would never have thought that would be the cause. I'd never have guessed that horse dung would create glittery tobacco. I'm tempted to stick a horn to our horse's head and sell it as unicorn tobacco xD, thanks a lot for that information!

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Hmm, I wonder now if other people have had this from horse manure. What kind of tobacco is yours?

 

[mr1992]

Mostly cigar tobacco; Havanna, Havanna Corojo, Pereg, and some unknown one I got from a friend, but definitely cigar tobacco (likely some German strain like Geudertheimer or Lorscher Deckblatt), as well as some Rustica.

I've used it in most of the field; however, I didn't get to a small patch of it. Come to think of it, that patch is actually also sparkly (the Havanna Corojo was in the non-fertilised patch), it may be that water spread it quite a bit across the field, though.

 

[deluxestogie]

Do you know the mineral content of the water used for the garden?

Bob

 

[mr1992]

I've unfortunately got no idea about that; I do know that we've got pretty hard water; lime's a massive problem with any machine that uses water. While this is true for tap water, I presume this will be the same for our ground water as well. Fill a glass and leave it out in the sun to evaporate, and you'll end up with a nice crust.

 

[mr1992]

However, this only occurs in fermented tobacco, though, and for the first time this year - other tobacco I've grown in previous years didn't glitter at all. One from four years ago I had messed up and was only partly fermented and then toasted, yet it didn't have a single crystal. With this one, you've got crystals forming as soon as they start drying a bit. Re-hydrated tobacco didn't see any crystals form, either.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I've searched the forum and my old photos, and can't find any images of it. It was randomly sparkly over the lamina. Looked like crystal. More sparkly than salt, like diamond, and about a sixteenth to an eighth of the size of a grain of iodized salt. Hundreds of them in each leaf. Went away after pressing.

Mine was not watered.

 

[mr1992]

Most of mine have that, too, but I've had a bunch where you actually had some substantial crystal formation that you could see with the naked eye; it tastes salty. Many also have basically small "dots" that has most crystals in them, and still sparkle all over the place. I've used some of them, and they fade the drier they get; next time I take out a batch I'll try to think of taking a picture and post it.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I took a video actually because you see the sparkling much better when it moves under the light.

 

[deluxestogie]

I have no doubt that you are seeing mineral crystals. Is it the water? Is it the minerals in the manure? Is it the combination?

Within green leaf, minerals are trapped within the lamina. If the lamina are intact, then the minerals generally remain within the leaf, though not always. If the laminar walls are not intact, then I can see an easy path for minerals to exude from the leaf surface, then crystallize as the surface dries.

While typical kilning (not in jars) does not seem to disrupt the laminar walls, some twist methods, the Perique method as well as the Cavendish method do. I just don't know what happens when you kiln in a jar.

Bob

 

[mr1992]

Interesting point; the crystals appear to come out of the leaf rather than being on the outside. Just took a look at one which hardly glitters anymore, and rubbed some of it off, and it looks as though it comes from within.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

What type of water are you using in your kiln? Tap water (with the high lime content) or do you use a water softener( with a high salt content)? I'm thinking it could be a condensate from your water supply in your kiln.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

For me, I suppose it possible that it had something to do with the water in the humidifier, which would have been Edmonton water which is quite moderate in minerals, but it only happened to one particular strain. I think it was an exudate.

 

[Muggs]

I've observed a strange phenomenon in my tobacco that sees crystals forming on the leaves after fermentation, making it all glittery. And with glittery, I mean it sparkles like it was sprinkled with some glitter powder; the taste is fine, it doesn't appear to affect it in any way, but I don't know at all where it may come from. It's occurred without fail on every leaf. I cure the leafs in small jars that are sat on a heating cable at around 52°C/125°F; changes in heat didn't cause any change in crystal-formation.

The leaves are lightly pressed in, and mostly there's not much air over them, so perhaps that may be contributing. The crystals definitely are some sort of salt as someone had suggested in another post; gave it a like and they were quite salty. It's not like they're a problem, probably won't end up rolling cigars, and if, it might be quite fancy if it sparkled in the end , my girlfriend quite likes it as well. I'm just curious what the hell this is and why it occurs. There's a strong smell of ammonia at times when I take them out when fermentation has completed, could that have to do something with it? I vent for ~20 minutes a day, but I presume gasses may not easily escape. Any thoughts are very much welcome

Couldn't be sugar crystals that's formed.

 

[deluxestogie]

When water evaporates, it leaves behind nearly all the impurities (e.g. minerals) as scale within the container.

Bob

 

[mr1992]

I've had some scale on a few leaves, but that never was glittery and was clearly on the outside. I think deluxestogie is right in his assessment, it's minerals coming from the inside; when i scratched it off, it appeared as though the lamina was damaged underneath; in many, it was also like little dots with crystal growth which clearly came from inside and didn't form outside.

 

[DistillingJim]

The YTPC would be frothing about the 'quality' of your leaf rightnow

 

[mr1992]

Wish I could see how it develops , too bad I'm using it up rather quickly before it can mature some more since 4 people are smoking it :-x

That said, just got another load out of the fermentation box, and had one strange leaf that was pretty dried out and had some strange powdery stuff on it. It wasn't brittle or anything, but I don't know what it is. Hope it isn't mould, it didn't smell mouldy at any rate, though I don't know how much the baccy smell may have cancelled it out. Intended to upload a video or pictures anyway and plan on doing so tomorrow, if anyone happens to have any ideas, I'd love to hear them