Squiggly veins in binder/wrapper

[Twilliger]

Hi all - my kits arrived yesterday and I rolled last night and this morning. Definitely appreciate the patience and enjoy the process wisdom others have touted. Already to keep them on the smaller side. First one that I smoked today I was not optomistic about. At least a 60 and it was not near tight enough, tunnelled and smoked poorly - tasted great for the first 5 minutes though. Next time I will unwrap and re-roll ... roll and learn I guess.

Question about the prominent squiggly vein in the Dominican Binder and the Honduras Habano Wrapper. Do people generally just cut the middle inch out of these leaves or if one patiently cases them do the soften and straighten? I figure just cut them out but I haven't noticed them in any of the gazillion videos I have watched.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

 

[tullius]

Hydrate/case properly over several days, derib, and then trim about an inch from the center of each side of the leaf.

Watch this video and see how she does it with fine cuban leaf, this is the way.

*Big thanks again to @rainmax for his video*

 

[Mathaious12]

It takes about a dozen sticks to get the feel for properly cased wrapper and binder. Spray them down then shake off and or wipr off all excess water. Then let the leaf rest in a grocery bag until the leaf feels like it can be stretched without ripping, the closest comparison I can think of would be the feel of wilted lettuce. Depending on the humidity of where you live it could be an hour to a couple of days. Once you get the wrapper properly cases it can be stretched around the bunch to remove the wrinkles.
When I get the binder properly cased I find I can get the bunch more tight with out ripping the binder. Sometimes when Im fighting the filler a lot and the binder is going out of case, I'll bunch it loose, roll it on the cutting board with my hand to tighten it a little, then unroll the bunch and roll it tighter the second time. This forms the filler a bit on the first roll to let you get it tighter on the second.

 

[Twilliger]

Thanks for replies - arid climate here in Calgary - I rolled two more this morning. both binder and wrapper had a full 12 hours post misting and in separate misted bags. I really tried to keep these small and tight (1 seco, 1 viso for filler) both binder and wrapper were much more workable, noticed the stretchiness in the honduran habanos wrapper. Haven't smoked them yet but even though I really tried to keep these tight, the draw still feels light to me. Tomorrow I'll cut the curly heads off (anyone else love curly heads?) and see what the draw is like and if it seeks ok I'll put a flame to it. thanks again! Def will take bunch of reps (pun intended).

 

[Mathaious12]

I would give one a smoke even if it has a loose draw. Take lighter/shorter draws and control the burn rate that way. You can learn a lot from smoking them.

I wouldn't compare your sticks to commercial sticks as far as draw at this point, focus on getting something you can smoke all the way down, and that burns relatively even. Around my 25th roll is when I got to the point I had enough skill to work on getting tighter draws, and still they weren't as tight as commercial sticks. It wasn't until I started doing paper molds that they got close. Also if you're not already, test draw the bunch before wrapping, that will let you know how the draw will be.