Steam Curing Snus in Vac Seal bags?

[TheOutlawJoseyFails]

Hey folks,

Just finished making some tobacco flour from WLT and I wanted to ask a question...

I have a sous vide machine, and a vac sealer, but it occurs to me that snus may need to breathe during its 2-7 day pasteurization period. Is that the case?

Has anyone here pasteurized in sealed bags with no ventilation?


Thanks a ton!

-TheOutlawJoseyFails

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I make dip similar to the snus method. I pack mason jars with my tobacco ( to which I've added salt and water) and place in a crock pot filled with water. I then cook it for 8 hrs. Not quite the same as "2-7 days" but at 8hrs I've never vented and everything comes out fine.

I'm curious about the 2 day (minimum) heating period. It seems quite excessive. Is this what most snus makers recommend?

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum, TOJF (in an undisclosed location). Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum.

I make neither dip nor snus. But it seems suspiciously similar the Cavendish method. I would not refer to prolonged cooking as pasteurization. Pasteur's method was to heat wine or beer to about 135°F for several minutes, so that it did not cook and spoil the taste, yet it was sufficiently heated to suppress further fermentation. Milk pasteurized in the US is taken to 145°F, and held there for 30 minutes, or 162°F for 15 seconds. Any hotter or longer is cheerfully mis-named "ultra-pasteurized" (read cooked). So I would consider the Cavendish method (steaming leaf for many hours), and the two methods described in the previous posts as "cooking".

Whew!

Now that I've gotten that off my chest...I've made Cavendish by placing wet, whole leaf into sealed Mason jars, and pressure cooking for 5 to 8 hours. Some of these batches were left soggy in their sealed jars for many months, and the leaf smelled and tasted and smoked as satisfactorily as that from the jars that were promptly opened, and was similar to Cavendish produced by steaming in an open colander. So, I think, once that leaf hits a certain temperature (~149°F), it has pretty much breathed its last breath.

Bob