Guys, I think I produced decent tobacco on a shoestring, and I'd love your input or ideas for improvement next season. I'm a rank amateur; this was my first year. I'm an occasional cigar and pipe smoker and a non-habitual cigarette smoker (I'll bum a drag with buddies on the golf course, etc.).
My most successful plants were one specimen each of Black Sea Samsun and Big Gem, plus several rustica varieties. I managed to air-cure the tabacum by hanging them, shaded, on my porch. I probably overdid it, though, as the leaves browned nicely but then went pretty crispy. Unwilling and unable to make a fancypants kiln, I realized that a metal kitchen canister (with clear acrylic lid, much like some cigar humidors) could get very hot if I left it on my car dashboard all day. So, I misted the crispy leaves, waited until they were pliable, and folded and packed them tightly into a canister upside down (clear lid down). After several days of parking in the sun with the windows rolled up (on 85 degree days), the aroma in the canister was . . . amazing. I ran the tobacco through my pasta cutter, gave some to a friend who smokes cigarettes, and he said it was a remarkably smooth smoke.
This raises some questions.
My most successful plants were one specimen each of Black Sea Samsun and Big Gem, plus several rustica varieties. I managed to air-cure the tabacum by hanging them, shaded, on my porch. I probably overdid it, though, as the leaves browned nicely but then went pretty crispy. Unwilling and unable to make a fancypants kiln, I realized that a metal kitchen canister (with clear acrylic lid, much like some cigar humidors) could get very hot if I left it on my car dashboard all day. So, I misted the crispy leaves, waited until they were pliable, and folded and packed them tightly into a canister upside down (clear lid down). After several days of parking in the sun with the windows rolled up (on 85 degree days), the aroma in the canister was . . . amazing. I ran the tobacco through my pasta cutter, gave some to a friend who smokes cigarettes, and he said it was a remarkably smooth smoke.
This raises some questions.
- Would the flavor have continued to improve had I continued to kiln it for longer?
- I just tried some in my Savinelli, and it was pretty good. I do wonder, though, about flavoring. In that misting process of crispy leaves, could I mist with whiskey or port rather than water?
- What would happen if the canister got too hot? I wonder about knocking together a cold frame with an old window, then painting the wood black, the end result being a black, heat-retaining box with hinged pane on top to let the sun in (and thus trap heat). But what if the canister conducts too much heat?
