Casing your own tobacco.

[Altreac]

Afternoon,

Not sure how many of you know, but recently in Nova Scotia the provincial government has banned the sale of ALL flavoured tobacco. This includes menthol smokes.

I think certain cigars are still allowed to be rum or whiskey flavoured, but other than that nothing.

If I want flavoured tobacco I either have to import it at exorbitant costs... Or make it myself.

I'm lucky at least that there is a local B&M called Sievert's, while expensive at least has friendly knowledgeable staff.
It's not their fault a 50 g puck of pipe tobacco goes for around $36 CAD (~$27 USD).

I do import whole leaf tobacco from the States for a tolerable amount of money after imports.
It's lower for duty and taxes on whole leaf than it is on processed tobaccos.

I usually import around 5 pounds at a time. I stock an Aged Burley leaf, Flue-cured Canadian Virginia and Yenidje Oriental tobaccos.

I'm ok at blending for cigarettes. We've been at it for 2 years now.

What I want to know is:

Does any case their own pipe tobacco?
Have any recipes to share?

I've done a couple rum/vanilla casings with degrees of success so far.

I'm not the biggest fan of licorice/anise (please don't hate me...) so I'm looking for sugar sauces and probably alcohol sauces.

I've read up on other's recipes already (and if you want the links I've been using I can post them) but any help would be awesome.

No availability and the expense of importing make me want to learn.

After casing I've got a dehydrator I can work with as well.

I smoke a Brigham Algonquin 229 and my grandfather's briar marked Bromma Sweden on one side and a little elephant over 'Dollar' on the other side.

 

[TexLaw]

I know I've seen a little discussion of it around here. Some guys have been playing around with blending and adding some liquor to it. I'm not able to point right to a particular thread at the moment, but check around a little.

 

[Price]

Yeah, I've messed with it a bit. I've tried a couple different iterations using combinations of figs, dates, prunes, licorice, molasses and rum, with very limited success so far. I should note that all of my experimenting thus far has been on ribbon cut blending tobacco, not whole leaf. If I hit on something that I'm really happy with, though, I would like to try it with whole leaf.

 

[Altreac]

I usually give a shot with Google's 'inurl:' operator. Works pretty good. Nothing hit on casing by itself so I figured I'd just ask.

I use a 0.8 mm shredder for my smokes, so I've just been playing with that cut for now. Maybe I'll mess with saucing and packing whole leaves eventually... But I just want some good blends for now.

I read about a chocolate and raspberry sauce.

What kind of viscosity do you aim for in your trials?

How do you mix it? I just have been shaking small batches in Mason jars

 

[jiminyshiznit]

I've only done a few experiments, a couple years ago, but nothing like chocolate raspberry. I made an intense tea out of some decades-old Perique, then tried rum and real maple syrup, and one with just molasses diluted with hot water. The rum and maple was mixed straight into a spray bottle, and the tea was steeped in a mason jar until it cooled to room temp then strained into the spray bottle. The molasses was mixed with very hot water until it was thin enough to work in the spray bottle, which was basically my guide for the viscosity of the different mixtures.

I had the best luck when I spread the tobacco out on a cookie sheet and heated it in the oven, applying the juice to hot/warm tobacco. Heating the tobacco was a little scary.. I was afraid I'd toast it, which was not the goal for these experiments. I set the oven to 170 degrees and checked it until it was on the hot side of warm, and dry but not quite crispy. My topping mixtures were in the same ballpark, temp wise, and I spray down the tobacco fresh out of the oven. I'd spray the whole top surface, then mix it up, spread it out and do it again until the batch was evenly sprayed. The hot/warm tobacco soaks it up pretty quickly, so I tried to move quickly. From there I gently mixed the tobacco and spread it out until it cooled to room temp, then jarred up the batch in one jar to let it all settle-in for a few weeks.

 

[Price]

I've only done a few experiments, a couple years ago, but nothing like chocolate raspberry. I made an intense tea out of some decades-old Perique, then tried rum and real maple syrup, and one with just molasses diluted with hot water. The rum and maple was mixed straight into a spray bottle, and the tea was steeped in a mason jar until it cooled to room temp then strained into the spray bottle. The molasses was mixed with very hot water until it was thin enough to work in the spray bottle, which was basically my guide for the viscosity of the different mixtures.

I had the best luck when I spread the tobacco out on a cookie sheet and heated it in the oven, applying the juice to hot/warm tobacco. Heating the tobacco was a little scary.. I was afraid I'd toast it, which was not the goal for these experiments. I set the oven to 170 degrees and checked it until it was on the hot side of warm, and dry but not quite crispy. My topping mixtures were in the same ballpark, temp wise, and I spray down the tobacco fresh out of the oven. I'd spray the whole top surface, then mix it up, spread it out and do it again until the batch was evenly sprayed. The hot/warm tobacco soaks it up pretty quickly, so I tried to move quickly. From there I gently mixed the tobacco and spread it out until it cooled to room temp, then jarred up the batch in one jar to let it all settle-in for a few weeks.

Pretty similar to my methods. I put the fruits and licorice in distilled water in a mason jar for 24 hours first, reduced it at a simmer for about 15 minutes, strained it back into the jar and added the molasses. I used the same yardstick - just thin enough to work in a spray bottle.

 

[Altreac]

Awesome.

Thanks for the input.

Next time I order some more leaf I think I'm going to order a few different types than normal to play with as well.

 

[nortac]

Where does one get whole leaf tobacco?

 

[Price]

Where does one get whole leaf tobacco?

https://www.leafonly.com/

There are others, that's the one I was planning to use.

 

[Altreac]

I've been using Leaf Only as well for about 2 years now.

On my end, importing from them is about the easiest you get. They include all the Border Services tarriff codes on the shipping labels.
My opinion: Avoid UPS, at least to cross borders with, the brokerage fees are evil. I can't speak to CONUS UPS, but I've had great service with USPS international.

Also, the Leaf Only Customer service is absolutely top notch. Fast responses, useful information.

FYI. I have no affiliation with them, they're just a solid company.

The leafs are high quality from farmers.

Bonus: They started offering 1/4# sample bags since the last time I ordered.

If you're considering whole leaf tobacco, I definitely vouch for Leaf Only.

 

[nortac]

Very interesting, Leaf Only seems to be geared to the RYO cigar enthusiast.

 

[Price]

Very interesting, Leaf Only seems to be geared to the RYO cigar enthusiast.

They are. I don't imagine the "blend your own pipe tobacco" market is large enough to support a business. They do have a pipe tobacco section, though, with what seems like a decent selection of leaf.

 

[Altreac]

I can see how you'd see that. There are definitely sections for Cigarette tobacco and Pipe tobacco by the pound.

Tobacco's a crazy thing, isn't it?

Today's cultivated tobacco seems to be entirely Nicotiana tabacum and it's subspecies. I can't see 'anywhere' a breakdown of tobacco subspecies.

One of the big reasons that tobacco is so different from one plant to the next is that N. tabacum is very sensitive to ground temp, air temp, ground humidity, relative air humidity, soil pH, natural or diffused light.

But for cigars those difference become magnified. For pipes and cigarettes, you have to worry about your blends, pre and post treatments...with cigars you multiply the variance by at least 3, considering you've got wrappers, binders and filler leaves in each type of cigar tobacco. That's why I'd suggest that it looks geared towards cigars. With pipe and cigarette tobacco as well you don't need to worry about maintaining perfect leaves either.

 

[Altreac]

Funny enough, my wife completely unrelatedly just made the same comment about Leaf Only being a cigar leaf store primarily. Aside.



I got my latest tobacco order in. And a day early at that.
I've been at researching heavily into the whole process of tobacco since my last post and I've learned a bunch of good stuff.

In no praticular order (1/4# samples):
Brightleaf Virginia - Smooth
Brightleaf Virginia - Sweet
American Virginia
Light Fire Cured
Fronto Dark Air Cured (S1, while technically a wrapper it's a lower grade wrapper, it's still good tobacco...and it sounds interesting)
Burley (unaged)
Izmir Turkish
St. James Perique (it's the steamed up bag)

Stemmed St. James leaf

Shredded St. James

Straight leaf test # 1 - St. James

My dog wondering why I'm not throwing his ball.

After doing a bunch of research, and actually acquiring my new leaves this is my plan:

I'm going:
-to shred about half of each of those bags.
-to have a pipe of each tobacco just like that and take notes.
-cellar half of the shredded leaf straight
-compress the other half of the shredded leaf and cellar that.

The I'm going to:
-shred the rest

After that really...the world is my oyster in terms of playing around.
Some of the above is going to take some time...obviously.

I'm a fan of Virginia blends. I'll probably work with the virginias as my base.

In terms of the casing I originally asked about. I really just gotta play with it. There's just so much involved.

Fermentation, stoving, aging, urrr, whatever they call stacking the bales for aging under pressure.

Fermentation - aerobic/anaerobic metabolic process, exothermia. Just another one of those things that in and of itself is literally a degree. As in, I'm not kidding, you can get a Ph.D in Zymology. I had no idea.

So 'basically' through temperature, humidity, oxygen, pressure, polysaccharide and glycogen maintenance you affect the microbiological state of the bacterium who's digestive process produces such wonderful translations to our tobacco.

There's little wonder there's so much mystery behind tobacco. It's Microbiology, horticulture, preservation and two kinds of chemistry (organic and non). That I've discovered so far.

I found myself searching things like 'thermal breakdown of cellulose' and STILL pulling up tobacco related material.

So...this is just sort of a thrown down and get'er'done sort of situation.
Set up some bracketed experiments and zero in one something I enjoy. The technical process of 'what' to do is pretty well documented, save trade secret recipes etc. How to grow, cure, ferment, blend etc are all out there.

What happens during these process is not covered nearly so much.

G.L. Pease writes some good stuff.

Anyhow...laptop battery dying (last charge on this device...for now...busted power cord), St. James loaded....sun shining...

I'm out. I'll update after I've smoked all the tobaccos I've got solo and taken my notes.

 

[Robster]

Subscribed. Am keen to see what you discover.

 

[Landri]

suscribed!

 

[Altreac]

Some nice light Saturday morning/first day of leave (dictionary required) reading material from the American Society of Microbiology on the Microbial Community Structure and Dynamics of Dark Fire-Cured Tobacco Fermentation. Very very interesting read. I need the dictionary every 6th word, but it's the only article of its kind I've yet found. Actually names some of the aerobic and anaerobic bacterial strands.

Got my little project underway now.
I've got my first leaf under process now. 1 oz is bottled in a sealed mason jar (followed the 140F bath, boiled lid method, worked like a charm for me). A second oz is in my Pollen T-press.

I don't think I'm going to photograph everything. Stemming/shredding/bottling 11 times over...will get kinda boring.

Couple questions here. Opinions are perfectly acceptable.

How long should I leave the leaves cellared as a test? I'm thinking 2 months. I just want an indication of what the leaves may do as they age while at the same time not having to wait forever for initial results. Once I've got an initial set of results I'm game to dedicate a batch for a year or so.

#1 is how long should I leave my initial test batch cellared.

# 2 - same type of 'how long question' how long should I keep the batch under pressure? The general words I'm reading are 2-3 weeks, while others say that as long as you achieve compression, that's enough to start a fermentation reaction. Considering I'm using a manual T-press, I'm feeling that longer is better. Although, if I'm only pressing 1 oz per 2 weeks...this could get dragged out over a very long period...and ya'll (if not already) will get (more) sick of me...

Either way, I'm going to start working on another leaf now.

(ooo. last question. Site related, not topic...image hosting...I can't remember what I read on the matter...does it have to be through B&Bs gallery, or could I say link from my Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive? Just curious)

 

[captaincaveman]

(ooo. last question. Site related, not topic...image hosting...I can't remember what I read on the matter...does it have to be through B&Bs gallery, or could I say link from my Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive? Just curious)

This site allows it and it works the standard BBCode way.

Are you proficient at embedding hosted images in forum posts on other forums? There are some technical issues that can be difficult for some people. Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive may be difficult to use for this purpose. I strongly recommend imgur instead. It's currently, in my opinion, the best for embedding images in forums by a wide, wide margin.

It's not impossible to embed from Google Drive. Here's a photo of a blend I pressed after saucing it with bourbon. I didn't put a lot of effort into it, I just put it in a big ziploc bag, dribbled in some bourbon, then shook it, hand-agitated it, etc. I have better photos of it but I found this one in my Google Drive.

Let me know if it's not visible.

I'm less confident that this image from Dropbox will work.

OneDrive isn't too bad.

View the image on the website, click "...", click "Embed this image", select a reasonable size, copy the image URL, and stick it in IMG codes here.

 

[Altreac]

Thanks for the info. The images from Google Drive and DropBox didn't show, the one from OneDrive did.
I don't really use too many other forums. At least none that I'm active in like here. Nova Scotia Hunting, Nova Scotia Fishing and CGN.
I'd definitely be interested to see though.


On the tobacco front. I got 6 x 1 oz jars sealed up yesterday. I still have the 1 oz of Light Fire Cure in the press. I've settled on 1 week in the press for this experiment bracket, so unless I get an additional press, it'll take me 3 months to get all the 1 oz pressed samples underway.

Information I will be collecting:

-initial smoke tasting notes of 0.8 mm cut, uncased, unpressed, unaged tobacco
-post-press tasting notes of 0.8 mm cut, uncased, unaged tobacco.
-post ageing smoke tasting notes on both aged unpressed and pressed (uncased) tobaccos.

^That'll take a just over a year. Once everything has been pressed and jarred (total with pressing should be just shy 3 months to completion for setup)

In the interim, while I've been tasting these tobaccos individually I'm starting to get ideas for blends.

-Scrap blend. A byproduct experiment. All the useable leftover leaf from stemming, shredding, reconstituting etc that isn't dust I've been collecting in another mason jar. Completely random mix of literally everything. I figure I'll use that as 'something'. Case it, press it. Might as well, otherwise I'd probably waste the stuff. I'll most likely use batches from the scrap mix to test casings too.

-Virginia Blend. I want to take all the Virginias I have, mix them in equal parts
-American Limited Edition Flue Cured, Izmir Turkish Oriental, Fronto Dark Air Cured blend.

Those are the two I've come up with so far. I still have to sample a few more of the leaves. After that, I'll post my tasting notes complete.

It sounds like a lot of work. Most of it is just waiting. I've mostly been stemming my leaves. Pull all the stems. Shred the first oz. Store the rest. (It takes no time to shred an oz of stemmed leaf, so I figured I'd just leave them unshredded until it's their turn to be pressed rather than pre-prepping the ounces to be pressed and have them dry out.

I'll probably have the rest bottled by the end of today or tomorrow. Then it's just babysitting the press which isn't real work at all.
As the new pucks come out of the press, I'll cut off a bowl's worth to sample and note, then seal the pucks in my small 125 ml mason jars.


Anything other information folks would recommend I try to pull out of this?

In the end I plan on making a spreadsheet and sharing the data with whoever wants it.

 

[captaincaveman]

If you'd prefer Google Drive I'm mostly sure it can be done, I'd just need to find the right procedure. Their services tend to integrate so often you're viewing the same file on the different services; g+ and Picasa Web Albums may be able to access stuff that's in your Google Drive and both of those services can definitely be used for embedding (I used to do it all the time).

Tell us about your press, and post a photo if you can. I googled the name/description you posted for it but only found really small presses.

As a Latakia fiend, I'm disappointed not to see any on LeafOnly. Are the Light Fire Cured, Dark Air Cured, or Izmir Turkish at all reminiscent of Latakia?