Thanks for the tip Bob; I'd thought of using those, but so far I hadn't found any that would fit the box; most were too big. I'll look into it when I redesign the entire thing to accommodate different sizes. They're certainly quite handy if it doesn't require opening them up all the time.
What am I actually doing?
- Thread starter mr1992
- Start date
One consideration is that the canning jars must be upright (lids on top), to work properly.
Bob
Bob
That's one of the problems with the current configuration; those jars would be way too tall to sit upright to guarantee proper heating. I've had a few over the years catch mould at the top; I can't get the heat cable to distribute the heat properly then. Hence they're lying like that; it's at capacity right now. The cable is usually meant to heat up the ground in terrariums, not the ambient air in there, unless you want to toast your lizard. It's suffered the abuse of being run at top temperatures for some ten years now, though.
Perhaps add a small fan.
Thanks for the update. Just stumbled across this thread. I had a bunch of late season stuff that dried green. Thought I was going to have to write it off as a loss, but I'm going to give your method a try. Nothing to lose. Short summary of what I've gleaned is de-rib it, get it pretty wet, put in mason jars and put in kiln, checking progress every few days or so.
Don't mention it, yup, you've basically summed it up. If you really want to go fire and forget you needn't even bother with deribbing them, as long as they're mould-free. Spray every leaf generously, leave them for an hour or so, sort them for size, roll them up and stuff them in there. Spray the inside of the jar for good measure and you're good to go. I'm curious what results you'll get!
Just out of curiosity, did you end up giving it a shot? I'd love to hear what others' results are with this approach
Yes I did give it a preliminary try. Loosely stuffed a quart mason jar with very wet green leaves and put in kiln around 128 degrees F. Checked and opened the jar every couple days, and within a few days they started turning dark. After a couple of weeks they got very dark. Darker than your pics in post 19. Almost black, like a very dark espresso coffee color. Smell was kind of sweet, almost a little like pipe tobacco. Was leaving for vacation, so had to shut down kiln and dry everything out so it wouldn't mold while I was gone. Did roll a couple small cigars out of the dark stuff, but haven't tried them yet. Haven't gotten back to the tobacco yet as I've been busy seed starting for this years garden. Will report back after I've experimented more, but it could be a couple months. I'm encouraged at this point, as I thought my "dried green" tobacco was going to be a loss.Just out of curiosity, did you end up giving it a shot? I'd love to hear what others' results are with this approach
More to come. Thanks!
Blackfly
Member
I accidently wound up with results similar to yours from my first attempt at kilning some air-cured virginia leaf. There was way too much moisture, and the leaves were heaped up in a soggy pile in the kiln...the leaves turned extremely dark, produced a copious amount of brown juice, and smelled like dark chocolate, honey, and cigar when removed after 4 weeks. They produced some excellent, if mild, cigars; very smooth.Just out of curiosity, did you end up giving it a shot? I'd love to hear what others' results are with this approach
Those crystals are salts, not sugars. They’re most likely nitrite/nitrate salts, which means your process is working — that’s the stuff fermenting is supposed to purge or convert. Did you ever get an ammonia odor in the early to mid phase of fermentation? That’s also a good sign that what you’re doing is working. *****Thanks a lot for your replies; quite interesting indeed, it had crossed my mind that it may be Perique-related, but I'd assumed it would require far more pressure than merely pressing in the leaves and screwing them tight with the lid. Don't get me wrong, I love the flavour, it's only regrettable that differences in strain don't quite shine through. Doesn't make much of a difference which leaf I use, they tend to have minor differences only. Side by side, you'd never know which strain it is. Could also be my palate's a bit dead, so perhaps my assessment isn't saying much. I guess it makes sense that it's Perique and/or pressure related; last year, there were many crystals forming on there which someone had identified as sugars coming out of the leaf; also, there was some weird stuff forming on some leaves after they'd finished fermenting, which retrospectively felt and looked a lot like yeast. It definitely wasn't mould, never knew what it was, though, but it does make loads more sense now. Does this also explain why really badly cured leaf turns out fine as well? Put some in there that were pretty green, and they got out without any hint of burnt hair or anything. I presume the colour can be attributed to the water. When I set out to grow my own years ago, I'd never have thought growing and especially finishing tobacco would be such a science
My intention is to make cigar tobacco, though since I supply all of my family (parents and girlfriend), it's fairly exclusively used for dark cigarette tobacco (manage to get the odd cigar, or rather cigarillo, rolled here and there, but spatial constraints mean I need to be very conservative with how many I make if I want them the baccy to last till the next growing season). That being said, one of the perks of this approach is that it can go straight from the jar into the fag (after drying, obviously) and it already tastes great. Dunno whether it gets much better with time since regrettably, I've never been able to store them for any significant period of time. To complicate matters, the only place I can cure is in the basement, which worked wonderfully last year due to extraordinarily high temperatures, but this year, coupled with more rain, it just screams mould. Since it's a small room, I have to hang them in bunches of 30 leaves, which doesn't help much with the mould issue, but is still loads better than any barns I've hung them so far, which have led to losses of up to 80-90% of my harvest. Simply storage of dried baccy seems to work fine, however. Oh well, I've put up a fan in there, hope that helps things a bit.
EDIT:
Forgot to add the rope tobacco. Looking at the finished product, it is quite reminiscent of what's coming of of my jars, not quite as dark perhaps, but close. Forgot to further mention that I do all my curing without the midrib due to its tendency to a) catch mould and b) snap easily when forcing it into the jar.
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