Hey there,
some disagreements with my in-laws have got me inspired to look into the availability of odour-cancelling means of treating cigarette papers.
Background:
Years ago, I happened across a pack of Camels with "LSS" technology (Less Smoke Smell). Those things were actually quite fascinating; I could smoke a cigarette next to me nonsmoking (fortunately not Anti-smoking) sister, and she didn't notice a thing. Flavour, as far as I could tell, was unaffected.
Now, most articles from back then (~10+ years ago) seem to have disappeared; I did remember citrus being involved, though. Seeing whether there were any tubes employing the same technology, I unfortunately came up empty. There appear to be only Malboro still on offer, and Winston, which seem to use the LSS.
So, I figured I had to do some more digging, and came up with finding this patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150136159A1/en
Now, this certainly isn't the same stuff being used in LSS, seeing that the timeline doesn't add up, but it gave me a starting point for more investigation. Being an absolute idiot when it comes to chemistry, I did my best to interpret the information in the patent, and figured that green tea, coca, and lemon might do the trick as natural substances to at least approximate somewhat the acids and other substances described.
Preliminary Testing:
Monkey read, monkey get an idea, monkey do. Or something like that. I apologise in advance for the not-so-scientific measuring, I'm good at words, not good at sciencing. Whipping out a small pot, I boilt some green tea in a bag with very little water. After about 5 minutes (keeping the bag in), I added ca. 3 tbs of cocoa powder. About a minute later, I added lemon juice. I let it boil for about half an hour in total, reducing the water and adding overall approx. half a medium-sized lemon throughout the process, until I was left with a heavily-reduced/concentrated concoction. The bag was removed after ca. 15-20 minutes. Said concoction, I then strained twice through tea filters, yielding about 1/10 of a big coffee cup.
The cigarette to be treated contained a blend using 35% Burley, 35% Orient, 12-15% Kentucky (non-smoked), and 8-5% cigar tobaccos. All in all, a rather strong and smelly affair. Keeping with my scientific genius of employing 100% accurate, reproduceable techniques, I dipped my fingers in the (now lukewarm) strained concoction and thoroughly laced the cigarette. I then proceeded to dry it with a blow dryer.
Preliminary Results:
I lit an unlaced cigarette and the laced one side-by-side. Holding my nose directly over the smoke, it was quite evident that the unlaced cigarette was far more intense and harsher than the laced one. The flavour, strangely, was unaffected, albeit with a hint of cocoa. Not enough by far to convince Antis to smoke indoors without their noses being offended, but seemingly an interesting step in the right direction.
Issues:
Obvious issues are obvious: The laced cigarette ended up drier than the unlaced one, and I didn't really control for room note but harshness of smoke. While it does appear to be less harsh and less offensive in general, I don't quite know what I did so far. Another thing to accurately reproduce the composition to some degree as found in the patent (and adapt in some fashion) would be to figure out how and to what extent the required acids are released from the substances I used, and under what conditions. Maybe I got lucky the way I did it this time around, and would destroy the acids with different heat/time/etc. the next time.
Prospects:
Certainly going to keep trying if/when I've got the time and the kitchen to myself. I need someone with a scientific understanding to give me some input, however. Anyone willing to give his two penneth worth on anything I've done is greatly welcome to share his thoughts and opinions =)
some disagreements with my in-laws have got me inspired to look into the availability of odour-cancelling means of treating cigarette papers.
Background:
Years ago, I happened across a pack of Camels with "LSS" technology (Less Smoke Smell). Those things were actually quite fascinating; I could smoke a cigarette next to me nonsmoking (fortunately not Anti-smoking) sister, and she didn't notice a thing. Flavour, as far as I could tell, was unaffected.
Now, most articles from back then (~10+ years ago) seem to have disappeared; I did remember citrus being involved, though. Seeing whether there were any tubes employing the same technology, I unfortunately came up empty. There appear to be only Malboro still on offer, and Winston, which seem to use the LSS.
So, I figured I had to do some more digging, and came up with finding this patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150136159A1/en
Now, this certainly isn't the same stuff being used in LSS, seeing that the timeline doesn't add up, but it gave me a starting point for more investigation. Being an absolute idiot when it comes to chemistry, I did my best to interpret the information in the patent, and figured that green tea, coca, and lemon might do the trick as natural substances to at least approximate somewhat the acids and other substances described.
Preliminary Testing:
Monkey read, monkey get an idea, monkey do. Or something like that. I apologise in advance for the not-so-scientific measuring, I'm good at words, not good at sciencing. Whipping out a small pot, I boilt some green tea in a bag with very little water. After about 5 minutes (keeping the bag in), I added ca. 3 tbs of cocoa powder. About a minute later, I added lemon juice. I let it boil for about half an hour in total, reducing the water and adding overall approx. half a medium-sized lemon throughout the process, until I was left with a heavily-reduced/concentrated concoction. The bag was removed after ca. 15-20 minutes. Said concoction, I then strained twice through tea filters, yielding about 1/10 of a big coffee cup.
The cigarette to be treated contained a blend using 35% Burley, 35% Orient, 12-15% Kentucky (non-smoked), and 8-5% cigar tobaccos. All in all, a rather strong and smelly affair. Keeping with my scientific genius of employing 100% accurate, reproduceable techniques, I dipped my fingers in the (now lukewarm) strained concoction and thoroughly laced the cigarette. I then proceeded to dry it with a blow dryer.
Preliminary Results:
I lit an unlaced cigarette and the laced one side-by-side. Holding my nose directly over the smoke, it was quite evident that the unlaced cigarette was far more intense and harsher than the laced one. The flavour, strangely, was unaffected, albeit with a hint of cocoa. Not enough by far to convince Antis to smoke indoors without their noses being offended, but seemingly an interesting step in the right direction.
Issues:
Obvious issues are obvious: The laced cigarette ended up drier than the unlaced one, and I didn't really control for room note but harshness of smoke. While it does appear to be less harsh and less offensive in general, I don't quite know what I did so far. Another thing to accurately reproduce the composition to some degree as found in the patent (and adapt in some fashion) would be to figure out how and to what extent the required acids are released from the substances I used, and under what conditions. Maybe I got lucky the way I did it this time around, and would destroy the acids with different heat/time/etc. the next time.
Prospects:
Certainly going to keep trying if/when I've got the time and the kitchen to myself. I need someone with a scientific understanding to give me some input, however. Anyone willing to give his two penneth worth on anything I've done is greatly welcome to share his thoughts and opinions =)
