It'S Gold

[Copenhagen Forever]

My batch from thanksgiving day is all done breathing. I took it out of the jar, stirred it up and took a dip. They say crude oil is black gold- No No No!
This dip is black gold. Worthy of lapping up any spills on the counter top. Some kick ass dip. A big THANK YOU to all who helped me make this happen. Squeezy, JBD,deluxestogie, RyanM22, SmokesAhoy and everybody with a kind word. You guy's are awesome. I gotta say, I'm so pleased, I'm bubbling right over. BigBonners Burley and dark air is what really turned the corner. I went from making excellent to pure black gold!
Thanks guy's

 

[Smokin Harley]

Its always good to get to the result you've been working for.

 

[Charly]

Really happy for you Cope !
I hope I will enjoy my tobacco (when it will have a bit more age) as much as you do !!
For now, my baccy seems better and better, but not good enough yet but I'm confident it will be gooooood !

 

[SmokesAhoy]

Can you link the batch that turned out so good? We'll probably want to sticky it too.

 

[Smokin Harley]

I second that...recipe and procedure ,if you don't mind.

 

[JeffBB]

woohoooooooo!!!!!

 

[BigBonner]

Glad things turned out great for you
I have been keeping a close eye on your project . Now go back and make more .

 

[RyanM22]

Congrats, amigo!

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

My procedure is a little of everything I've read here on this board. As far as preparing the tobacco, I'm not sure where I saw that. The thing is most makers explain their recipe in grams. I have no gram scale so I had to convert to tsp. tbsp. oz's.
I'll put something together with pictures. I'm about to cook again and I'll take pics as I go along. If it will help somebody else here, I'll be happy.

 

[Smokin Harley]

My procedure is a little of everything I've read here on this board. ... If it will help somebody else here, I'll be happy.

Thats what its all about.

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

I'll back up a little because I've already prepared my tobacco but I'll add a sample of BigBonners Maryland he gave me so here come the pics.
Bring it into case with a little spray water so it's workable.

Pull out the center stem and as many veins as you can.

The better the case, the easier they pull out. You get less pieces of leaf.

I got a pasta cutter for the leaf, it works great but the case has to be high or it won't feed. The shreds dry out faster.

..or cut the leaf with scissors. It doesn't dry out as fast. I guess the top layer insulates the heat from getting down in.

Cut up the stems, veins and leaf and keep separate.

In the little oven at 275* f. Dry'm out good.

My coffee grinders getting dull but I am adapting. I'll need another soon.

Stems grinding. Three 10 second burst will do. Dump it out on a paper plate and tap from the bottom. All the big stuff will come to the top. Pick out the big ones to regrind. Dump the flour in a plastic bag.

Veins get three 2 second burst and that usually does it.

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

Leaf grinds quick. Three 1/2 second burst and it's done.

3/4 oz. This will go in to my batch.

Cooking will come next. Stay tuned!

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

Cooking;

This cook is going to be with 10 oz. of dry tobacco.

An empty jar weighs 10 oz.

A full jar of dry tobacco weighs 15 oz. without cramming it. It comes in handy to know.

A good size container to work with. This 10 oz is going to fit in 2 jars.

The formula;
8 oz. tobacco
1 cup water
1 Tbsp sea salt
I'm gonna make extra solution and go by feel as to how wet the tobacco is. The above ingredients end up a bit dry. I'll have extra solution and get it a little wetter.

3 cups of water and 3 Tbsp of sea salt will be plenty. The last Tbsp is a bit shy of full because I want it a little less salty.

Bring it to a boil and dissolve the salt.

I can add at least 2/3's of the solution and then adjust it from there. It's probably 40% water by weight to start the cooking with. I'll be adding just plain water every time I take it out to stir it, every day.

Pack the jars with your fingers and clean off the rim so it will seal. Screw on the lid and snug it. They tighten up something fierce and it will take a gorilla to unscrew it again.

Bringing up to temperature next.

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

I bought a cheap crockpot and before I knew it I bought the wrong one. This one only has low and high. A dimmer switch works to keep the temp where I want it.
I have the jars in and they float. I was going to weigh them down forgot on my last batch. When I stirred them I found that they were cooking evenly so I didn't bother with it.

Now that I'm in the dip hobby, I see there's about 20 different kinds of crocks. Buy what you can. The ones with a warm setting will sit at 170. you can cover them to raise the temp. from what I understand. Tin foil or a blanket.

The dimmer wires up easily with the little wiring diagram they give you. This one is rated at 600 amps.
The crock was $13 buck at wallyworld and the dimmer was $5. The extension cord was shorting in the middle. I saved it for just this purpose.
I fill the crock 3/4 full of hot tap water put in the jars which sit about a 1/2" below the lid. Plug it straight into a socket with a GFI then turn it on high. The dimmer gets warm using it to heat up the lot so I plug it straight in. It warms at 5 deg. every 10 minutes.

I want 190 deg. steady on this cook. Between 180 and 200 deg. is perfect. Now I shut off the crock, plug in the dimmer and then turn the crock back on high. Then use the dimmer.

I've already used it to cook and marked where my temp.'s are at.

I'll be cooking this batch for 72 hours. It reached temperature at 4:30 pm here, so tomorrow at 4:30 will be the first time I stir.
Were all caught up. Tomorrow we'll look at some color change.

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

Oh! I should have said- I shut off the crock, plug in the dimmer and then turn the crock back on high. Then use the dimmer.

See you tomorrow!

EDIT: This correction has been incorporated into the previous post.
Bob

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

Thanks Bob for editing.

Time to stir the batch.

The temperature stayed at 190* f for 24 hour. I get some evaporation, as the water level drops the temp. rises. It didn't drop anymore than a 1/4" but the temp. went up 2 degrees.

Leather gloves and a big spoon to get the jars out. There is some pressure when I open the jars. Sounds like a soda can opening.

Getting some nice color now. I add a 1/2 cup of water and it's still pretty dry. I guess it's suppose to stay dry thru the cooking. I read it somewhere and haven't tried cooking it any wetter than about 40%. If it's not broken......

Tomorrow at 4:30 I'll post a picture of the color.

 

[Smokin Harley]

they sell canning jar tongs ya know...don't burn the fingers ! Good progress .

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

I guess I need some tongs but I have to burn my fingers at least twice to do something about it. Ha!

Time to stir for the second time.

An interesting thing is that the jars start to sink after they cook for a couple of days. I did add water last night and they floated when I put them in but they were almost sinking by 4:00 pm.

It's turning darker still tonight. I added about a 1/4 cup of water. Still on the dry side, it will suck up all the liquid I put in it tomorrow.

They definitely sunk when I put them in again. I added a little more water to the crock.

I'll finish cooking tomorrow.

 

[ArizonaDave]

Excellent documentation, I like it. I have a bunch of tobacco flour, various leaves mentioned, I'll give it a shot. Up to this point, I've just used a rum/vanilla combo (around 7 to 1), a drop of cinnamon oil, mix it all into a spray bottle, and let the alcohol evaporate, which is easy to do in AZ. I do have an extra crock here, and a dozen mason jars. Once again, great job sharing the process!

 

[Copenhagen Forever]

Thanks Dave. You must add something in the casing solution to change the PH like sodium carbonate?



I'll finish up the cooking and add the alkaline plus something to make it sticky like the store bought dip.

It's a dark coco brown before the alkaline goes in.

All the rest of my ingredients make a slurry stirred up.

I keep it suspended in the bowl and splash it over the top.

The camera's flash reflects back but you can see the white slurry.

I'm trying to show that it's clumping up from the Glycerin. I could add more but the moisture is maxed out. I'll stir it in a week and add some more water with more glycerin.

This dip is turning black right in front of my eyes.

I'm gett'n 23 oz each. It's a cheap scale but they do weigh out.

This batch has no fire cured in it. I ran out and wanted to try something different anyway. I took a dip and tried it. It's already wonderful. Instead of fire cured It got BigBonners Maryland. So all the tobacco in this batch is Larrys.

The recipe for the black gold in question. I'll base it on a small 8 oz. batch.
6 oz. BigBonners Burly (older)
1 oz. BigBonners Dark Air cured (older)
1 oz. Dark Fire cured (old left over, probably 6 years old)
1 cup water
1 Tbsp Sea salt
Cook at 180- 200 degree f for 72 hours
...........................................


Add;
Mix in a little bowl;
2-3 tbsp water or as needed
1 tsp Bakers Ammonia
2 Tbsp Sodium Carbonate (baking soda converted)
2 tsp Glycerin (or more till tobacco is clumping)
Stir it up really good
Let it breath for 2 weeks- Stir at 1 week and add water.