What is the correct way to case and shread perique?

[WesternLeaf]

So I have been buying perique leaves from WLT, they taste great in my blend of virginia, burly and a little dark air cured. My problem though is getting them to the right case and shredding them. I take out any stems that are on the larger side and after 8 months of shredding with the Budget Manual Shredder 0.8mm The handle just broke off, so I must be doing something wrong. I am glad it is only 3-4% of my blend, all the other leaves I shread were working great till my shredder broke. And I cleaned / straightened the combs after each pound I went through. Probably cleaned it 5 times as often when doing perique. To get it dry enough to shread it makes a lot of extra dust that is just waste. What shredder should I be using?

Would something like:

https://www.leafonly.com/tobacco-leaf/tobacco-shredders/tabletop-fine-cut-shredder-plus

or

Tobacco, Machines, Tobacco Cutter, Tobacco Cutting Machine, Tobacco Shredder, Tobacco Leaves, Virginia Tobacco Leaves, Burley Tobacco, Oriental Tobacco, Tobacco cutter for home use, MYO, RYO, Electric Machine, Hand Machine : Tobacco and Machines (Tob

Tobacco, Machines, Tobacco Cutter, Tobacco Cutting Machine, Tobacco Shredder, Tobacco Leaves, Virginia Tobacco Leaves, Burley Tobacco, Oriental Tobacco, Tobacco cutter for home use, MYO, RYO, Electric Machine, Hand Machine Tobacco and Machines.

www.tobaccoandmachines.com

be what I need to get through perique?

 

[deluxestogie]

I spread out a batch of perique on a cookie sheet to dry down to low case. This requires 1 to 3 days on my enclosed back porch. It then gets stuffed into a gallon Ziploc bag for storage.

For shredding for pipe blends, I grab the low-case perique leaf I'll be using, bunch it as is into a 1 inch sausage, without removing stems. This is then sliced and diced with a chaveta or mezzaluna blade on my cutting board. Perique always produces more dust than other varieties.

Bob

 

[WesternLeaf]

I dry my perique on cookie sheets too. Alright, so I broke out an Ulu Knife from the kitchen and it worked pretty damn good, made more like flakes than strips as my first attempt at strips was too wide but I see how this could work.. maybe i'll just do the perique with the knife and get a new shredder for everything else.

 

[burge]

Try a food processor. Light will cut it into a flake if that works. I know generally do not need a lot another suggestion is scissors. I bought herb scissors and worked before I got my powematic