2backhoe kiln

[TwoBackHoes]

So this is my 1st year growing tobacco. Realized half way thru the season that the curing and drying process was much longer than I expected. Also that the process seems fairly complicated. So Ive built a 4x4x8’ kiln closet in my shop, insulated well, (inside) 1/2” Rtech foam board/ chipboard / mylar/ woven batting/ 2”Rtech foam board/drywall (outside of kiln).

My question is what is the best way to heat the kiln, please provide a link if possible. Thank you.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. Scan through the Index of Key Forum Threads for kiln discussions. For your specific question: Crockpot! Cheap, doubles as a water source, easily obtainable and easily replaceable. Find one with a manual, analog power dial, rather than digital.

Bob

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Thanks Bob.

I do remember reading that suggestion.
Do you operate it with the lid on or off?
Seems like it may be a challenge for it to heat the space? Although 4x8 isnt very big... I already have a crockpot ready to use.

So my next question is the ventilation. I have all sizes of fans to push /pull air and intake filters/ ducting. I plan on color curing in the same space. So just make the holes pluggable for kiln use, but what size fan should I use?

If I push air in, then the exhaust hole should be twice the size as the Intake?

Do i need constant circulation fan going on inside as well as the ability to exchange the air for fresh air?

Any thoughts on using an ozone generator in the fresh air intake as a mold preventative measure?

 

[deluxestogie]

A 2-quart Crockpot can provide sufficient heat for that size kiln, but the water needs to be refilled too often. It also struggles to reach 165°F for flue-curing. I use a 7-quart Crockpot with the lid off all the time. Make sure that your door seal gasket is sufficient.

I have no vents at all. I have a bathroom ventilation fan (designed for high moisture environment) inside, to circulate internal air. No outside air source. If the kilning temp is over 122°F, then no vegetative growth of mold can occur—but only if a circulation fan maintains a relatively uniform temperature within the kiln. I usually run my kiln with a setpoint of 128°F, and a hysteresis of 5°F. So it fluctuates between 128°F and 123°F, running for 2 months per batch. No mold. During the summer (higher ambient temps) I need to refill the Crockpot every 4 or 5 days. During the winter (cooler ambient temps), the power is running more of the time, so I need to refill the Crockpot every 3 days. My kiln is located within an enclosed back porch, with the porch door open to the kitchen throughout the year.

When I flue-cure, I crack the door slightly during the yellowing and leaf wilt stages, then latch it shut for the rest of the run.

Bob

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Ok so one crockpot is good for color cure but it looks like Ill need 3 crockpots to hit 123f

Ive added perlite to the water in the crockpot to help the RH stay high enough. Ive also got an evaporative humidifier running constantly on low. I installed a small bathroom exhaust squirrel cage blower blowing in outside air when temps get too high. I Wired the fan to a greenhouse thermostat. Ive placed a high efficiency filter over the fan to keep the air clean. The door locks and seals tight with a diy screw down locking mechanism. Ive finished my second batch of color cured material. It looks decent to me and is already better than the organic american spirit I normally smoke. Im working on getting the temps above 120 now. Overall it was more work than I had anticipated but it is a lot of fun and rewarding to not be paying 25$ a pouch for lesser quality. Need to get the color cure dialed a bit better but getting the proper leaf fade before picking i think is the key....

 

[TwoBackHoes]

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Something I thought i would share about pest control... hunting hornworms at night with a UV light works wonders for eliminating hornworms. Takes about a week of hunting every night when sun goes down. Each night youll find less hornworms until you dont find anymore at all. I hate coming out for a morning garden stroll to find a whole leaf missing ... i use the 365nm UV beast purchased off amazon. Yes it was worth the price and it shoots a beam pretty far and is clean viewing.

 

[TwoBackHoes]

A 2-quart Crockpot can provide sufficient heat for that size kiln, but the water needs to be refilled too often. It also struggles to reach 165°F for flue-curing. I use a 7-quart Crockpot with the lid off all the time. Make sure that your door seal gasket is sufficient.

I have no vents at all. I have a bathroom ventilation fan (designed for high moisture environment) inside, to circulate internal air. No outside air source. If the kilning temp is over 122°F, then no vegetative growth of mold can occur—but only if a circulation fan maintains a relatively uniform temperature within the kiln. I usually run my kiln with a setpoint of 128°F, and a hysteresis of 5°F. So it fluctuates between 128°F and 123°F, running for 2 months per batch. No mold. During the summer (higher ambient temps) I need to refill the Crockpot every 4 or 5 days. During the winter (cooler ambient temps), the power is running more of the time, so I need to refill the Crockpot every 3 days. My kiln is located within an enclosed back porch, with the porch door open to the kitchen throughout the year.

When I flue-cure, I crack the door slightly during the yellowing and leaf wilt stages, then latch it shut for the rest of the run.

Bob

So two months of 128f ... how much improvement do you see in the quality? I ran mine for two 4 days at 120f after a week of hovering 104f during color cure.
Some leaves were too dark to start with and you can still see a green tinge with the camera flash. Im smoking on it now and it could improve for sure, but it def works for now.
I was unaware how low my tobacco standards were until I finally had something decent to smoke.

Can I color cure my whole crop as I prime pick. Then wait til all has color cured and put all of my crop into the kiln for a final 2 month cure?

Thanks for your help.

 

[deluxestogie]

Ok so one crockpot is good for color cure but it looks like Ill need 3 crockpots to hit 123f

I have never used my kiln for color-curing. I use a shed for that. A single, 2-quart Crockpot was sufficient for kilning at 123-128°F.

Can I color cure my whole crop as I prime pick. Then wait til all has color cured and put all of my crop into the kiln for a final 2 month cure?

I usually leave my crop hanging in my shed through the winter, and into early summer, before even beginning to kiln batches of it. So it's ~1 year old leaf when I put it into the kiln. Kilning mostly completes fermentation for most varieties. After kilning, it still improves with further aging.

Bob

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Hmmm maybe Ive got my terminology mixed up.
Insulated box capable of high temps is where I do the whole process.

I know they say dont get your leaves wet but I power wash my leaves with the sprayer in my kitchen to remove dirt, debris, bugs etc from the underside of the leaves. Impossible to clean the leaves otherwise and I dont want to smoke that stuff. Dandelion seeds like to stick to my leaves ... so my small garden only produces a few dozen leaves at a time. I dont wilt my leaves. I wash them, shake them and sometimes pat them dry. Then hang them in the box with a dry croc pot on low, my vent holes open and door cracked at around 85-90f overnight. By morning Ill check on things and turn up thermostat add water to crocpot and begin color curing. It takes a while to reach 104 and i will see solid yellow leaves by the end of day 2. ( on leaves picked at the right time) ive yet to see any mold, I pay close attention to the process and am familiar with fungi as i am also a mycologist. Which brings me to something i wanted to mention about aspergillis. Do not salvage material contaminated with this fungi. Yes fire will destroy the fungi, but you suck air and smoke thru aspergillis contaminated tobacco when you take a drag or pull you are effectively still inhaling mold spores. Not to mention smoking mold spores and fungal bodies is irritating to the throat and lungs. Just my take on it as Ive read people advise its ok to smoke it if youre burning it.

Anyhow ive got a lot of against the grain ideas and some challenging takes on tobacco growing, Im a newb and will likely have to learn the hard way on things i dont comprehend.

For instance: maturity of leaves, please define this for me. What constitutes a mature tobacco leaf?

Thanks

 

[Knucklehead]

Kilning, air curing, aging thread:

Curing, Fermentation, Aging, Kilning? Basic Definitions

Curing Tobacco When you begin with leaf from the field (primed or stalk-cut), and then allow it to convert from a living leaf to a dead leaf (of yellow or brown), you have cured the leaf. Often in this forum, we refer to this as "color-curing". There are a number of methods for color-curing...

fairtradetobacco.com

A mature cigar variety leaf:


A mature to ripe leaf


Ripe flue cure leaf

docpierce 2020 Tobacco Garden

Here is the next shot. 6/19/20 I seem to have eradicated the grasshoppers for now. The Cucumber Beetle is the next pest in the batter's box. The holes they chews are smaller. I looked and could not detect any hornworms. Although I saw them last year; so I know we have them. The weather is...

fairtradetobacco.com

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Ok so mature is when the plant begins to consume itself AFTER making or attempting to make flowers. The goal of making seeds is Plant priority. Allowing buds to form and picking before flowers open will drain nutrient reserves. So it appears that potassium and nitrogen deficiency is what we want for the desired leaf fade. Plant senescence can be triggered by cooling soil temperatures or by soil EC dropping from drought. Another way to get the desired leaf fade would be to add gypsum once youre ready to kick in the fade. Since calcium is king of the soil colloid and will antagonize all other elements especially potassium/ magnesium/ Nitrogen you will see a quickening of yellowing starting at the bottom and working its way up. True plant senescence the plant will yellow out even in the presence of ample amounts of nutrients. Triggering the release or releasing plant hormones/ gasses will set the ball rolling for most plants. I havent read anything about The specifics of tobacco yet... but I will break out some research later tonight and report back.

 

[deluxestogie]

mature is when the plant begins to consume itself AFTER making or attempting to make flowers.

In some tobacco varieties, leaf low on the stalk may mature and even ripen before a bud head begins to form. It just happens. You don't need to add stuff to make it happen. Since tobacco is a perennial, it continually discards old leaf.

Bob

 

[TwoBackHoes]

In some tobacco varieties, leaf low on the stalk may mature and even ripen before a bud head begins to form. It just happens. You don't need to add stuff to make it happen. Since tobacco is a perennial, it continually discards old leaf.

Bob

My thinking is that a well balanced soil with enough nutrients to last a Season would likely grow a better yield and all around flavor than nutrient poor soils. In order to see the colors we want in time before cold weather begins it could be beneficial to have a pump the brakes program ready to implement just in case. I cannot intentionally starve a plant, that only brings pest and fungal pressure as does drought. My plants only seem to start to yellow when I pull back on watering. Ive even got some that auto at 30 days and they stayed green and kept stacking flowers.
Im in a high desert area with strong dry winds with cold nights and winters. First frost sometime in mid late October. Its already dipping down to 45f at night here 85-90 during daylight hours.

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Here is some tobacco trichomes I grew this year. This stuff is sticky and has a sheen of oils all over the flowers and leaf. Not sure if thats a good thing or not with tobacco...

 

[TwoBackHoes]

Some giant leaves measuring 32-33” long 16-17” wide

 

[deluxestogie]

What tobacco variety or varieties are you growing?

Bob

 

[TwoBackHoes]

So here is the curing after color. The Stems are drying down, these have been in for about 2 days. So this is a small deep freezer that Ive got a crock pot in the bottom of it, setting on fire bricks with a dutch oven w lid inside of the crock warmer. Lid has a small hole in it to let steam out. I cant really hang leaves in this small space so Im using metal baskets. Only issue is obviously the leaves are piled into the baskets. I inspect the leaves for mold with a 100x usb scope and have not found any from this setup. I did find some on stems in the hanging closet that were tied together tightly. Only 3 small leaves but still. I open the the curing freezer daily and move the leaves around and inspect them. I read some ppl say never to open them at all. I do because im worried if i dont it may mold. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TwoBackHoes]

The rh inside is very high. It often has a cloud of steam roll out when I open the lid. It is not 35%

 

[TwoBackHoes]

What tobacco variety or varieties are you growing?

Bob

Im not sure whats what, because my wife started them and wrote the labels with something that washed away. From what I remember : Frog eye orinco, gold dollar, mohawk, golden burley, Ahus, moonlight, wild rustica, little hill and hill island