How do you go about kilning?

[Davo]

About to crank into my first kiln run next week or so.

I’m leaning towards sweating my leaf inside sealed bags or a container.

However space is not an issue. I could easily hang a dozen or more bunches of leaf.

For some reason I feel using a container appears easier. It’s most probably fool’s logic.

how do you do yours?

 

[Knucklehead]

This was my last batch. After curing, I dry the leaf until the stems are crispy, crunchy, dry and then rehydrate the leaf enough to be able to handle them and tie them into hands. In the photo I have some hands hanging from racks and some just sitting on top of the racks. I haven’t used containers but I think you would have just as much luck as long as the humidity and temps are in the sweet spot. I haven’t grown since 2015 so my methods might be old school by now. This forum and the experimenters here are a great resource.



edit: i can’t get the thumbnail to enlarge. Here’s the post:

2015 Knucklehead Grow Blog

Got a good soaking rain right now in guntersville. knuck.hope your getting some of it. Is all this rain this late in your grow good or bad?

fairtradetobacco.com

 

[LeftyRighty]

I've hung loose bundles,
and hung very large tight bundles, tied with strings so the leaves don't touch the walls of the kiln,
and laid leaf in open-top box
and laid leaf open on a shelf, sometimes matted down and over 2 feet thick, break down & re-stack about 2 x a week so they don't decompose.
It all works, just monitor temp & RH
I've never understood 'sealing in a bag/container', don't know your done if you can't smell the ammonia.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I've never understood 'sealing in a bag/container', don't know your done if you can't smell the ammonia.

I have to confess that I've never smelled ammonia from homegrown, and I've kilned WLT cigar leaf and not smelled ammonia. I am capable of smelling ammonia, but I work in a darkroom and I let my developer get really old in which case it starts to smell like urea. It does get ammonia smell if there's a leak in the tank, but I wonder if that's just an extreme situation and that I'm just used to ammonia.