Hello fellow friends, been a while since my visit here.
A lot happening in my life sadly, now I am not planting tobacco and been vaping for a while. However, the vaping only good for reducing cravings but not really good subtitute for good old tobacco flavor so I am back, alternating vaping during work and pipe during my time at home.
When I started back to pipe smoking, I acquired a few pouch of easily obtained tobacco in my area, which are Mac Barren Vanilla ready rubbed and Erinmore flake. However these two will easily tire my bud and I started to look for another blend. After finding it is so hard to find good blend in my area, I begin to dig to my old stash of tobacco, sitting untouched since my last grow.
The reason I didn't touch my stash is because my last grow Semois cigar variety is not a good burner. Even after a year aging it still burn to black rather than ashes. So now I have too much cigar variety that cannot be used as cigar.
So, rather than tossing away good tobacco that doesn't burn well, I started mixing it with my other homegrown tobacco, and some other tobacco I obtained before. Here is my mix:-
3 pieces Semois ligero (doesn't burn well)
3 pieces Semois seco (doesn't burn well)
6 pieces homegrown burley (burn well, low nicotine)
2 pieces oven cured Virginia (doesn't burn well, my own experiment)
2 pieces air cured Xanthi leaves
1 pieces air cured Kasturi leaves (very high nicotine)
1 pieces dark fire cured kentucky (high nicotine)
small amount of Brazilian cavendish for burn rate
the method I used are:-
Stack the leaves, alternating the good burn leaves with the bad one, and sprinkle the cavendish last (cavendish are really dry and brittle. It was already crushed when I get it)
sprinkle a honey and water solution (50% honey 50% water) I used sting less bee honey, which is really aromatic than regular honey with much fruitier smell. Just a little to make the tobacco easily pliable not soaking wet.
Roll into big fat cigar, around 6 inches and pressed it for 2 days.
Cut the cigar into 4 portion and put it in a jar. Then I stoved the jar in place where it provide around 60 degree celcius for 10 hour.
After that I leave the jar opened for a night to dry to tobacco a bit. Then I set aside for a week.
The result:-
A beautiful plug, darken by the stoving process. The taste is really woody, chocolatey and slow burning. Very high nicotine though. I can still taste hint of honey, unlike my previous attempts of casing with honey. It is mildly taste of spice due to Xanthi and Kasturi present, however the honey is kind of out of place because of strong woody and chocolate taste. The honey casing would be good for Virginia blend I think. Surprisingly, it doesn't taste like cigar at all, considering the amount of cigar leaves I used. Definitely a success to my eyes.
Hopefully I can post few new recipe after I acquire more leaves. Been saving to buy some from WLT.
A lot happening in my life sadly, now I am not planting tobacco and been vaping for a while. However, the vaping only good for reducing cravings but not really good subtitute for good old tobacco flavor so I am back, alternating vaping during work and pipe during my time at home.
When I started back to pipe smoking, I acquired a few pouch of easily obtained tobacco in my area, which are Mac Barren Vanilla ready rubbed and Erinmore flake. However these two will easily tire my bud and I started to look for another blend. After finding it is so hard to find good blend in my area, I begin to dig to my old stash of tobacco, sitting untouched since my last grow.
The reason I didn't touch my stash is because my last grow Semois cigar variety is not a good burner. Even after a year aging it still burn to black rather than ashes. So now I have too much cigar variety that cannot be used as cigar.
So, rather than tossing away good tobacco that doesn't burn well, I started mixing it with my other homegrown tobacco, and some other tobacco I obtained before. Here is my mix:-
3 pieces Semois ligero (doesn't burn well)
3 pieces Semois seco (doesn't burn well)
6 pieces homegrown burley (burn well, low nicotine)
2 pieces oven cured Virginia (doesn't burn well, my own experiment)
2 pieces air cured Xanthi leaves
1 pieces air cured Kasturi leaves (very high nicotine)
1 pieces dark fire cured kentucky (high nicotine)
small amount of Brazilian cavendish for burn rate
the method I used are:-
Stack the leaves, alternating the good burn leaves with the bad one, and sprinkle the cavendish last (cavendish are really dry and brittle. It was already crushed when I get it)
sprinkle a honey and water solution (50% honey 50% water) I used sting less bee honey, which is really aromatic than regular honey with much fruitier smell. Just a little to make the tobacco easily pliable not soaking wet.
Roll into big fat cigar, around 6 inches and pressed it for 2 days.
Cut the cigar into 4 portion and put it in a jar. Then I stoved the jar in place where it provide around 60 degree celcius for 10 hour.
After that I leave the jar opened for a night to dry to tobacco a bit. Then I set aside for a week.
The result:-
A beautiful plug, darken by the stoving process. The taste is really woody, chocolatey and slow burning. Very high nicotine though. I can still taste hint of honey, unlike my previous attempts of casing with honey. It is mildly taste of spice due to Xanthi and Kasturi present, however the honey is kind of out of place because of strong woody and chocolate taste. The honey casing would be good for Virginia blend I think. Surprisingly, it doesn't taste like cigar at all, considering the amount of cigar leaves I used. Definitely a success to my eyes.
Hopefully I can post few new recipe after I acquire more leaves. Been saving to buy some from WLT.
