Are there any of you guys that are also cigar guys ?
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Are there any of you guys that are also cigar guys ?
Yes, there are some here who even roll, yes and even grow their own tobacco.
Check out this thread...
https://sharprazorpalace.com/finer-t...today-269.html
I grow, I roll, I smoke. I haven't bought a cigar in over a year now.
Just rolling my own allowed me to have my cigars for about $1.50 each instead of the more typical $8 to $15 per stick. Then I thought maybe I should just grow my leaf instead of buying it. I like to say they are free now, but between fertilizer, pesticides, hand labor, and with inevitable losses it still probably costs me about the same, but now I am master of the entire process from seed to smoke.
Last year was my first grow year. Last year's crop seems to be quite good, and the few cigars I have rolled from it and allowed to age a bit are pretty good. This year I will have more nice wrapper and binder leaves. Last year's crop is mostly filler, as the hornworms systematically destroyed most of my big beautiful leaves, and improper hanging for color cure caused a lot of mold and a lot of failed curing. I still have about 16 lbs of tobacco from last year's crop. I have already almost finished harvesting this year but I will plant a second crop.
You don't have to get into it in a big way. You can grow just three or four plants and make it worth your trouble. There are forums where this is discussed and there are youtube videos, related to growing and to rolling. Welcome to the information age. You can now learn to do literally anything.
Crescent city razors, What seed varietals are you growing , corojo , criollo, habano, or broadleaf? That's amazing you got into it that far!
Last year I grew Connecticut Shade, Connecticut Broadleaf, Criollo 98, and Habano 2000. This year, first planting was Piloto Cubano, Big Gem, Yellow Leaf, Monte Calme Yellow, Golden Burley, and Moldovan 456. Oh yeah, and some Connecticut Broadleaf. Best showing was wow a three way tie, for wrapper leaf: the Monte Calme, Golden Burley, and Moldovan. Maybe a slight edge to the Monte Calme on size and texture, and points for the high yellow color of the Moldovan when picked fully mature and already yellow on the stalk. The Piloto was the obligatory Cuban style filler. I think it did better than last year's Criollo 98 or the H2k but of course I haven't smoked it yet. The Big Gem and Yellow Leaf are old school heirloom varieties and gave me meh results. I won't be planting them again. The CTBL didn't show me much this year, either, though last year it did okay. The thing is, the Monte Calme, Golden Burley, and Moldovan 456 gave me leaves of superior conformity to what I want in a wrapper leaf. I still have to taste them, but they give me beautiful big and bright leaves.
When I replant this year, and I do intend to double crop as I am almost completely done harvesting and it is still May, I will be planting only Moldovan, Monte Calme, Piloto, and maybe Golden Burley. But no more than a half dozen plants each.
The Criollo and H2K filler from last year is quite good, and the Piloto still untested, but based on the yield I have high hopes for it. Next year if this year's Piloto isn't as good or better, I will go back to the H2K I think, for filler. I do want to get down to two wrapper varieties so I may end up dropping the Golden Burley. I am really excited to try the Moldovan, both as wrapper (beautiful stuff) and as filler. I can't find anyone who has used the Moldovan in cigars. Pretty sure that the Monte Calme has been used as cigar wrapper, and the Golden Burley has been used for every smoking, dipping, and chewing product known to man, a jack of all trades tobacco, including cigar wrappers and binders.
In addition to cigars, I am planning to make my own shisha, too. I suspect the Moldovan Ligero or Corona, well washed, will be excellent in the hookah.
Thats wild man!!! I can't say I've heard of anyone using that modolvan either ,new one on me for sure, the burly is somewhat rare in cigars as well as I've mostly seen that in pipe tobacco and blends their off, how do you age your leaves? And for how long?Quote:
Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors
Golden Burley and other Burley varieties have actually been used a lot for domestic cigar production, and Cuban strains are descended from various old North American Burley varieties, mostly. The Connecticut Broadleaf and Shade are descended from the Cuban strains that are descended from the Burleys. What goes around comes back around. Now Connecticut Shade is considered the world's finest wrapper by many people and it is basically a Burley twice removed. And you can just look at a leaf of almost any Burley variety and go "hmmm... that sure looks like it would wrap a great stogie!". I am pretty sure that the iconic Tampa Nugget that I was fond of as a youngster was wrapped in one of the mainstream North American Burley varieties, over a binder made from "tobacco paper" manufactured from scraps, still used today in many cheaper machine rolled cigars. I am guessing in retrospect that the filler was a blend of flue cured Virginia and a dark air cured Burley with maybe some imported Cuban seed filler mixed in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Axeman556
Last year was my first grow year. I air color cured in the garage. Color curing, and aging, are two different processes. The color curing gets rid of all the chorophyll and excess water and makes the tobacco look and taste like tobacco, and burn properly. Aging takes 1 to 3 years and you can write books about aging cigar leaf. I won't. I put it all in tupperware type bins, and later I re-cased (adjusted the moisture in the leaf) and stuffed it all into big zip lock bags, where it is now. As it happens, the product has a very nice aroma in the leaf, and so far trial cigars have been pretty good. Trying to roll more than I smoke and build up an aging stock of stogies, and likewise I want to use my homegrown sparingly until I have some that is 2 and 3 years old. The plan is eventually to be rolling only leaf that is two or three years aged. Right now all I have is about 10 months old, and fresh cured, and still hanging, and some that I bought last year and haven't used up yet.
Another thing about last year's tobacco. I was very lax in labeling and my bakky got all mixed up. Kay serrah. It's just one variety, el producto de Finca Crescent City, for all practical porpoises. This year I am a little more diligent in labeling variety but I am not so much seggregating by grade. Low on the plant is Seco. It is characterized as mild and very even burning. Even lower are the "mud lugs" which are often used for rolling basically right off the plant, once they have color cured right on the stalk. Next up is Viso, a little stronger from more sun exposure. Near the top is Ligero, very hearty and flavorful, more nicotine, a little slower to burn. Finally at the tippity top is Corona, not often used in cigars. I just go by feel of the individual leaves anyway, as I roll. Next year I want to be down to two or three varieties, and I will seggregate by grade as well as variety.
The big industry movers and shakers in the premium cigar world get VERY technical and artsy fartsy on aging. Usually the leaf is brought up to case and then stacked in big piles, where it ferments and heats itself up. The piles are periodically broken apart and restacked so the aging is even. After this fermentation period it is stored in bales usually, in warehouses where the management controls the ventilation and thereby the humidity. Most say that you want periods of lesser and greater humidity for best aging. Many home growers construct a kiln where the fermentation process can be duplicated in only weeks instead of months. I can't be bothered at this stage of the game. Whatever it was I did, seemed to work good for me.
First step is to watch the videos and learn, then buy some quality leaf and roll a good stogie. Smoke some and age some. When you can do that, plant some bakky. Growing can be a little complicated but there are forums and youtube channels where you can learn all about it. When you can grow it and color cure it, then worry about aging. When you have aged product ready to smoke, roll it up and stop or reduce buying leaf from Whole Leaf or Leaf Only or whoever.
Thank you for the insight !! I had no idea burley was related to any of those strains. To say that you've been able to plant , grow, ferment, age an then roll and smoke with any amount of success is nothing short of impressive . I tip my hat to you sir!! Can you tell any difference in the tobacco compared to say where it's normally grown due to different soil conditions and mineral content?Quote:
Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors
I have tinkered with the idea of growing my own baccy, so I think I am going to give it a go, and when I say me, I mean the wife because she's the plant whisperer.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors
If nothing else, I might end up with something I can shred and puff in the pipe :)
I think I may be a bit limited in my growing season being in Scotland but it's worth ago for a few quid of seeds.
Geek
I think there might be some prohibitions or restrictions on unlicensed growing of tobacco in the UK, not sure. Be careful to not run afoul of the law! Or, at the least, try not to get caught. Nosy neighbors could spell trouble. A half acre of tobacco would not escape aerial observation. But a half dozen plants can give you a year's worth of pipe or cigarette tobacco. For general use, a mainstream Burley would probably suit you fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGeek
The hardest part is starting the seed. The sprouting seeds are extremely delicate, fragile, and sensitive to environmental factors.
https://www.amazon.com/Jiffy-5262-Wa...-garden&sr=1-1
The above kit works great for starting tobacco seeds. You want the 70 place, self watering kit. It has an absorbent mat underneath the puck tray that helps with water retention. Fill from one of the empty corner holes until water is up over the "ramp". You will know it when you see it. You MUST water sprouting tobacco seeds from below! Anyway, first, add water to the system and keep adding water until the peat pucks have absorbed all that they can, they are fully expanded, and there is water remaining in the lower tray. Sprinkle a couple hundred seeds out on a white paper plate. Lick the end of a wooden toothpick and use it to pick up a single seed. Place it on top of the puck, on the top surface, not in the central hole and not on the web-like "biodegradeable" fabric cladding around the puck. Pick up another, the same way, and place it 120 degrees around from the first, and then a third. A tiny wiping motion is usually needed to leave the seed behind on the puck. Do that to all that you intend to use. I suggest twice as many pucks as you intend to grow into adult plants. Three seeds per puck. You will thin to one per puck when you transplant. Do not bury them or cover them. Leave them on the surface of the moist peat puck. If you have a good loupe such as the excellent Belomo 10x Triplet or pocket microscope such as the Carson Micro-Brite, you can see the seeds begin to swell and split in a day or three, and then a little stub of a root will emerge, soon sprouting hairy rootlets. At this stage the sprouts need to start getting some sun exposure every day. Tobacco seeds do not contain ANY nutrition for the seedlings and they must begin photosynthesis right away, or die. You must never for a moment let them dry out, though. In another week or so you should have the first green leave spreading their arms to the sun, and they should be standing up, and stuffing their roots into the peat. When they have their second set of true leaves, unwrap the pucks carefully, and plant them in cups or pots or bags big enough for roots to go at least 4" deep. Keep them well watered and give them lots of sun. Don't let them get cold and don't expose them to high temperatures, either. Gradually leave them outdoors for longer and longer, in less and less ideal conditions, to toughen the seedlings. By the time they are 6" tall, you should be transplanting them into your garden. Spray immediately with BT or Spinosad. BT is a bacteria that makes caterpillars which feed on tobacco leaves sicken and die. Spinosad is a little more broad spectrum. Neither is particularly toxic to humans and neither will affect the taste of tobacco even up to the day of harvest, if used as directed. Fertilize as you see fit but absolutely avoid all chlorides or any sort of chlorine. It will make your tobacco burn poorly.
That's the hard part. Now just wait two or three months. When the first leaves near the base turn completely yellow, pick them. Those are the "mud lugs" and you can wash and cure them, or toss them, as you see fit. But the next leaves up from the lugs are the Seco grade, very important as wrappers and as blending agents or to bulk out a filler blend. Pick when they get yellow mottle or spots, or curl at the tips or get brown at the edges. You can pick earlier but waiting until fully mature gives better flavor. It also invites bugs to eat them. Neem oil is good against aphids but don't spray this within a couple weeks of harvest. Luckily aphids do not cause heavy damage. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are your main villains. Ladybugs can help control aphids, and you can buy them by the thousand or the million, online.
When the plant starts to grow a flower top, break it off. From that point you must monitor the plants closely for suckers. Those are little leaf or stem buds that sprout up where the big leaves meet the main stalk. Break them off. You want all energy sent to the big harvestable leaves. If you grow only one variety you could let one plant flower, and go to seed, so to not have to buy more seed.
Most tobacco varieties grow fairly tall, 5 to as much as 9 feet tall. Blow-downs are common, and sometimes a plant will just lay over onto the ground, so be ready to stake them up as needed.
Tobacco can carry a disease that is quite harmful to tomatoes and some other vegetables. Most gardeners ensure that there is a good buffer area between tobacco and tomatoes.
When you pick your tobacco, string the leaves on stainless steel fishing leader wire or aluminum electric fence wire. Space them an inch or two apart, and hang in your tobacco barn. In a month or two, you should have color cured tobacco. The moisture slowly evaporates and the central stem and ribs shrink. The leaves will turn from green to yellow or brown. Leave them hang for up to two months. You want reasonable but not excessive humidity and temperature, and if there are slight daily swings of each, so much the better. Monitor your hanging leaves daily, for caterpillars or the damage that they cause. Your first sign sometimes is the caterpillar's droppings on the floor, especially from the Tobacco Hornworm, which grows to 3" long and eats about 50x its weight in tobacco per day, with a single specimen able to ruin 100 or more leaves. They stand out in UV light at night, just sayin. Pick them off while still tiny, and squash them without mercy.
I don't use an active fermentation process. You can, and maybe you should. I don't. I pack my color cured leaves in airtight bins, and open them once every two months or so, to let any generated ammonia escape, and eventually I end up packing them in 2 gallon zip lock bags, or bigger for bigger leaves. If the leaves crack, mist them LIGHTLY with water to bring them back into case, which is where they are neither soggy and floppy, nor dry and crackly. Too damp and you get mold. After a year you should have a very smokable product though I have rolled and smoked literally right off the plant, in the case of the lower lugs that cured on the stem. Aging past 5 years generally is thought to be counterproductive, and less than 6 months doesn't really do anything.
Pipe smokers often prefer a tobacco that has gone through the Cavendish process, or that has had additions of honey, molasses, glycerine, or other moistening agents, and flavorings such as apple or cherry byproducts or essence. You can also add small amounts of flavoring tobacco such as Latakia or other Syrian or Macedonian or Turkish varieties. Louisiana Perique that has actually undergone the Perique process can be a very distinctive addition to pipe blends. Go easy, that is very powerful stuff, the true Perique. You might also find that a well cured and shredded Burley in proper case suits you just fine, and is especially appropriate in a corn cob pipe or other more rustic sort of smoking appliance. Many Cuban seed cigar varieties have been used in pipe blends, too. Burley typically makes up about 40% of a cigarette blend, I am told, but no reason why you can't roll straight Burley. I would go with a darker Burley than the Golden Burley that I grew this year for cigar wrapper, or both a light and a dark.
There are lots of online resources where you can dive deep into the subject. I am FAR from expert, this being only my second grow and second rolling year, but that thumbnail above ought to get you started asking the questions from the experts that you might want answered.
Neither do I have a sufficiently educated and sensitive palate, nor am I sufficiently pretentious, that I can say definitely where a tobacco is grown by tasting, smelling, or seeing it, with any certainty. Some can, or say that they can. I can tell the difference between tobacco that sucks and tobacco that tastes and smells great, though. The soil and climate does make a difference, and affects the product in about equal measure with the strain's genetic heritage and the care taken by grower, harvester, and processor with the product.Quote:
Originally Posted by Axeman556
Keep in mind that Burley is a family of varieties, not just one strain. And lineage can get very mixed up. Different species can and have been crossed together. Most cultivated tobacco is Nicotiana Tabacum but there is also N. Rustica, N. Alata, N, Sylvestris, and others. and there are strains of N. Tabacum that are grown by indigenous people that have little resemblance to commercial varieties, and heirloom varieties grown for home use or as a localized cottage industry that are of little use to the commercial grower or the home grower looking for a commercial grade product. The family tree can be pretty crazy and mixed up. Some is grown for ceremonial use, some for ornamental use, some just because the flowers smell nice, and some grows wild if you know where to look, not that you would want to smoke it.
Thanks for that,Quote:
Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors
Will need to reread to digest it all.
Nah, there's no tobacco growing restrictions in the UK, you just can't sell it, not likely with a few plants lol.
I actually quite like just plain old twist baccy on my pipe, so may e need to get a technique for firing it at home.
Geek
I do wonder though, how does one know how much leaf for a specific sized cigar? For instance how much for a Churchill as opposed to a panatella?
Geek
For a Churchill, use more filler. For a Panatella or Corona or other small cigar, use less. A bigger cigar needs a bigger binder and wrapper. A smaller one can get by witl a smaller binder and a smaller wrapper. You can use two binders or two wrappers either in tandem or one after the other or one on top of the other, as you see fit. You can even tandem wrap a cigar with a light and a dark wrapper for a barber pole look.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGeek
There's no formula except what you make up yourself. Different batches of filler have leaves of different thickness. Different leaves have different sizes. Light case will have less water weight. Full case will have more water weight.
Usually, you just start with the filler leaves that you want outside the bundle, depending on your personal recipe. Add leaves that belong more toward the center. Most rollers will have Seco on the outside and Viso or Ligero on the inside, due to their different burning characteristics but there is no law that you must follow or have your cigar card revoked. When it feels like you have the amount of filler you want, tear off the ends and put them on top, tips pointed inward toward the middle, and roll up your bundle. Then roll it in your binder to set the basic size, shape, and tightness of draw. Classically the final layer, the wrapper, is only for sealing and cosmetic purposes but I often use the wrapper to further refine the shape and adjust tension, because I roll pretty much only figurados. I cut my wrapper into an S shape, to conform to the taper at either end, and the wrapper does a lot of the work of shaping the tips in my cigars.
There is a forum with a lot of growers and rollers at fairtradetobacco.com you might have a look at. It is sponsored, and posts are sometimes heavily editorialized to favor certain suppliers, so I don't hang out there as much as I probably ought to. There are other forums with fewer members or more emphasis on smoking factory rolled cigars. Their preferred leaf supplier is Whole Leaf Tobacco and they have good products including good kits. I have had better luck with Leaf Only but WLT is actually pretty good. There are members/sponsors that sell seeds and leaf, too.
https://www.leafonly.com/cigar-tobac...f/tobacco-kits
A kit is a great way to get started. There are instructions and links to videos on the leafonly.com website. The FAQ at fairtradetobacco.com has a lot of good info, too.
Another thing. As a beginner, don't fall into the trap of buying a mold and trying to roll a cigar of a precise length, shape, gauge, etc. Just grab some bakky and roll, and try to get the tension correct and get a good draw and an even burn. Trying to make a conformal cigar and getting the burn and draw right is just overwhelming when just starting out. If you end up with a 42ga instead of a 34ga, who cares? Correct the filler amount and thereby the bundle size on the next one, and see what you get. I don't even own a mold and I don't want one. My stogies come out purposely in an old school double perfecto shape, mostly because some early attempts just came out that way. I find my personal shape to be easy for me to roll and get right. I don't shoot for a particular gauge or length, just a particular draw and burn, and overall shape. I like the big fat middle for the mighty volume of excellent cool smoke. I like the pointy foot because it lights easily with a single match, even a big fat bomber. I like the tapered head so I don't have a massive sausage like stogie clamped in my jaws. The bite is much easier when it tapers down to about a 40 to 44 gauge. It just works for me. Lately I roll a bit shorter than before, so my smoking session can be a bit shorter and not leave a depressingly large and wasteful butt in the ashtray. I dislike relighting a cigar that has been out for long enough to cool and the smoke and vapors condense inside. The tapered head also reduces waste. The discarded butt contains less tobacco. But many rollers find a parejo, or straight sided cigar easier to roll and more convenient to store and age. Parejo rollers often use a mold so that a rolled box looks more like a factory box, and in fact factory rollers almost always use a mold. Once the bundle is in the binder, it is too late to add or subtract filler, and when it goes in the mold, the mold can change the draw. Skilled factory rollers get it right 99% of the time and when not, they smoke their mistakes. As a home roller you can disassemble and re-roll but I prefer not to do that.
You might well intend to roll a Corona and end up with a Robusto or a Toro. Smoke it and enjoy it! Don't worry about the CSLD. (Chicken Stuff Little Details)
After putting down god knows how many seeds, dotted around the house and greenhouse. I have for all my efforts, one tiny sprouted plant.
I shall nurture him in the hope he will grow into a towering baccy plant, but to be honest, I reckon I am a bit late in the year, and just wanted to experiment to see where was good to germinate (my study window ledge). If it comes to anything I might get a bit of baccy for my pipe lol.
Geek
LOL that IS the hardest part! The seeds are tiny, the sprouts are tiny, and they MUST remain moist and MUST get sunshine immediately or perish. The seeds, unlike most seeds, have no energy supply contained inside for the embryo. The sproutlet must begin doing photo synthesis right away, or, you guessed it, DIE.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheGeek
Watering has probably killed more tobacco sprouts than there are stars in the sky. Watering washes them away, since seeds must be sown on top of the soil and absolutely not buried. That's why I like the Jiffy Self Watering Greenhouse Kit so much, with the peat moss pucks. They suck up the water from underneath and keep the seed moist, and you don't have to top water at all. When they are about an inch tall, you can remove the wrapper from the puck and stick it right in on top of a cup or pot of good potting or seed starting mixture. Once they are about two inches tall you can start leaving them outside 24/7.
Tobacco is pretty hardy once your seedlings are aobut 6" tall and you stick them in the ground. It seems like from knee high to waist high takes only a couple of weeks, and before you know it your baccy is 8' tall, depending on variety.