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Growing your own
PipeProfessor
Apprentice
in Tobacco Talk
Have anyone ever gotten a green thumb and tried growing their own tobacco?
PipeProfessor
Apprentice
PipeProfessor
Apprentice
PipeProfessor
Apprentice
Comments
In my researching I've found that tobacco is very pest prone, people will actually use it as a pest buffer. Meaning they plant it on the outside of their garden, because the pest will prefer it over the vegetables. Also tobacco if your not careful can strip a lot of the nutrients from the soil, so you would need to plan accordingly if you need to add any amendments to the soil after a few crops of tobacco. I only have a smaller garden but I tried to talk the wife into letting me grow some for a trial run, even pitched the argument that it would keep pests away from her vegetables. But as of yet I haven't got the ok to intrude into her garden. She argues that tobacco is cheap enough to just buy and not have to mess with the growing/curing/storing and then not knowing the quality of how it would turn out and having to invest about a year before you get to see the results. All that said I'm still trying to convince her for next year's spring garden, and doing my homework on how to, if I can convince her. And just a thought but growing your own, without a license is ok as long as its personal use only. Possible to get into trouble if you try to barter/sell any of it. Just a CYA statement.
Two quick articles
www.ecoseeds.com/tobacco.html
https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=InfoSheets/d6492.html
I did just order a few packs of tobacco seeds and a book on curing your tobacco at home. So I've convinced the wife that I can grow some and we'll see how it turns out. The growing I'm not too concerned with but the curing is kinda tricky. I'll read the book a few times and hopefully not screw up too much.
Move ahead to 2016, I started plants indoors from seeds from the 2013 harvest. I had tons of seedlings, I just pulled the extras out of the soil cups, and even transfered some to other empty cups to see if they would continue to grow, just uprooting them and plugging them back in....those little seedlings were tough. Anyway, around the first of June I planted them outside. The grew into what I could best determine as the Kelly Burly (upright leaves), which are the type of plant most of the seeds came from. After picking the leaves on November 5, I used my Ice Fishing house outside to hang the leaves. I put a room humidifier and small propane heater (the one I use when Ice Fishing) in the Icehouse. It worked well, until the outside temps dropped below freezing, and I did not want to risk the humidifier freezing and breaking, at which time I built a PVC frame with a large plastic bag over it to take the process inside. (November 16). I let the leaves airdry until they were all tan/brown, only a few had a small amount of green still present. On November 27 I rigged up my small "jet engine type" propane heater to heat the PVC "tent" and brought the leaves up to around 165F degrees and dried them out to stop the processes within the leaves. Then I took the dry leaves back in the house in my PVC "tent" and brought the humidity back up in the leaves until they were pliable.
The leaves with a bit of green left in them I steamed for at least eight hours until they were black, then removed them and spread them out to dry on a rack inside the "tent" until they were dried down again. The leaves had a lot more sugars concentrated in them. I shredded some, and some I pressed into a plug with some Dark Rum. I also took some of the air-cured leaves and pressed them into another plug with Coconut Rum. I cut the plugs in half and then pressed one Coconut Rum plug together in a "sandwich" between two of the Dark Rum plugs with a little bourbon to bind them. I made another plug with the air-cured burley by misting each of the leaves with bourbon and then stacked them to form the plug. I have some of the plain air-cured leaves shredded as well. I still have an 8" stack of air-cured leaves in a large Pelican case to age. I rolled two "cigars" from some of the leaves and put them in my cigar humidor (another smaller Pelican case) to age. Pelican cases work very well for humidors by the way. All of the plugs and shredded tobaccos are in Mason jars to age. I haven't decided what I am going to do with the remaining leaves, "cigars", shredded or plug tobacco. I say "cigars" in quotes, because the tobacco is not fermented as in cigar leaf curing.
The press I built out of 2x4's with a 4ft arm and 50lbs. on the end of the arm. The tobacco moulds I built from oak, a box with open ends held together at the corners with "plate joints". There were two loose ends to the box, that way I just push the finished plug through the box to remove it. The box was lined with parchment paper to make the plug more easily removeable. The plugs formed well, but I think I will add another 25-50 lbs. to the arm next time.
The tobacco I grew in 2013-before I threw it all out, I tried to smoke some of the brown ones...nasty, smelled like burning leaves and nasty....did I say nasty? Yea, nasty.
The 2016 harvest air-cured much better, and I think the leaves were ripe, or mosly ripe. They had a pea green tint when they were picked. I have smoked some of this tobacco and it actually taste like tobacco...not good tobacco mind you, but smokeable.....which was my intent, just to see if I could make a smokeable tobacco. With some aging, I have high hopes. As a note, 2016 in Billings was an unusually long and warm growing season which allowed the tobacco to stay in the garden longer, and also gave me a couple of weeks extra to air-cure the tobacco outside. In the end, I would say it was still way to expensive (propane and electricty) and time intensive to be a cheaper alternative to just buying the excellent tobbacos that are out there to partake of. I say leave the tobacco to the experts, at least in Montana....hmm....no wonder we don't farm tobacco in this high plains desert, not nearly enough humidity to cure tobacco efficiently.
It is fun to try it though, and it gives an idea as to how much effort goes into making excellent pipe weed. I hope to have a get together with fellow pipe smokers to have them try my homegrown, home processed, all natural tobacco. If it sucks, I can just let them in my celler and let them try some of my 120+ different "real" tobaccos.