Mixing blends.....Do you?

[F. Prefect]

Originally Posted by Demented

I tried it shortly after I started smoking a pipe, turned out even worse then what I started with. I trashed the tobacco and never tried mixing again.

I know the feeling, as I'm sure many of us do as well. I'm lucky if I hit 1 in 5 that actually produces something I end up smoking all of.

But most of my experimental blending is done with a tobacco that I bought on sale and simply didn't care for so any improvement is a plus. 2 or 3 months ago I bought 100 gr. of Mac Baren Burley London Blend that smoked OK, no bite whatsoever, but being 100% Burley, I found it to be a bit bland even after adding about 3 or 4% Perque. After I had smoked about 25% of the tin I finished rubbing it out to a size that was more managable and after mixing a couple of test bowls which were an improvement, I replaced the the Burley I had already smoked with Altadis Z-50. Sounds godawful bad, but it probably salvaged the remaining Burley in a 10.00 tin.

I have another tin of Mac Baren Golden Extra which is an unflavored Burley very similar to London Blend, that will get the same treatment, although probably with different "additives". It's fun, and I almost always use a tobacco that will end up getting tossed anyway, and as was the case here, ended up with something better. (at least to my screwy taste buds)

I'm casually acquainted with several blenders and there is NO doubt that I would ever make the grade, but as the old saying goes, a blind sow happens to get lucky once in a while.

F. Prefect

[Demented]

Originally Posted by F. Prefect

I know the feeling, as I'm sure many of us do as well. I'm lucky if I hit 1 in 5 that actually produces something I end up smoking all of.

But most of my experimental blending is done with a tobacco that I bought on sale and simply didn't care for so any improvement is a plus. 2 or 3 months ago I bought 100 gr. of Mac Baren Burley London Blend that smoked OK, no bite whatsoever, but being 100% Burley, I found it to be a bit bland even after adding about 3 or 4% Perque. F. Prefect

I can see how blending with 100% Burley, Virginia or any other pure tobacco could end with better results than mixing to blends.

Tried this before I had started smoking English blends, have no clue what it might have been.

[cquon]

Yesterday I blended 1.5 ozs Latakia with 1.5 ozs of Va. 5100 and 3/4 oz of perique in a mason jar, put it on boil for 15 mins. Gonna let it sit about a month before I try it.

[F. Prefect]

Originally Posted by cquon

Yesterday I blended 1.5 ozs Latakia with 1.5 ozs of Va. 5100 and 3/4 oz of perique in a mason jar, put it on boil for 15 mins. Gonna let it sit about a month before I try it.

You may have gone a little overboard on the the Perique. Some Latakia/Virginia blends may contain as much as 50% Latakia, but most VaPers will usually contain no more than 5% Perique. A little of that stuff goes a long way and that should be a very interesting blend to say the least.

I'll probably get some disagreement here, but it's been my experience there is no need to heat the Mason jars in order to pull the lid down and pops when the pressure drops. All that is needed is a lid with a good undamaged rubber seal and of course an undamged jar.

The real reason for the "pop" down lid is that it will allow it to pop back up if something such as bacteria is growing within the contents of the jar. The growth of the bacteria will cause a production of gases, thus increasing the pressure and poping the lid back up in the position it was before it was allowed to cool and the lid would pop down.

So when your Grandmother took a jar of canned tomatoes out of cubbard and when she checked the lid was not in the down position, it was a warning that the food inside has spoiled and is unsafe to eat. Since none of this is really necessary when dealing with the storage of tobacco, you really can forego the lid poping exercise usless you want to be 100% sure. How do you tell if you don't have a good seal? You can smell it. But if you have used new lids, the chance of their being a leak of a size that could dry out the contents is very remote.

F. Prefect

[IHT]

Originally Posted by IHT

i've done it once, but i don't recall what i did it with.

after reading my review on bracken flake...
i mixed bracken flake with penzance. i've never taken "blending tobacs" and attempted to make my own.

[Canadian_Scott]

I haven't had great success blending hybrids over the years...

I usually only do it if I have nothing better to do with an evening and have a bunch of something lying around that I know I'll never smoke. Like this one pouch of Mac Baren's Plumcake that I bought. It's still in a mason jar and I just toss anything that I don't particularly want to smoke in there. Maybe eventually it'll taste half decent

I do blend my Frog Morton though. The regular stuff is a little bland on my palette (or maybe it's a lack of nicotine? I don't know), so I add about a third of a tin of Dunhill London Mixture to a full tin of Frog Morton for a bit of a punch.

[Fullbent]

I toss the dregs of each tin into a mason jar, mixing it thouroughly as I go until the jar is full. Does that count?

[Demented]

Has anyone tried Stoving a blend?

While smoking the third biting bowl of Mac Baren plumcake this morning, I started reading about processing tobacco. It seems stoving is a technique used to mellow a tobacco or blend.

Removed the tobacco from the tin, rubbed it out where needed and sprayed a little distilled water on each layer as it was repacked and pressed back into the tin. Preheated the oven to 250° set a timer for 1 hour, 40 more minutes I’ll take it our to cool.

I’ll open the tin this evening and see what happens.

Baked plumcake?

[smokinmojo]

Originally Posted by Demented

Has anyone tried Stoving a blend?

While smoking the third biting bowl of Mac Baren plumcake this morning, I started reading about processing tobacco. It seems stoving is a technique used to mellow a tobacco or blend.

Removed the tobacco from the tin, rubbed it out where needed and sprayed a little distilled water on each layer as it was repacked and pressed back into the tin. Preheated the oven to 250° set a timer for 1 hour, 40 more minutes I’ll take it our to cool.

I’ll open the tin this evening and see what happens.

Baked plumcake?

I have never had good results with stoving.(im sure the results were typical stoved tobacco) I just dont care for it much......200* and 200 mins.

[Demented]

I opened the tin, the tobacco is darker in color then before (set some aside for comparison), yet the aroma is Pretty much the same. It was on the dry side before baking it, had I not added a bit of water to it before baking it I’m sure it would be toast at this point.

Sprinkled tobacco to the top of the bowl then pressed it about half way down before the charring light, let it set a moment before the second match, fire right up, it needs to be hydrated a bit.

The flavor is pretty much the same, yet somewhat mellowed and it burns a bit cooler too (less tongue bite). Put it in a jar with one of those dip in water thingies and will smoke a bit each day over the next week to see how it changes.

I’m thinking the tongue bite might be the way I smoke. Been smoking a moist Cavendish for a long time, it typically requires a bit of puffing to keep it going, this tobacco is much dryer then I keep the English blend I smoke.

It may be I simply need to hydrate the tobacco a bit, then learn how to smoke it.

On another track…

I’d posted that the pipe I use to get tobacco from was gone, I found them today.

The 1994 earthquake wrecked there shop, so they moved. I only got out there every 3 or 4 months, so when I went buy and it was a different store I fingered they had gone under.

Spent about an hour there today talking to the son of the man who sold me my first pipe in 1982. I’m happy to have found my favorite Cavendish, err… shop again (bought a pound while I was there).

[IHT]

bumpinstein.

been thinking about doing this the past couple days.
what crawled up my ass? well, i was at work and the only pipe i had to fill was my nose warmer Stanwell Golden Danish, which is dedicated to G&H Dark Flake (unscented) - y'know, with a heavy dose of that Malawi fire cured leaf from africa. what did i put in there? davidoff flake medallions, a va/per.

it was one of the best tasting bowls i'd had in a long time.

so, it got me to thinking, i've got nearly 4 oz of this dark flake, and some tobacs need some "zing" to 'em. but i don't want to overpower 'em.

if i were to design my own blend, i think it would be a healthy dose of the sweetest bright virginias around, a dash of the malawi fire cured leaf, and about the same dash of perique that's found in Escudo. so, basically Escudo with a hint of strong ass Malawi.

i need to get some mason jars and start mixing some of my own stuff.

[Mad Hatter]

Yep, I had four Dunhill blends that I didn't like at all, Mixtures Mild and Medium, Nightcap and Early Morning Pipe and some dry, low nic houseblend of Balkan Sasieni so I dumped them all together and the end product is a bit more smokable. I have about 1 bowl a month and I only have about 3/4 pound left.



At this rate it'll be gone in another five years



Yeah Greg I did that too. I have a second hand pipe that always took PS Georgian Cream or Champagne before I bought it and I've been smoking my tin of Golden Extra through that also.
Its much better that way.

[smokinmojo]

Timely bump! I was going to post in "tonights smoke" this afternoon, a hybrid English
(Ashton old London Pebblecut, Esoterica Penzance/Smokershaven Krumble Kake, McClellands Blackwoods Flake,McClelland 2015, C&D Kajun Kake, MaC Baren Vintage Syrian and McClellands Grand Orientals Yenidje Supreme)............

that I've been working on the past few months. I seem to mix tobacco like I cook. (no end to what I'll try and how much I'll waste.)


The blend is big in Latakia, big in orientals, big in Virginia's and big in perique!

Man thats big!

[Cheeto]

I've never tried it before, but I'm sure I will eventually, maybe when I'm more experienced.

[Big T]

Oh, the things I do when I'm bored. A few weeks ago, I had a tin of MacBarens Roll Cake that bit so badly that it was unsmokeable. I decided to soak it in some Captain Morgan rum and then blend in some burley to cut down on the bite. It actually didn't turn out half bad...