Snuff making 101

Fermentation (the breakdown of the tobacco leaf) is very complicated yes, but it is something that happens automatically and naturally starting from when the plants are harvested. Extensive fermentation is there for you to experiment with but it is not necessary. 
I edited the recipe so now you have nothing to think about.

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That is a great resource! Thank you.

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Fantastic thread, still getting around to digesting it all.

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How was that Guano snuff?

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This has to be the most interesting and useful thread on this site, thanks Jux!

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and I can no longer edit my posts on the mobile version.

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This is an excellent thread !

Bookmarked !!

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This is the most extensive piece of work about making snuff that I have ever come across. As the commercial producers don’t exactly give their secrets away, making your own snuff can be a daunting prospect. This shows it isn’t and it’s perfectly possible to make great snuff at home. 

Hopefully this can be trimmed of comments and put onto the FAQ as one body of text.

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@snuffster I think @Juxtaposer has already begun something like that.

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Just wanted to say thank you for the guide. I made some snuff from american spirit perique RYO tobacco using this basic recipe and it turned out great! Decent nic kick and a little burn.

The only difference is that I used baking soda instead of sodium carbonate, and I used 50% more of it (3/16 tsp total) because I read somewhere that’s what you need to achieve same PH as sodium carbonate.

I’ll try this next with some strong pipe tobacco. Oh and I was wondering… what are the “undesirable qualities” of using baking soda instead of sodium carbonate (washing soda)?

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@gavin Baking soda has a slight scent and is less interactive with the tobacco. That’s about it though. American Spirit Perique is a great choice for making snuff. I ran into some mold problems with my ASP batch that was also alkalized with baking soda. I did not add any salt and I was keeping it way too moist. 

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Seems that salt needs to be introduced pretty early in the process. I have been adding salt after 5 days of “making” the snuff. The salt seems to stop any unwanted growth. I give a free five day period for any thing beneficial to grow first.
 You know I went to  a lot of trouble to get the MSDS for the washing soda, lifetime supply of calcium carbonate for under $5. Pure stuff. I think baking soda is an evil and easy product, everybody has it, but not a good idea for snuff. I learned that the hard way BTW.

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@Whalen Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate, right ?

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Yep!

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Not all snuff has salt or carbonates in the mix. Some snuffs rely more on the blending and cure aspects of the base tobacco. Sometimes it reads like you can’t have snuff without them, but it’s not always the case; there are good snuffs without either.

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@Snuffster Can you tell us which snuffs are those with no added salts.

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Dragun doesn’t, nor do the two other Draguns that will come out, hopefully, before winter. They are the only recipes I have access to but I would be surprised if DW and snuffs like that have much if any. One of the old FandT booklets quotes a blender saying that many of the original snuffs were nothing but blended tobacco. In an industry where people guard their recipes to the extent that only two people per generation know them, like WoS, it’s impossible to be certain. No disrespect to this excellent work, I’m really just saying that it’s not possible to state that all snuffs follow a standard chemical model.

I would imagine if you look for all the references to snuff making - not snuff use or general points, but the actual practice of manufacturing, that most of the literature is about European type snuffs and that most, if not all of the written sources are actually very old ones - give or take the odd bit of tobacco lit. that is not snuff specific. Probably very little on Indian types or ethnic variants apart from the odd remark or paragraph and what there is specifically about snuff manufacturing is very fragmentary. Given the overall lack of recipes and specifics on manufacture the question ‘which snuffs don’t use salts etc’ is, it seems to me, not really answerable.

 Anyway, that’s just my take, this a great piece of work and I don’t want to get in the way of that.

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Good answer and point well made. Tobacco certainly need not have anything added to become snuff. 

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Cheers mate.

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Jaap once mentioned that the fermented Virginia varieties of the Kralinglse snuffs have no salts. As such they have a tendency to get moldy if not used quickly.

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