Snuff making 101

@junipero thanks brother

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And there is a sodium carbonate for food and a sodium carbonate for waching dishes wish one?!

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@Abdoulaye sodium carbonate is used to increase the pH to facilitate the absorption of nicotine. I’m pretty sure you can use either or just put some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in the oven and bake it to turn it into sodium carbonate.

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@n9inchnails thank you so much , i just have a fear to put baking aoda in my nose lol i fell like its going to give me a blocked nose , but hell yeah i will give it a try , thanks a lot

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@n9inchnails , can you use baking soda without burning it ?!

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@Abdoulaye, yes, you can use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) without converting it to more alkaline sodium carbonate (washing soda), but your snuff will be weaker if you use it as a single alkalizer. For strong snuff, you definitely want to use stronger alkalizers, like sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate, or slaked lime.

But you can use baking soda as secondary alkalizer, mixing it with other, stronger alkali. Here you can find three industrial nefha formula - https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/6032/snuff-making-101/p10 - one made by Algerian family-owned factory in Belgium, another one made by German tobacco producer Poschl and a Tunisian one. Also, a very simple recipe for Moroccan homemade nefha.

Don’t be afraid to add alkalizer to your snuff, in most cases you need to add it dissolved in water, and the amounts aren’t dangerous. Vast majority of factory-made snuffs contain alkalizers, besides, many snuffs also contain salt, some - ammonium salts.

Alkalizer is added for making snuff alkaline. In contrary to combustible tobacco (for example, cigarettes), nicotine from oral and nasal tobaccos can be effectively absorbed through bucal or nasal mucous membrane only from alkalinized tobacco. The more alkaline the snuff (the higher its pH), the more nicotine you uptake, but there are safe limits which you should not exceed. pH of most industrial European snuffs fall in the range from pH 8.5 to pH 10, which roughly corresponds to 2% - 6% water-soluble alkalizer, like sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate, by weight of total product mass). This is the safe range - or at least considered as safe by the manufacturers.

Just steer clear from the strongest, most caustic alkalizers, like lime or sodium hydroxide, or potassium hydroxide. They are too strong for snuff, or I should rather say - too dangerous. Adding such compounds to tobacco would give you a chemical burn.

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Pure fire cured Kentucky snuff made from Toscano Classico cheroot cigar. No additives whatsoe’er, simply crumbled and milled with electrical coffee grinder. Natural moisture content – about 13% water, i. e. on a par to fresh Irish #22 in terms of moisture level. Sifted through 150 micron mesh sieve. Nicotine – solid medium, it’s way stronger than Latakia and doesn’t lack smokiness, by no means. Utmostly satisfying, super easy and fast to make.

Again, tons of thanks to @ALLex for all the recommendations!

150 micron setaccio: Artemio 3, Setaccio

Set di 4 Setacci con maglie da 150/300/600/1000 micron: JBL Artemio 4 - Set di 4 Setacci con maglie da 0,15/0,3/0,6/1,0 mm per la raccolta dell'artemia

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@volunge hey brother I am glad you liked my homemade snuff recommendetion. The snuff looks awesome. Toscano snuff both in fine dry style and in coarse moist (or paraffin oiled) are staple snuffs for me the last years, I have some big jars of both grind styles. Nice satisfying smokey plain and bold snuff it is one of the better homemade snuffs. You should definitely try a coarse moist or even better paraffin oiled to my preference.

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@volunge I have a tapbox with some Toscano coarse paraffin oiled snuff near me, trying it now it is a very satisfying dark snuff smokey and meaty. I find the nicotine strong and the slow release in the coarse style probably from being easier to snuff bigger boxcars but makes it very satisfying.
Nose full of coarse salted paraffin oiled Toscano snuff is very nice in the cold weather, warms the nose right.

Both coarse or fine grinds make very nice snuffs. I love the aroma of Toscanos. Enjoy the snuff mate. Cheers

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My Toastscano. lol
Fine dry grind Toscano snuff.

P.S. Could have sieved it better

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Hey @volunge what do u think about the Toscano snuff you made?
I would like to get your feedback after some days of using it.

Have you turned a Toscano into a coarse snuff yet?

:love_you_gesture:

I haven’t, yet, mainly because I dig it finely powdered without any tweaking big time, all natural, as it is. In my experience, coarser natural snuff (coarsely powdered natural tobacco) begs for at least minor addition of alkalizer and salt, and for higher moisture content. I have no doubts it will turn out it’s great, done coarser, when I eventually give it a whirl (and I will give it a whirl someday, for sure!), but it’s a very rare case when I find natural tobacco delivering very satisfying amount of nicotine in its pure shape, so it’s a great time saver for me as well. It can’t be any simpler than this, just ground and sieved powder. I’m down to just three sticks, and already started to spare it (for I cannot neither buy them in this little town nor order them online, and the closest place with a probability to find Toscanos is at least 50 km away, which I’m not going to visit anytime soon, or maybe even 150 km away; I did a bit of looking around online and found a tobacco store in a neighbouring country which sells a pack of Classico for a tempting 7.50 €, but it’s 250 km away, lol). So, right now I’m taking Toscano, cut with raw Samsoun Oriental (50:50), which is less satisfying in nicotine in it’s pure shape, but still isn’t too bad for a raw powder, and some days ago I mixed some Toscano powder with Pueblo Classic and it was even more enjoyable than my current blend. That Pueblo makes a solid sniff as well, and when I’ll run out of Toscano, I’ll be sticking to it.

So, I’ve been propelled only by this pure fine powder of Toscano for a whole previous week, and now using it cut with other natural tobaccos. Absolute delight it is, my friend.

To be fair though, by the end of the week I have started to feel the heavy nature of this fire cured tobacco. It must be super rich in PAHs and not the safest option for a daily staple by any means. I probably couldn’t use it as a stand-alone snuff for months. But I’ll definitely procure another pack of Toscanos when I reach a tobacconist!

At least one of the remaining three cigars I’ll blend with a good handful coarse siftings of tobacco flour, accumulated from making many small batches of various snuffs, and reduce to a fairly fine powder for a toast. But I need to get my hands on some ammonium carbonate and calcium hydroxide first (and maybe some sodium carbonate 10-hydrate) to follow this recipe (I would be willing to use s.carb.10-hydrate instead of three times stronger anhydrous s.carb at the amount that old prescription calls for – I suspect that hydrate form was actually used there). Older descriptions of HDT and Irish #22 do mention fire cured tobacco and stem flour (which my coarse siftings, consisting mostly of leaf side veins and a bit of midrib, are akin to) in those blends.

And another one will I blend with a whole pouch of Pueblo Classic (79% Pueblo, 21% Toscano; Pueblo is 85% Virginia and 15% Burley, if my memory doesn’t fail). One third will be sniffed as is, two thirds will be turned to alkalized snuff (probably two kinds, finer and coarser).

The third one I’ll save as a treat for later, most probably for making alkalized coarse snuff from it without the addition of any other tobaccos.

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@volungw nice brother I am very happy you like it! I am too very cautious about not using it a lot cause of its fire cured nature. But yeah the nicotine is satisfying even without alkalization. I have made a coarse moist one from Toscanos using only some water and sea salt and some paraffin oil it still gives a nicotine buzz. I have also made one coarse grind alkalized with sodium carbonate and sea salt and turned out great too. Its one of the few tobaccos that alkalization isnt a must but an option I think maybe the pH of it is already right or the leaves are alkalized by fermentation prior to rolling them into cigar (cheroot).

By the way I totally agree that it blends beautiful almost with all snuffs. It blends beautiful with Pueblo snuff, Toscano is a little overpowering but I can still get the Pueblo aromas and the Toscano ones from a 50:50 fine grind blend of both.
I have also mixed it in High Dry Toast and made it smoky.
It blends better with Pueblo snuff because when mixed with High Dry Toast it overpowers it completely it feels like taking a toned down Toscano. But the mix with Pueblo gives me both the smoky bbq toscano aroma and the virginia sweetness of Pueblo.
I too love Pueblo for snuff.

When you are gonna make a coarse one, cut a Toscano in half first, and use only half Toscano for a non alkalized one (add only sea salt to help it feel good in the nose and water).
The coarse one without any other tobacco blended in is getting better over time it smells very “black” . Satisfying and tasty.

When I first made snuff from Toscanos I only produced micro-batches from half a Toscano at a time.

Anyways, I am very happy you liked it! As you said I dont know if it is clever to snuff Toscano all day everyday because of its Fire cured nature, but for sure is a nice treat now and then or a nice component for blending with other tobaccos.

Cheers my friend

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So today I grinded some natural additive-free rolling tobacco. I am enjoying some pinches as it is. It is completely dry straight out of the coffee grinder and the grind seems fine but its easy to take for a toast type of snuff. Tobacco aroma is nice.

I would love to maintain that yellow color of this tasty tobacco flour. It is more yellow bright color than it looks in the pics.
Every time that I had alkalized a bright tobacco flour with some water it darkens the snuff’s color even when drying it out completely.

Will the alkalizers fuse with tobacco particles over time without adding water?
Is dry mixing alkalizers an effective way to alkalize tobacco flour?

Thanks in advance snuff makers!

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https://www.snufftabak.com/resources/articles/catalogue-of-recipes-for-snuff-tobacco.html

Here I found a catalogue of old recipes!

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I really wish procuring raw tobacco leaves in my country was legal.

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@Johano me too my friend! Alternative to raw tobacco leaf (which I wish I could buy too) cigars make a very good homemade plain snuff!
Welcome back to the forum mate!

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If it’s really dry, close to bone-dry, fusion is out of question, but… it’s not even necessary with fine flour. See, looking into it purely technically, finely ground alkalizer present in dry mix (homemade carbonate, Na or K, tend to be rather grainy and you need to grind them to fine powder in such case) dissolves in nasal fluids and instantly buffers pH sufficiently for nicotine absorption. That’s exactly what dry ashed snuff (Amazonian rapeh) is about. Same can be done with pure alkalizers which are safe for snuff - any of them. Using pure alkalizers, instead of simply mixing two dry powders (making rapeh - ash and rustica) - finely milled tobacco and finely ground alkalizer(-s), you would need to pound them together with mortar and pestle, not sparing on elbow grease. Ideally (for a wellbeing of your nose), till no crystals / grains / flakes of alkalizer are visible. Ball mill would do a very nice homogenizing job here.

Indian white snuffs are exactly this - a mixture of dry calcium alkalis and dry tobacco.

In Indian Madras snuffs dry alkalis are incorporated with oil-roasted tobacco by pounding. Sometimes you can clearly see tiny crystals of ammonium carbonate and white flakes of calcium hydroxide in snuffs of that type.

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Thanks for enlighten me @volunge !

I have made some hape a year ago from toque rustica and oak wood clean ashes and it is still a nicotine bomb. I rarely snuff this though, but when I do I prefer to do it with a homemade disposable kuripe (short plastic bendable drinking straw) it is a strong snuff experience that lasts for 10-15 minutes.

Anyway I ended up dissolving the alkalizers in a small amount of water first and then mix it really well with the yellow flour and it didnt change the color of snuff that much as I thought it would. Beautiful homegrown (not from me) virginia rolling tobacco unprocessed with no additives. The toast snuff I made is very pueblo like maybe more grassy hay like.

I made a toast one fine almost dry and yellow, another not so fine grind and oiled with paraffin one (consistency and grind of Poschl snuffs) and a small amount of fine grind fake hape (virginia+ashes)…

Nothing special about the tobacco, feels and smells a lot like Pueblo!

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Welcome back, @Johano! Nice to see you around and good to hear you have mended your nose. I second to ALLex, additives-free cigars make brilliant snuff. It’s a pity they are a bit pricey where you’re at – I have looked up on Polish online stores for those I have tried and loved. Poschl Pueblo Classic additives-free rolling tobacco is quite affordable, though, and you can mix it with Toscano Classico and Jose L. Piedra, or those previously mentioned by @ALLex (by the way, Pueblo Classic makes delicious snus, which I’ve been cooking every now and then for a year already). To check if the cigar of your interest is additives-free, you can use BMEL data base. Pure cigars have only one additive - a minuscule amount of glue (“tylo”). If you happen to re-visit Italy, do yourself a favour and stock up on Toscano and Jose L. Piedra cigars, they are very cheap there.

Also, it’s still reasonable to order whole leaf from Germany from eurotabak.de. My two orders were delivered to doors by DHL, I got an impression they have bypassed customs altogether (both boxes came without any declaration stickers). Even with 20€ delivery fee and recent minor rise in price per kilo it’s still a great deal and huge money saver. If delivery fee you find too costly, I’m sure you could find some local parcel forwarding company which assigns you some German address which you use for ordering, and then they deliver it to you, using their own means. That might reduce shipping costs up to two times. Such service is very popular in Lithuania, many compatriots of mine use it for procuring various commodities from Polish and German online stores (which either don’t ship to LT, or charges way too much for delivery).

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