No, I’m not trying to turbo charge commercial snuff in an attempt to get the ultimate nicotine buzz! If I buy some whole tobacco leaf to make into snuff, should I add alkaline ingredients to the basic flour? I’ve heard baking soda can be used, but from what I gather, commercial manufacturers use other compounds. Can someone give me a brief alkalizing 101?
Deleted post since I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about!
@ doctorbead: To alkalise tobacco you can use products like potash and salmiak. The amounts differ, 1% to 3% is used in different proportions. Disolve these products in water, about 10 - 15% of the amount tobacco used. In warm surroundings the mixture will start to ferment. To stop this fermentation add about 10 - 20% kitchen salt. Good luck wih your experiments. Jaap Bes.
There you go, he should know! That is exactly what I do. Very concise. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Thanks guys, that’s exactly what I wanted to know. I happen to have some potash already (I make black powder occasionally) so that’s ideal. So does the alkalizing process bring about the fermentation then?
Wait, I just reread your post @snuffmiller- surely you don’t mean 10-20% by weight of salt? Is the fermentation a desirable thing, or is it best to stop it dead in its tracks?
Ok, now it gets complex! No keep water 10 to 15 %. Keep salt at 1/2 to 1 %. Fermentation occurs while moistened with PH solution at WARM temps. This develops complexity in the tobacco taste, and enhances nicotine uptake. The byproducts of fermentation can be undesirable TSNA’s. You want some, not too much fermentation. This is where it becomes an art form as much as a process. I grind whole leaf, using water to dissolve small amount sodium carbonate, set it aside in a warm place. Check it daily. Add small amount of salt and begin some aging at cooler temps. This makes snuff. Screw it up enough times and you begin to learn to make good snuff. Make great snuff every day and you become snuffmiller! @snuffmiller- If the 10 to 20% salt is correct then please advise! I never add that much. Do a search for snuffgrinders blogs.
@doctorbeat- Remember a lot of great snuffs are made with tobacco taken from the heart of large bales where natural fermentation has occurred with age/shipping. That is hard to duplicate with whole leaf. I would give anything to have a large amount of tobacco to select from, nothing like the center of a five hundred pound hogshead of year old tobacco. I spent a day at a storage warehouse and have never forgot watching it being sorted out.
Baleheart snuff!
@Whalen: right, got it. Why don’t you try bagging it really well and bury it in a fermenting compost heap?
@doctorbeat - very same principal, although you would not want any outside microbes from the “heap”. I think you really are on to a process, I have a huge heap around the corner that is steaming away. My luck someone would find it right away, but now you have me thinking! Brilliant idea actually, you could not ask for better conditions to ferment the raw snuff in.
Couldn’t you use an egg incubator and avoid the inherent problems (blech!) of the heap? I would think that would keep the tobacco warm but not cooking.
@whalen: well I guessed that a large bale of tobacco that was naturally fermenting would basically be a compost heap of tobacco. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to isolate the tobacco from the compost, maybe double bag it tightly and put it in a sealed mason jar? I take it the fermentation process is anaerobic? Is there any other alkalyzing agent I could use? I just found out that potash isn’t what I thought it was (potassium nitrate, I got confused with salt of potash, or saltpeter) and I am having trouble finding washing soda (sodium carbonate) Would slaked lime (calcium carbonate) work? What about the original idea of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, or more correctly, sodium hydrogen carbonate)?
@doctorbeat - Potash should be potassium carbonate. I use sodium carbonate, washing soda, since it is an approved additive for snus also. I stay away from baking soda, since that would just be too damn easy! Actually I believe it is not the best to use. Slaked lime is pretty high PH and should be used with caution. I spent quite some time researching all of this one time and wanted Potash, settled for Sodium Carbonate. The trick is that all of these agents have different PH levels and will need to be adjusted accordingly, and slaked lime can just fry sensitive nasal tissue. So please get some further input on this other than my word, there is good reason to use the right product. I have forgotten more than I have retained, and today is not a good day for me to revisit. Sorry for that, I have some emergency work that just jumped up and bit me on the butt.
Yes, The stuff I have is potassium nitrate, most often called ‘saltpeter’ but sometimes called ‘salt of potash’, which is how I got it confused with ‘potash’. I also got calcium carbonate wrong, it’s not the same thing as slaked lime, slaked lime is sodium hydroxide. Confound these archaic names! It seems to me like you know what you’re talking about, so I’ll continue the quest for washing soda. So far I have tried three drugstores and one supermarket with no luck, but when I do manage to find some, one box will be several lifetime’s supply :o)
@doctorbeat & whalen: The 10-20% kitchensalt is used to kill the microorganisms and stop the fermentation. Making snuff is still as in the old days: experimenting with fermentation. Indeed things as humidity, temperature, pH, available nutrients (sugar, melasse syrup), available microorganisms (addition of wine lees), availability of oxygen will influence the outcome. We are now in the last phase of experimenting (nearly two years now) with “Karotten” to produce the historical St. Omer No. 1. Jaap Bes.
I bet that St. Omer No. 1 is going to be some special snuff. So just to be sure, do you mean 10%-20% dry weight of salt? As in if you had 100g of snuff, you’d add 10-20g of salt?
Normally fermentation does require oxygen however there is an anaerobic aging that pipe smokers have known about for years. I have not been able to find out any details about anaerobic aging of tobacco as of yet. None of the blenders of pipe tobacco that I know use this process. It is just something that pipe tobacco cellar enthusiasts have discovered as effective. Great thread by the way. If I may suggest @doctorbeat you may be interested in using snus recipe times and temperatures to create a Rappee like snuff (ie. SG KB). I have done so using plain Scotch snuff (Bruton) with excellent results.
A rappee is an excellent idea. I don’t know much about snus, so it didn’t occur to me to try snus recipes. Time to do some research…
Just remember that the American Scotch snuffs already have salts (alkalizers) in them.