After my recent panic buying brought on by those EEC nerds in Brussels, ably assisted by our UK representatives I have run short of preserving jars etc. for long term storage.

I have hit on the idea of storing my bulk snuff in beer bottles.  

 As I brew my own beer  I have loads of clean bottles and new crown corks, also the gadget to crimp them on with.

Brown glass bottles filled to the top and airtight closures,  all on the cheap.

I cannot see any problems with the method but if anyone has tried this before and did experience anything untoward please let us know.

As an aside from the storing .  

 I wonder if snuff sales soared in the last couple of weeks, totally negating any reductions that the bureaucrats had hoped to accomplish? 

I don’t see you running into any problems other than the annoyance of having to seal them back up every time you take snuff out of them but other than that they should be just as good as mason jars if not better.

Grolsch flip top bottles are Ideal, I am a brewer myself and the flip top bottle will work better if you have a few, if not go buy a carton of beer & that will give you 4 bottles + the beer mind you LOL. But what you are planning will work fine as 9inch stated you will have to replace the bottle cap every time you open to get a bit of snuff out. G’Day

I have in a similar quandary with not enough storage jars. My intention is to leave some untouched in their packaging until the New Year, and decant them across as and when funds allow me to get additional containers. Snuff stays perfectly fine on a shop/warehouse shelf for months at a time, so I see no reason why it won’t do the same at home.

I have strong doubts about plastic for long term storage.

In my home brewing experience I learned from experience and a brewing forum called   jimsbeerkit    that plastic is no good for long term storage of beer.

The plastic bottles that we buy lemonade, cider, beer and other fizzy drinks in are only for short term storage on the shop shelf and a few weeks in your pantry.  

I have a few bottles left of very strong, home brewed Russian Stout I made four years ago, still OK today but this will be its last Christmas. Obviously stored in capped glass bottles, kept in the cool and dark.

Plastic bottles obviously hold the liquid in fine, also the carbon dioxide that gives the fizz.  The down side is that oxygen passes from the outside in, slowly damaging the beer inside.

TigerJackshere  has a good idea with the Grolsch bottles, if you like the stuff.

 50ft-trad   I think you should invest in a crate of Grolsch ,or better still a few crates of Grolsch in the run up to Christmas.  Christmas gives you the excuse to splash out a bit more cash on booze than you would otherwise.

Cheers in advance.

I only intend to leave the snuffs in plastic packaging short term. On Amazon.co.uk there are multipacks of small jam jars which look like they might be an option. 36 x 4oz jars (roughly 110ml) were less than 20 quid, and the prices for 8oz jars seemed even better. Wilkos have got bail topped jars on offer on their website at the moment, so I might have a wander into town tomorrow and see what they’ve got in store.

Bail topped jars.   Are those the ones with the wires around the lid that are levered closed?

If they are,  half fill them with water, close the lid and invert the jar,  give them a good shake to see if any water comes out.  I have had a good few from Ikea and B&M stores that leaked like a sieve.

Had a few jars of home made jam go off last year due to the same problem.

The easy fix was to bend the hinge wires on the body down and also the hinge part of the lever.

Much better seal after doing that.

I have quite a bit of bulk snuff in them.

@ArtChoo If you’re quick, you can order 50 x 110ml jars for less than 12 quid! Larger quantities are even cheaper. I just placed an order for 50 this evening. http://www.jarsandbottles.co.uk/glass-bonta-jar-125ml-66mm-twist-off-cap

If your in the states mason jars at your local Dollar Store are the best jars and cheap enough at these stores . G’Day

That’s all my  250g tubs  transferred to glass now.

I now have about a fifteen Fribourg and Treyer  in the original aluminium tubes and half a dozen Wilsons of Sharrow in 25g steel tins to put into long term storage.

I have heard of rusty tins and powdery corrosion of the aluminium tubes. Anybody experienced these problems recently or are they things of the past?

If possible I would like to keep them in the original containers but I would hate to see them get contaminated, especially my eight tins of F&T Old Paris.  Not every ones cup of tea but obviously one of the best in my opinion.

I have spent a small fortune (for me anyway) on snuff these last few weeks and do not want to see my investment go down the drain in the future.

Any advice and experience will be greatly accepted.

Cheers.

@ArtChoo

I lost one tin of Old Paris to corrosion, there are two F&T snuffs that are very prone to corrode their tins, one is Santo Domingo and Old Paris is the other.

My advice is that you put it asap into glass jars of some kind.

I’ve used bail top jars with the wire secement for pipe tobacco once. I went to open it and the tobacco was dry. The rubber seal dried up and went bad. That maybe due in part where I live. I live in Arizona where it is pretty dry.

I’m not overly concerned about it drying out a bit. Snuff can always be rehydrated. I’m more concerned about mould. I have lost moist snuff to mould before (once with Old Paris, twice with Santa Domingo, and a couple of SWS went furry too), even when kept in glass jars. I’ve just transferred my Grand Cairo, Best Dark, Brunswick and Burgundy to 125ml jam/chutney jars, so even if one jar goes mouldy, I still have three or four more to fall back on. Just waiting for another batch of jars to dry after cleaning, so I can get some more snuffs ready for hibernation.

I’d also rather deal with rehydration than have to deal with mould. I’d rather not have to deal with either though.

That perished rubber seal must have been off an old Kilner jar.  Kilners are the old british equivelant of Mason jars, not sure if Kilners are still made today.  All the new jars that I have looked at recently have had silicon rubber seals, much more reliable than the old rubber band type material used for earlier sealing rings.

I have a small bottle of carbon dioxide for gassing up  home brew beer kegs.   If I could  fit a controllable tap to it I could give each jar a quick blast of CO2 and hopefully keep mould at bay.

Big problem is not blowing all the snuff out of the jar at the same time. Could end up in a sandstorm of snuff.

:))

I used the swing type bale jar. That was only a few years ago, but it was a rubber seal. Since that incident, I use small mason jars now and haven’t had a problem. I don’t think the co2 would work, unless you devised a hookup do you can’t blast the snuff ou.t

If you are set on the CO2, You could play around with dry ice. With bulk grain storage, some people will drop a small piece of dry ice just before sealing up the bag. As it melts, it releases CO2. I don’t know how that would work with snuff, but a bit of experimenting might answer it. 

Going a little off topic here.

I read the other day in an encyclopaedia dating from around 1900 that ammonia is actually added to snuff to act as a preservative.

I always thought that it was a natural by product of the snuff making process.

Does anyone know which is correct?

I think both could be right. I have read and been told that ammonia is a byproduct of tobacco in general. I have had some cigars that have had a slight ammonia smell, as well as some snuff tins. For the part of ammonia being added to snuff. Ammonia is a preservative. Ammonia also has an alkaline ph level. That would help increase the absorption of nicotine in the bloodstream. I don’t know if ammonia is still added to commercial snuff now. That would have to be answered by someone else.