I finally made a snuff that didn’t have that amateurish hint to it. It was one of my earliest batches that was aging for a couple months and I finally finished the last steps last weeks and bottled it. I just tried some right now and wow, I might get hurt patting myself on the back, I’m really impressed. Scent is great and grind is ideal. And whoa, I’m sweating, nic is high high high. I might want to save this for an end of day treat, but damn, I’m having a hard time not spooning more as I write this. Base tobacco was Nicaraguan ligero aged at least 6 years before I got it. Excuse me while I sit here on cloud 9 for a little bit and enjoy
Awesome! Something I definitely want to try!
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I’m still learning but this was the first that I was like wow, this isn’t entirely amateurish. Still a ways to go before I’d ever be confident enough to send something out for someone to sample though. Maybe in the future will send out some samples and look into what it takes to sell some snuff. Organic Green Mountain Snuff anyone?
Bah I hate the buzz word organic, I’d never say that.
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Firstly, well done @snuffsahoy Secondly, I think ‘organic’ is a huge plus!
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Omgroma, I grow my own tobacco, I could try a batch grown to organic standards but the hype behind the buzz word is just to line bureaucratic pockets. End of next season I’ll grow some start to finish specifically for snuff using organic ideals, might sell some if I can figure out the legality of it since I live in the us.
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@snuffsahoy Congratulations, you made it. I hope you will show some light to fellow amateur snuff grinders and provide some orientation about base-salt-water-baccy rate. You do know that all info available is somewhat confuse about proportions for a good basic snuff. Dont forget about the rest… [-O<
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Juxtaposer’s ratio is perfect IMO. 1/4 cup flour, 1/8 alk, 2tsp liquid. I’ve started adding more water for the first process then drying back down, otherwise the difference is in the blending/saucing and aging and when to do which part. from what I have found out thus far those are the variables or the top secret part of the recipes hence why they’re never shown I guess. Just jump in with both feet and start experimenting. You can get 5 pounds of tobacco with free shipping from wholeleaftobacco for around 70 bucks, hard to go wrong with that. But juxtaposer definitely posted a great foundation to build on. I just wish my earliest batches were smaller, thinking of combining all and upping the pH and making snus of them all since that’s the only way I can think of using up the learning processes without wasting.
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for your failed experiments consider using them to make a brew and treating fresh leaf with it as Johnny did when making Thrice Brewed:
Thrice Brewed
During the 18th century, a highly sought after snuff was made at Masulipatnam on the Coromandel coast of south east India and shipped to Fribourg and Treyer in claret bottles. I enclose a description from a periodical of that period:
It is made of the best tobacco produced in the district; the ** mode of preparing it is as follows: **
The leaves are cut into halves ** and the stem entirely removed. One half is dried in the sun and**
pounded into a coarse powder and the second half is boiled twice in ** salt water, and the juice extracted is used again in the place of salt water with a fresh supply of tobacco. When the juice becomes rather thick and gummy, it is poured into a big pot and left to cool. The tobacco powder is now put into large chatties and the juice, with which a little arrack has been mixed, is poured over the powder, and the preparation is allowed to stand for about a week. The snuff is then taken out and put into English wine bottles and it **is ready for exportation."
I have followed the description to the letter using Sumatra leaf and in essence, every Kg of milled snuff is sauced with a concentrate made from 2kg of leaf boiled in water salted with Maldon Sea Salt, to which a very small amount of Indian Arrack has been added. "
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This is a much better idea than my first. If I’m comprehending it right I take 1 part snuff attempt and boil it with an undetermined amount of water (enough to cover grinds?) Boil it for a period of time, then strain in a coffee filter I guess and put that water over a fresh 1 part of snuff attempt and let reduce (we’re making nicotine concentrate or an ambil here it looks like) then strain again and use this liquid to hydrate a new grind right? Would probably need to acidify the water so steam isn’t harmful. I might try this, but will definitely be careful not to touch the resulting fluid. Might be too much of a good thing. Most of my tobacco bases are around 4-5%+ varieties so an extract of a pound or so would be deadly. Might make a killer end of day(s) snuff, no pun intended. Or maybe I’m just being a ninny hehe. Very intriguing for a batch done on the propane burner outside though, thank you.
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@snuffsahoy I think you mean 1/8 ts alkali to 1/4 cup of tobacco flour. 1/2 part alkali to 1 part tobacco would be too much!!! (Otherwise you have a galvanised nose… ).
Juxtaposer’s recipe is very helpful but uses volume ratio, and a weight ratio was said to be more appropiate. Anyway, for small amateur batches I think it will not mean a big difference.
Thank you both, @snuffsahoy & @Mouse for your help
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I made the thrice brewed today. Aroma right off the mix is interesting from the mix of burley red and VA red flour that was moistened with the boiled water from a whole slew of different tobaccos, the fours boiled were 4yr dark air, 8+yr one sucker, Nicaraguan ligero, criollo 98 ligero, yellow twist bud, green river, hell there are like 4 others in there at least, I can’t even remember right now. Sauce is a rich black sauce. Be interesting in a week. I added a lot to the powder which fluffed the grind into a pretty coarse one. No alcohol, I get tired of alcohol scented snuff so wanted to leave it out of the sauce.
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So I had reduced the sauce a little too much, I had ended up adding whiskey to get it to a syrup consistency. The thrice brewed, aged sufficiently, was sampled today. A big boxcar kind of blew the back of my head off. It’s pretty good:) My initial concerns about the dangers of reducing the sauce indoors were unfounded as I’m still alive. Great way to use up meh blends, thank you
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