Ok, I live in St. joseph Mo which is not all that far from Weston Mo where they have Tobacco barns, yes the stuff grows in fields down here, especially around Weston and I believe north of here as well. I imagine that you would have to know a bit about fermentation of tobacco, and if that is the case, well I started a dumb discussion. BUT…if you can put some tobacco in a blender and walk off and leave it for a few minutes and let it turn to dust pretty much, then…wouldn’t that be snuff? I have not tried, but it is possible they would sell some to you, then again, they may want you to buy a big amt. I myself have some "Twist’ tobacco and that stuff is hot as a firecracker. By that I mean it is POTENT and burns your mouth, I can only imagine what that stuff would do to your nostrils and nasal passages. What they grow around here is “Burley” which is pipe tobacco, maybe used for other things for all I know. I guess I should leave the making of it to those who know HOW to make it. The video of the Wilsons on Sharrow mill making snuff is pretty neat. I think it is on Youtube. take care.
Do a search, there are several threads on the topic ranging from making it from various other types of tobacco products to growing your own. Ken
Hey, greybeard There’s been quite a bit of talk about making snuff here. Just see the search: making snuff for example. The first snuff I ever tried was my own make. Ground some Old Dublin pipe tobacco. It was ok then, but now I much prefer the readymades.
Curious, if you never had tried snuff before, then made it yourself, how would you know how spot on you are? I just find that interesting, don’t read into it as criticism please. I seem to get that a lot. Ken
_“Curious, if you never had tried snuff before, then made it yourself, how would you know how spot on you are?”_Well, I didn’t. I just followed the instructions I read on a pipe news group and tried the result, and was quite pleased with it. Later, when I ordered some real snuffs I could tell the difference in quality and therefore scrapped my own production line. It was interesting though.
Just saying you are braver than I. I keep meaning to grow some plants and try it, at least I have a basis of comparison, without one I would be gun shy. Ken
The reason I wondered about it is I have some firecured Twist and I saw that they made snuff using “ropes” which look alot like twist, but of course it has been fermented and aged by folks who actually know what the hell they are doing. Again, I shall buy ready made, and be happy with that. Although I think my homemade beer beats storebought any day of the week. Cheaper too.Always nice to know these things, I wondered about making it, now I know better…thanks for the posts
Those twists would make great snuff!
I’ll just close this thread as it got to no place.
lofat: If that plant of yours is a N. rustica, the leaf is strong enough to use for snuff without topping etc. Try picking some leaves, let them yellow in the sun, then finish drying them in the oven at no more than 150oF. Then just grind and sieve. The midribs can still be a little green.
@snuffgrinder: What about the whole ‘curing process’? Not needed? Last yr I grew a bunch of nice plants but the curing process, old refrigerator/humidifier/time/ etc…, just wasn’t feasible for me at the time. Your post indicates this is not necessarily needed? Tom
Tom, all, I am also a humble hobbiest grower of tobacco, and have learned first hand that a proper cure is the true “Art” of the leaf! It is a weed and grows well just about anywhere, I live in Maryland, and have had a fascination with the curing of tobacco since I saw my first curing barn! I have spent hours talking with the farmers and to a man they distinctly said it was all about the curing, that is why the leaf would undergo bid inspection and sold by batches. The purchasing agent was looking for just the right cure in the leaf for his intended user and blend. And the process of placing cured tobacco in a hogs head and storing was the final act that really allowed the tobacco to sweat and develop. Maryland tobacco was a premium tobacco and was air cured from rafters. I have seen pictures of hogs heads shipped over seas by boat, and the tobacco is dark and rich at the time it is split open, no substitute for that. Watch one of the Wilsons factory videos and see what the rounds look like when they first split them at the factory, heavenly! There are places here in the region where there are half a million pounds of hogs heads just sitting around for months. We unfortunately have had a severe drought here, just devastating, but I was able to place a mesh bag over all my Rustica plants and let the leaves cure on the plant in the yard. They look perfect that way!
There are snuff making & curing methods that developed outside the western European/American tobacco tradition, & some of these are still in use today. I’ve had some success in experimenting with them.
This short video Fumo en corda shows rope tobacco being made in Brazil from stemmed leaf that’s still pretty green. It turns black after after further processing and aging. This finished product is use for homemade snuff and “straw cigarettes” in Brazil.
I emailed the Weston Tobacco barn in Weston MO. this past weekend to enquire about getting some of the burley they sell there. I am sure that they have quite a bit of it that is, well, floor debris and for my needs might work fine. I am starting to get the idea that in the whole situation it is so much nicer to buy it ready made, IE…Fribourg and Treyer makes several that I am DYING to try, Macouba, and Morocco, both sound really nice to me. I want to get some of the Poschl SF Sudfrucht, and some 5 photo Himalay and super himalaya as well. even with me snuffing all day long, I figure that the most I actually ‘snuff’ all day is perhaps a gm or so. I cateloged what I have on hand now, and DAMN, I have I think close to 450gms to 650gm. I think I have enough to last a bit. I do tend to horde stuff sometimes.
Nice bibs, Greybeard! I wear them everyday for work.
Keep growing that Burley, i love me some Prince Albert. As far as making my own, my only attempt was w/Mac Barren Honey and Chocolate(pipe tobacco). I toasted it in a pan over med heat untill it began to smoke, removed from the pan directly, and ground it in w/a morter and pestile. It was very similar to Dholakia Swiss Chocolate.
Actually that is not me, I am better looking you must agree…and more humble too. I have never tried growing tobacco, but they say it takes the same sun etc as growing tomatoes. I did however make some snuff the old fashioned way today. I keep hearing about folks using a rasp and a ‘carrotte’ of tobacco and making snuff that way. I had some ‘mummified’ dry as a bone Stoker fire cured natural twist chewing tobacco that I bitched about paying 8 bucks for. I thought, well I have this small metal rasp, why not give it a shot, came out really course. So I put it in a shot glass and being inventive used one of those wooden pegs like you see made into coat racks. It worked out nicely What I ended up with was this dark as hell snuff that still was courser than garrett or other snuffs, but it is about as fine as I can make it without a mortar and pestle. Once upon a time I had one, but who knows where it is now. Now for how it was. I like it alot, got a big hit of nicotine and it smells grand. If that is what ‘high toast’ snuff is like, I would love it. I am going to get more of it thru the dealer that had this twist. I called Stoker and alas they are now defunct. I did a lot of business with them for cigarette tobacco and chewing tobacco etc. It is a shame that they are no more. By the way, I got my ebay snuff bottles today, they are really nice.
I picked up two mortor and pestle’s from the local food co-op for $10 and $15 bucks. Next spring I want to get with some of the Hmong employee’s I know and ask to grow a couple of Thuoc Lao plants myself as I asked them too late this year. I have a very colorful garden I call edible landscaping as I grow exotic veggies, I would love to have several different tobacco’s in there too. Unfortionatly the tobacco shed on my one hunting lease was recently torn down, I’ll have to research how to build a small one, or convert my ice-house into one in the summer. I’m also going to check out the whole pig head idea as we have a large number of pig farms in the area. Any ideas on what kinds of tobacco to obtain for snuff? It has to be compatable with Wisconsin, but we used to grow a lot of tobacco that was used in chew. I’ve had success with grinding my Thuoc Lao from Toque almost as fine a Dholakia White, and recently added tobacco from a “Acid” cigar, pretty good. I’d like to come up with something original so any suggestions would be awesome.
I made one, not sure I shared it here before…garrettes sweet snuff as a base, then I threw it into an old copenhagen container with some wintergreen breath mints. been about a month or so…STRONG AS HELL, no kidding. I mixed a small amount, (BIG pinch of each, less than a gm total TOQUE menthol and garrette sweet wintergreen mix…BOY oh BOY will this stuff open your sinuses…WHEH…not too shabby. BUt not one of my favorites. Gonna try different mixes with the garretts sweet my local grocery ordered for me. I have some Frontier herbs…Sasasfras root bark that I am gonna mix with a can of garrettes sweet. Probably with some gauze or some cloth. It is ole stuff, maybe older than 3 yrs old. But if I can rejuvinate it, then I will add the sweet snuff an we can see if it was worth any effort at all.