I have made snuffs from various tobaccos, cigarette, pipe, cigar. I have tried the plain tobacco flour, I have alkalized them with a couple of percent by weight washing soda, added salt, aged or not aged them etc. They look, smell and taste just like commercial snuffs, but there is one difference- they are really sneezy! It seems like no matter what the particle size or moisture content, I feel like I have snorted cayenne pepper! Any ideas?

i found this too when i tried once with a flavoured rolling tobacco and a cigar i didnt like the taste of. though i noticed the tobacco seemed to have ‘sharper’ edges than commercial, and i believe it triggered a nosebleed (i get them regularly anyway-deviated septum). maybe let sit with moisture to soften it? i really dont know, but im interested to find out.

Me too, I have over a pound of the stuff and I was really looking forward to experimenting with flavorings etc. I don’t think it’s a problem of it being physically sharp, as one batch I made from cigar tobacco has been sitting in a sealed jar for over 18 months and has fermented quite a bit. It is also very moist, so much so that I had difficulty snuffing it, and would need to be dried a little before use. Why would a tobacco that has fermented in a moist environment for a year and a half burn like the dickens? Too much ammonia maybe? I’ll try drying some out and allowing the ammonia to dissipate and give it another go. Even so, that still doesn’t explain why the cigarette tobacco burns so bad. It hasn’t fermented (it is also 18 months old but I added no moisture) so there’s no ammonia in that one.

Same happened to me when I dried and pulverized some aromatic pipe tobacco…it doesn’t seem “sharp”, but its really sneezy. Smells good though.

I may have spoken too soon. I tried them this morning before work, and it turns out I was having a similar (though not quite so bad) problem throughout the morning with my old standby, Wilson’s SP. My nose seemed to calm down a bit throughout the day, and when I tried some more just now, it wasn’t nearly as bad. Maybe my nose was just a little irritable in general today, perhaps because of pollen in the air or something. My home made snuffs are still more sneezy than commercial ones, just not as big a difference as I first thought. Any suggestions for reducing the sneeziness are therefore still very welcome.

Relative particle size can be important. You should be using a sieve to get somewhat of a standard particle size. Grinding with a pestle is also helpful in rounding off sharper edges that metal blades (whirl and bur) can produce.

Relative to what? Do you mean relative to each other, ie the particle size should be uniform? I use a mortar and pestle and a fine-mesh sieve. I don’t know exactly what grade of mesh, but it appears to give a similar grain size as snuff sieved through pantyhose.

FOUND; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02861035?LI=true#page-1 SNUFF BRAZIL 101, it’s in the ash mannn! I see a future purchase

http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/5205/how-is-snuff-produced first method- try the last step.

@Firestarter0 That makes sense, rounded grains would indeed be more comfortable. How would one go about doing that?

i dont know… perhaps in a method similar to grinding, but softer, with less pressure… im going to have to think on it, i want to try it.

Closest thing I can think of is the ‘corning’ of gunpowder. It is moistened and sieved, causing it to clump together in grains known as ‘corns’. I don’t think this would be helpful with snuff though.

perhaps try firmly rolling a bit round on a hard surface before snuffing or something.

Adding the moisture while finishing off in the mortar works well for rounding off the edges for me.

I’ll give that a try and report back…