I make my own snuffs and they are plain tobacco. Nothing added. But i see in commercial snuff recipes the addition of sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, calcium carbonate, ammonium carbonate and ammonium chloride.
I’ve read that they can enhance the nicotine delivery and the nose burn. I’d like to experiment
Can anyone tell me the difference between the five? Which one or ones are best to add? What difference will it make?
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Thanks for any help.
Graeme
Any ideas?
Now that you have tried plain natural tobacco powder (your own additives-free snuff), you are already familiar with both kinds of snuff - alkalized (all currently manufactured snuffs with the exception of some non-factory made artisanal snuffs and some schmalzlers are more or less alkalized) and non-alkalized (pure tobaccos).
You should be able to tell the difference by now and list some pros and cons of both kinds.
If you still have interest in making snuff and would like to make factory grade snuff, go ahead and make some small test batches of alkalized snuff (10 g batch is a perfect amount).
All the carbonates, calcium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide (mind you, out of all hydroxides only these two are used for nasal tobacco) are alkalis. Ammonium chloride is acidic compound; in snuff it reacts with the added alkalizer and releases gaseous ammonia (which is also alkaline). Each compound (bar ammonium hydroxide and ammonium chloride) can be used as a standalone alkalizer, but reasonable combination of different compounds gives better result. Wood ash is great natural mixture of water-soluble and non-soluble alkalis and perfectly fits the bill for fine dry snuffs.
Sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate are most common snuff alkalizers nowadays, usually added to snuff as aqueous solution, dissolved in water with sodium chloride (yes, common cooking salt). They have very similar alkalizing potential, but differ in taste and solubility (potassium carbonate is more water-soluble - two times greater amount can be easily dissolved in same amount of cold water).
Calcium carbonate (chalk) and calcium hydroxide (slaked lime) as primary alkalizers are more commonly used for Indian snuffs. Calcium alkalis are virtually insoluble in water.
Ash as a single alkalizer is added to Amazonian rapeh and Maghrebi (neffa) type fine dry rustica snuffs (works just as good with stronger N. tabacum varieties, like cigar leaf). If you like strong fine dry snuff and happen to have some clean firewood ash at hand, I wholeheartedly advise starting with ashed snuff - the most simple, fastest, really straigthforward and super effective route. All you need to do is to sift your wood ash through a fine sieve with aperture size of 150 micron (or finer) and thoroughly mix it with fine and dry tobacco powder. Start with 1 part ash to 4 parts tobacco powder ratio (by volume); increase the part of ash, if needed (up to 1:1).
(to be continued)
Humectant such as glycerol and propylene glycol prevents snuff from drying out by keeping it moist and gives the flavor and shining and also reduce the capsicum that burns our nose