Here is a basic recipe that can be used for making snuff.

ground and sieved tobacco flour 1/4 cup

distilled water 2 teaspoons

sodium carbonate (washing soda) 1/8 teaspoon

table salt 1/2 teaspoon

Dissolve soda and salt in water then add to tobacco flour.

Jar and let sit for one week.

That is it in a nutshell. This recipe is quite flexible and there are a ton of details but I wanted to start simple here.

Thanks to @snuffmiller a.k.a. Jaap Bes for the original recipe this is based on, See complete recipe here

http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/6008/snuffmillers-snuff-receipe#Item_27

Ingredients by mass fraction:

tobacco 65.7 %
water 21.7 %
salt 11.6 %
sodium carbonate 1 %

In all fairness you can simply grind up any tobacco and snuff it. A little water and salt can make it easier to snuff. A little of this and a little of that, you know how it goes. I’m going to go over the basic mechanics here first drying, grinding, sieving  and hydrating. Although these are not necessarily always done in that order. Then below I will go further in detail on different snuff types and methods for making those. I will also try to go on about tobacco varieties and some of their qualities as they apply to their use in snuff making. Also to be discussed will be non tobacco additives. Furthermore I will attempt to go through details on casings and scenting. Then finally some tips on how to use heat to your advantage. The goal here is to expand our knowledge on snuff and snuff making. Not only so that we can make our own snuff but so that we might more appreciate the snuff that we buy. I will try to answer some of the most frequently asked questions regarding making snuff further down on this thread. Suggestions, corrections, questions, and any relevant information regarding this thread are welcomed. As @Snuffster has suggested a thread like this is a good idea and can only enhance our beloved snuff house. I realize I am a sucker for volunteering and that I am in a bit over my head but I think with a little help from this community this will turn out OK. 

 MECHANICS OF SNUFF MAKING

DRYING; your tobacco will grind much easier and more fine if dry but in some cases this is not absolutely necessary. Drying quickly is a good idea so that your tobacco does not remain exposed to uncontrolled environmental impacts. Warm temperatures and good ventilation will do the trick. In an oven on low is an extreme method but if done carefully works well and can even add a toasted flavor if wanted. In the microwave if you must, I have heard it done successfully but microwave ovens are usually smelly and controlling temperatures is difficult. In a crock pot with the lid off works well. I like to put a metal bowl over the crock so that it gently warms as a fan gently blows across the top. You can also just simply leave your tobacco out to dehydrate. Just be sure that it will not be exposed to unwanted materials such as anthrax dust or avian bird flu virus etc… Drying tobacco is called taking it out of case. It is not just done for grinding but also done when wanting to have casings or flavorings absorbed. 

GRINDING; A mortar and pestle is the most useful tool I know for snuff making at home but for grinding up your tobacco you will want to use some kind of coffee grinder. Burr grinders are said to be the best if you get a good one. Burr grinders would be a good choice for a more consistent larger grind for making dip or snus or for snuff with an extremely gros grind. Although they do grind fine I do not find them as useful as blade grinders are because blade grinders can also be used for mixing. Also you can sharpen the blades if you want to. I suppose if you had to you could use a food processor or blender. Let us know how they work if you do. You would be ok with just using a mortar and pestle. Elbow grease and patience would be all you need. Some of the more difficult leaf parts can be tossed in the mortar for physical crushing. Another method of pulverizing tobacco is with a ball grinder. A ball grinder is a container containing ball bearings that is shaken and is said to be extremely effective at crushing tobacco. 

SIEVING; This is done in order to achieve a consistent flour. Sieving after grinding while the tobacco is still dry is much easier than sieving moist tobacco. There are reasons to sieve moist snuff though one of which is to de-clump it. I like to use a metal kitchen strainer that has a handle I can hold while I bounce my fingers off the rim to dance the flour through the sieve. A popular method is to cover a jar full of flour with a panty hose and shake out the finer particles.There are professionally made sieves with specific sizes if you want to be serious about this. Most tobaccos will allow a percentage through the sieve immediately. I have found this to be the softest sort and keep it separate from the rest. This I consider my top shelf snuff which can sometimes be as little as fifty percent of the flour. Tobacco that does not easily go through the sieve gets reground and sieved into seconds. Here crushing action can help further break down the tobacco. But you will notice that seconds do have a more rough texture to them. There is some leftover if you have been vigilant. This is usually thrown out but does have some uses. You might be sieving tobacco that has already been fermented or has little stem or vein material and which breaks down easily leaving no seconds. You may for some snuff not want to use sieve at all.

HYDRATING; Snuff needs to be at a certain level of moisture for consumption. Not difficult at all since tobacco easily absorbs it. We can take advantage of this characteristic by including casings or toppings in the provided moisture. To bring your flour back into case for fermentation or curing you can simply stir in prescribed liquids. *Use only uncontaminated ingredients such as distilled water.  Scent toppings can be done the same way but perhaps misting might be a better method for topping snuff that is already in case. Another good method would be to indirectly bring into case with a humidified environment. This can be as easy as putting a cover over a tin of snuff and a separate tin of water. This indirect method also works well for scenting snuff. Just replace the water with a scenting medium. Not all snuffs are the same when it comes to moisture levels and personal preference should play a major role.

SNUFF STYLES AND VARIETIES 

Not all snuff is made with tobacco as its main ingredient. There are a few herb based snuffs as well. There are also some dextrose based snuffs with menthol or guarana added. Of the tobacco sort there is a myriad of styles that can sometimes be categorized by the country of origin. I will run through a basic list with basic descriptions here to give some idea of the scope of snuff types.

 German Schmalzlers are a fermented brazil tobacco that is oiled and flavored. Dry English snuff usually scented with an ever expanding range of scents normally on a plain tobacco base but some use dark fermented and others have specialty tobacco types. Irish toasts are an interesting lot being very fine with a toasty tobacco scent.The medicated snuffs should also be noted using menthol, eucalyptus, and or camphor as the main attraction. India has a wide variety of snuffs some lightly oiled, some lightly mentholated, a lot of them have extremely complicated floral scenting that can be directly related to ayurvedic theory. Also from India is the ultra fine fermented white snuff. There are quite a few other traditional Indian snuffs as well as snuffs being made in India for the modern snuff market. The U.S. has run through a few snuff types itself leaving its Scotch snuff as the last man standing. This is a dry strong fire cured type that is generally unflavored except for the sweet variety which likely came about by the popularity of its use as dip. In South Africa there is a certain style of cut that is favored. A fine cut, not ground that is well fermented and very soft in the nose can be found called Gwayi. This is also available mentholated. Iceland with strict government controls has its very own variety called Neftobak. China, Japan, and other countries in the far east have their own snuffs too. Mostly family recipes handed down from generation to generation. It may be that we may never know of these as they are not for sale and younger generations don’t always carry on all traditions. However the Dutch windmills at Kralingse do carry on tradition and we are very fortunate having them finding and using ancient recipes to produce snuff with.

TOBACCO VARIETIES 

There are many different types of tobacco that can be used in snuff making. Cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snus, even chew or dip. These will all have different ways of being handled pertaining to the ingredients that are already in them. But this will not be the focus here but the specific varieties tobacco_ will_ be._ _Cues can be taken from these products as to what type of leaf combinations creates a certain flavor profiles. There are also different species of nicotiana that can be used for snuff the most notable being nicotiana rustica. Rustica has the highest nicotine content as well as having higher concentrates of other alkaloids that can have a notable effect. So much so that it would be advised that anyone on or should be on MAOI’s should avoid its use. The nicotiana tabacum species is most widely used for tobacco products and includes the following varieties to choose from and although each variety has a multitude of strains most have similar characteristics. 

BURLEY can be found in almost all tobacco products. It has a high nicotine content and very little sugar. It carries casings very well and makes a perfect base for snuff. Cigars are normally made entirely of air cured burley leaf which has been sweated and does make for good snuff. Burley can also be found as fire cured as well as specially fermented into what is called Perique.

VIRGINIA is a lighter, sweeter leaf that has much character when fermented or aged. Fire cured virginia leaf can be found but it is quite rare. It can be air cured too but for the most part virginia leaf gets flue cured which brings out the best of its qualities namely its golden color. Virginia and burley compliment each other well and can be found in combination for the base of most English snuffs.

TURKISH tobacco though not all grown in Turkey proper has a lot of the same characteristics. There are many strains each with their own twist in fact some distinct enough to be categorized as ORIENTAL. Turkish tobacco is generally sweet and oily with a strong herbal component with much less nicotine. Usually sun cured except for the famous latakia style of cure which is to smoke over an open fire of pine and other fragrant woods.

LATAKIA makes a great smelling snuff although on its own a little low in nicotine is so strongly scented that blending would only help. There is a Syrian and a Cyprian having minor but notable differences.

PERIQUE is a specific variety of red burley that is only harvested from a specific growing region. It is further processed using very specific fermenting techniques. Perique is wonderful as a snuff. It is very strong and a good snuff on its own but also makes a great blender with chameleon like characteristics.

Tobaccos are also known for certain characteristics by where they are grown for example you have MALAWI, ZIMBABWE, CAROLINA, MARYLAND, BRAZIL, CUBA and the list goes on. Even further if you start looking at cigar leaf varieties. Indonesian TAMBOLAKA is an example of an exotic type of fermented cigar leaf.

 NON TOBACCO ADDITIVES

There is a myriad of options when it comes to additives. Alkalizing agents, oils, humectants, stabilizing agents, preservatives, casings, and toppings. There is also the option of putting other powders from the herb, root, seed, bean, flower, leaf, fruit, etc. Perhaps animal, vegetable and mineral should all be considered . Don’t forget menthol crystals as a choice. A good snuff does not absolutely require any of these ingredients but this is the fun part of snuff making. A little of this and a little of that, you know. A good list to look at is the list of approved  tobacco additives as listed by the FDA. This list will give you an idea of what additives are considered as generally safe to use, however you must use caution regardless of what you are using. Here is the list. 

http://www.tobacco.org/Resources/599ingredients.html

ALKALIZING AGENTS will freebase the nicotine in your tobacco making it easier to be absorbed. Most of us will want some kind of alkalizing salt in our snuff. Sodium carbonate (washing soda) may be the best option for the home grinder. The desperate few will use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which does work but not as effectively and has a few undesirable qualities. Ammonium chloride (sal ammonmiak, salmiak) may be worth getting as it is commonly used in commercial snuffs. There is also potassium carbonate (potash), calcium hydroxide (slaked lime), calcium carbonate, ammonium carbonate, and who knows what else.

OILS can be added to make a certain style of snuff. Mineral oil is used for commercial products due to its long shelf life but Schmalz-ing at home can be without this concern. Coconut oil, sesame oil, clarified butter, even bacon fat can be used with reasonable shelve lives. Many other types of oils may be tried in small batches adding up to twenty percent by weight to your snuff. Just mix in a little at a time until desired results are achieved. Remember, scented oils are not for Schmalzlers but for scenting and are not used in the manner described above.

HUMECTANTS are normally used in dip and snus though not unheard of in nasal snuff. Propylene glycol, glycerin, polyols, sorbitol, xylitol, ethanol, and ethel alcohol are a few examples. Some of these (glycerin) can easily be added to your snuff for oral use if you like.

STABILIZING AGENT AND PRESERVATIVES would rarely be used by the home grinding man. Silicagel, paraffin, calcium hydroxide, potassium sorbate, ethyl ester I wouldn’t want to name any that you would use except for salt which also serves a threefold function as flavor enhancer. 

CASINGS like honey, molasses, maple syrup, cane syrup, invert sugar, treacle, sorghum, corn syrup, brown sugar, rum, licorice, fruit sauces and other liquids are sometimes added at amounts up to 15 percent* to hydrate tobacco These add an appreciable sweetness that can also fuel fermentation. Soaking, steaming, misting, and mixing, are some methods used. Generally speaking these types of casings are used to combat the sharpness or bitterness that tobacco can have. Not limited to sweeteners, casings may also include your alkalizers and aromatic ingredients or just plain water. Be sure that these are "pasteurized"or at least not contaminated with undesirable elements. Distilled water is ideal for use in hydrating snuff. *Overly hydrated snuff is easily dehydrated however you will not want to evaporate important scenting ingredients.

TOPPINGS are mostly added to scent a finished tobacco. Essential oils, absolutes, alcohols, and other scenting mediums can be misted on snuffs with an atomizer. Mixing in thoroughly can be difficult, especially with oils, so adding the scents to the casings to mix in is quite common. 

GUANO, RHINO HORN AND DIATOMACEOUS EARTH. Sure, why not? Well, this is an important question. There are quite a few things on this planet that you will not want in your nose. Do your home work! Even if someone else is putting 'so and so" in their own snuff. If you thought I was going to make a list here for you then I apologize. I will mention a few of my favorites though. Gotu Kola (Brahmi) is an herb I favor as a base for non-tobacco herb snuffs. Guarana seed powder is another one I like and usually mix fifty fifty with tobacco. Kava root, licorice root, calamus, angelica, saffron, echinacea, and goldenseal are some other powders I have. Once you start looking at the world through the eyes of a snuff maker you will find many options. Orris root is particularly interesting being used for as an additive to snuff in days of old.

MENTHOL crystals can be added to your snuff at 0.5% to 0.65% by weight. Be sure to dissolve the crystals first. 

SCENTING

Scenting your snuff does not always involve directly adding ingredients. Some scents can be transferred by simply leaving in a closed environment with your snuff. An example would be to put a cover over two separate containers one being your snuff and the other being your scenting material. In some cases (pun) you can hydrate a snuff with a fragrant humidity but it is not absolutely necessary your snuff be dry to be transferred a scent. Tonka beans, vanilla beans, mint species leaves, and various other things can also be put directly in your snuff box to add scent. Mixing in essential oils can be done with some scents. If using a combination it is best to mix the scents first before adding to snuff. The amounts used can vary widely and it would be wise to go one drop at a time. Scented oils which are not the same as essential oils may not be the best choice for mixing in directly and may be more suitable for the indirect method of scenting. The nice thing about making your own snuff is that you can choose your own natural ingredients for scenting. Or if you like you could try to make a snuff with the same scenting ingredients the big boys use. Like for Doppelaroma, it has ethyl acetate, triacetin, 3-methyl butyl acetate, iso amylvaleranat, and ethyl alcohol as aromatic agents. To be fair some of these ingredients do occur naturally but they just got them from the laboratory instead.

HEAT

FERMENTATION involves heat. Either generated by the mass of the tobacco itself or by artificial means. At up to 54 celcius or 130 farenheit sufficient moisture is also needed. Acquiring already fermented tobacco is a good option. However the adding of alkalizers does seem to activate the fermentation of tobacco. This certainly will not yield the same results as sweating and slow aging does but it is well worth experimenting with. This is our little secret. While smokers painstakingly sweat their tobacco in kilns and what not, we simply change the ph to “cook” our tobacco. 

BLACKENING; heating your snuff will cause a darkening of the tobacco in a process known as the maillard reaction. Temperatures of 50 to 75 celcius or 122 to 167 farenheit can be used to achieve this. The length of time in these conditions can be up to a whole week. This process will require at least twice the amount of water as tobacco involved. If interested I suggest looking into the many snus recipes available as this is exactly the process used by home snus makers to make their snus. Just vary the times and temperatures to get darker or lighter results. 

TOASTING your snuff will also require heat. Water is not used in toasting procedures. High temperatures at short periods of time will do the trick. I use my crock pot on its high setting. It is possible to toast at blackening temperatures but the length of time involved may not allow supervision so overcooking can be a risk factor. Toasted tobacco may smell bad. Do not be discouraged by this as this unfavorable scent will usually be gone after a week or so. 

MOLD

Mold can develop only under certain conditions. The high ph environment of snuff is not conducive to mold growth. If you are not adding alkalizers to your snuff then be sure to keep it on the dry side. Adding oils to snuff without salts is a good way to moisten them for more comfortable snuffing. I have used tobacco that has had slight mold growth and I have recouped snuff that had started to develop mold. You may not want to follow in my foot steps and that is understandable as some molds can produce toxic byproducts. What little mold I had I killed and there was no scent evidence to be had. Yes, there are more mold spores in it then I would like but mold spores are everywhere more or less any way. Enabling logic I suppose.

Good job getting all this in one place. Keep up the good work. Do you want me to move it into the FAQ section? I can delete this and any extraneous comments once there.

Great resource, very nicely done. Definitely for the FAQ when the Master has concluded:)

Maybe we could leave the comments and questions until it’s copied onto the FAQ?

Thank you VERY much! This thread has been bookmarked!

“I bought 50 gr of Celikhan raw tobacco. Celikhan tobacco was used for snuffmaking by turkish government company until 1980’s. Then the production stopped. This tobacco is very expensive $50 for 1 kg. It is moist and ready to smoke. I dried 50gr tobacco in microvawe for 20 minutes at the lowest heat. I ground it very fine like toque snuffs. For HDT i cook it untill some smoke appears. For scenting and maturing i use sodium carbonate and table salt 1/1 ratio (very small amounts) mix it with 2ml water. Add essential oils mixtures as you want. For plain snuff no oils. For scented 1-2 drops(it is like toque) For parfumed 6-7 drops (F&T like) and for exterem parfumed add 13-16 drops ( indian snuff like) if you want oil based use haff amount of paraffin instead of water. Mix them all with tea spoon. It doesn’t become like mud don’t afraid. It tastes salty but if you wait 24hrs at least salt disappears slowly.” copied from a @linguist post

Ohhhh I wish we had a “like” button.  

He’s so…masterfully snuffy

Great thread.  I’m about to plant some different tobaccos bound for grinding.  Really appreciate this info. 

Fantastic thread! I’ve bookmarked this one and it will be my bible going forward. Thanks @Juxtaposer!

I might be done here. I suppose there will be a few edits and additions I will do but for the most part I think I’m finished. If anyone thinks I left anything out please let me know. 

I’m really sketchy on the whole fermentation process. How do you track its progress? How do you know when to stop it? How do you stop it? If these questions are covered already I apologize, but I’ve missed it. Any addl info appreciated. I’ve made snuff by grinding prepared tobacco of course, but never from leaf, and that seems like the “real” way to do it. I want to. But I’m sure I’d hose the process right off by not understanding enough about the fermentation/curing process. Are these even the same thing? Sorry for being so dense.

Fermentation (the breakdown of the tobacco leaf) is very complicated yes, but it is something that happens automatically and naturally starting from when the plants are harvested. Extensive fermentation is there for you to experiment with but it is not necessary. 
I edited the recipe so now you have nothing to think about.

That is a great resource! Thank you.

Fantastic thread, still getting around to digesting it all.

How was that Guano snuff?

This has to be the most interesting and useful thread on this site, thanks Jux!

and I can no longer edit my posts on the mobile version.

This is an excellent thread !

Bookmarked !!

This is the most extensive piece of work about making snuff that I have ever come across. As the commercial producers don’t exactly give their secrets away, making your own snuff can be a daunting prospect. This shows it isn’t and it’s perfectly possible to make great snuff at home. 

Hopefully this can be trimmed of comments and put onto the FAQ as one body of text.

@snuffster I think @Juxtaposer has already begun something like that.

Just wanted to say thank you for the guide. I made some snuff from american spirit perique RYO tobacco using this basic recipe and it turned out great! Decent nic kick and a little burn.

The only difference is that I used baking soda instead of sodium carbonate, and I used 50% more of it (3/16 tsp total) because I read somewhere that’s what you need to achieve same PH as sodium carbonate.

I’ll try this next with some strong pipe tobacco. Oh and I was wondering… what are the “undesirable qualities” of using baking soda instead of sodium carbonate (washing soda)?

@gavin Baking soda has a slight scent and is less interactive with the tobacco. That’s about it though. American Spirit Perique is a great choice for making snuff. I ran into some mold problems with my ASP batch that was also alkalized with baking soda. I did not add any salt and I was keeping it way too moist. 

Seems that salt needs to be introduced pretty early in the process. I have been adding salt after 5 days of “making” the snuff. The salt seems to stop any unwanted growth. I give a free five day period for any thing beneficial to grow first.
 You know I went to  a lot of trouble to get the MSDS for the washing soda, lifetime supply of calcium carbonate for under $5. Pure stuff. I think baking soda is an evil and easy product, everybody has it, but not a good idea for snuff. I learned that the hard way BTW.

@Whalen Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate, right ?

Yep!

Not all snuff has salt or carbonates in the mix. Some snuffs rely more on the blending and cure aspects of the base tobacco. Sometimes it reads like you can’t have snuff without them, but it’s not always the case; there are good snuffs without either.

@Snuffster Can you tell us which snuffs are those with no added salts.

Dragun doesn’t, nor do the two other Draguns that will come out, hopefully, before winter. They are the only recipes I have access to but I would be surprised if DW and snuffs like that have much if any. One of the old FandT booklets quotes a blender saying that many of the original snuffs were nothing but blended tobacco. In an industry where people guard their recipes to the extent that only two people per generation know them, like WoS, it’s impossible to be certain. No disrespect to this excellent work, I’m really just saying that it’s not possible to state that all snuffs follow a standard chemical model.

I would imagine if you look for all the references to snuff making - not snuff use or general points, but the actual practice of manufacturing, that most of the literature is about European type snuffs and that most, if not all of the written sources are actually very old ones - give or take the odd bit of tobacco lit. that is not snuff specific. Probably very little on Indian types or ethnic variants apart from the odd remark or paragraph and what there is specifically about snuff manufacturing is very fragmentary. Given the overall lack of recipes and specifics on manufacture the question ‘which snuffs don’t use salts etc’ is, it seems to me, not really answerable.

 Anyway, that’s just my take, this a great piece of work and I don’t want to get in the way of that.

Good answer and point well made. Tobacco certainly need not have anything added to become snuff. 

Cheers mate.

Jaap once mentioned that the fermented Virginia varieties of the Kralinglse snuffs have no salts. As such they have a tendency to get moldy if not used quickly.

@Xander: Only the Bon Bon and the Mettaijer snuff don’t contain salt. The other snuffs do.

Jaap Bes.

@snuffmiller Thanks for the clarification.

@snuffmiller What about alkalizers?

@Juxtaposer: The Bon Bon contains Sodium carbonate. The Mettaijer wine vinegar.

Jaap Bes.

If you add some sodium carbonate to Mettaijer, will it start to bubble?

Sounds funny but I have a 100g tub of this and last week I found a little mold on it and the snuff started to “cook together” in some sort of snuff bread. I removed the mold and managed to break the bread into snuff again and air it a bit.

I keep my snuff in a wine cellar.

Would adding sodium carbonate prevent this from happening again?

I remember reading about vinegar being given separately to add to snuff before use. Way back when. 

There was a mid 18th century snuff; Spanish Bran, which was sold with a small flask of scented vinegar called vinegrillo. Another oddity of the time was Spanish Sabilla which people used to clean their teeth with.

Just a side comment regarding initial drying…I live in a fairly low humidity environment.  We can dry tobacco, fruit, vegetables, most anything simply by  placing in a thin layer on a permeable surface, then placing in the car with the windows nearly rolled up.  You know how hot it gets in there.  a bit difficult to sustain given temperature, but very effective at drying things out.  you can raise or lower temp to some degree by how open the window is.  Very low tech and ‘hillbilly’ like but effective.

I have a couple questions on the recipe at the start of this thread… Is the purpose of letting your snuff sit for one week to aid with moisture levels? Or is it whatever chemical reactions that need to take place take that long? Also, I assume that the container is meant to be airtight… but does it need to be left undisturbed, or should you let it air out once in a while? I can’t seem to refrain from opening the jar and checking on the status of my snuff, I hope I’m not mucking it up… 

Sorry if these are silly questions, but I didn’t see the answers anywhere.

Generally after about a week you will have a relatively stable mix. If you try it right away you will notice subtle changes after about a week or so. Disturbing it will not matter at all unless you are adding something to it. Airing out is recommended only before use as in putting some in a snuff box. While air tight storage is mainly for the purpose of keeping it pure if it is kept long enough in an anaerobic environment (at least 90 days) some changes will start to take place .Please don’t wait and go ahead and fill a box. It may be you will enjoy it more when it is fresh.

Great! Thanks for the info! I’ve got to say that I’m very impressed by all the knowledgeable people on this forum.

Thoroughly enjoyable thread…But what was that about new Draguns?..perhaps a little more extreme? Was that the hint I was given earlier?

Well, I am a long way off yet before actually being ready to brew some snuff up…  But… I have purchased some herbal seeds…

White Yarrow, Sweet Majoram, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Sage, Lavender, and Tarragon… A few more on the way…

All have various medicinal properties…

I have a few different mints on the way as well…

Like I said… Quite a ways off yet, but thanks to Juxtaposer informative postings, it really did prompt me to at least give it a whirl…

Good stuff.

Fascinating information. I will refer to this thread the next time i try to make my own snuff. Thanks Juxtaposer for such in depth, scholarly data.

This is truly incredible!! I have made a few faulty attempts at making my own snuff. I cannot thank Juxtaposter enough for putting this information up on the site.

I need a recipe to make a snuff with high ammonia concentrate, I’m using raw tobacco leaves that I buy from local farmers. Here is my method. 100g of finely crushed and screened tobacco flour. 2g of slaked lime. 2g of salt. 100ml of distilled water. I mix the slaked lime and salt with water And ad the mixture to my tobacco powder. I get the ammonia smell with my method but it disappears almost instantly. What am I doing wrong, can anyone explain the procedure, the ratio of ingredients, how to cure the snuff and preserve the ammonia?

@celsen dude, thats three posts you have now, two are resurrecting threads (i know its only a month or two, but still) and one is its own thread, all with copy/paste messages. theres no need to post all over the forum, if someone can help, they will help you on the first post.

@lunecat You already have passed comment on my ‘style’ of -ve posting, twice now. The only previous i found in my recent history was on the necro’d thread… i just see spamming threads (bringing them to the top unnecessarily) as bad, i guess it shows. didnt realise my attempt to help prevent it would be seen as a problem. it would definitely help celsen and anyone in future to keep any replies to his query consolidated in one place. i will try to pay more attention to how my posts sound in future, though im not sure i can do much to stop the way i feel translating into my choice of words. we will see i guess- profuse apologies for letting my condition affect how i deal with other people here.

@Firestarter0 sorry I’m new here, I don’t know how this site works, I started Today, thanks for the tip.

So I read some procedures on the interweb today concerning snuff making, and according to most corporate snuff makers, after they get there tobacco leaf, they crush it and start the snuff fermentation immediately before adding chemicals, some ferment for 1 to 3 years before they play with the PH levels and scents. So my question is, is there a faster way to ferment my homemade snuff? I am willing to leave some to go for a year or 3 but I need to make some of my own snuff for me to use, I love Ntsu but I need more verity in my nasal diet. Please, I need some advice from someone who actually made some decent snuff before.

Just read this thread. Your knowledge has made this thread a tremendous contribution to the snuff world, @Juxtaposer. Thank you.

@Celsen Fresh cured tobacco makes excellent snuff.

@Juxtaposer, I agree, but it’s still lacking something, I’m interested in the fermentation process, will it cure nicely in a closed glass container, inside a heat treated environment, and does it need extra oxygen added to the closed container? I’ll attach a picture of the leaves I’m using. It smells like a cocoa, caramel pipe tobacco very nice aroma, but like I said its still lacking that something special.

I also found this little treasure while doing some research, full of information, scroll to the bottom of the page for more subjects on producing, blending, scents, curing and fermenting different types of snuff, its worth checking out. http://www.google.com.tr/patents/US4528993

@Celsen I think this patent abstract may refer to the process of making oral snuff (dip) like Copenhagen.

@Ivan, if you are speaking about the link I posted, there are more links at the bottom of that page.

@Celsen Try following a recipe for making snus. Tour handling of it while wet will affect fermentation. Adjust the grind as you see fit. Pack the rest tight with no gasses in or out. Making wet ropes can be rewarding. More info: how old, 3 what strain, Burley

For some reason this thread was deleted… no idea why. But after some digging in the graveyard, here it is. 8-X

I think something is not right at Vanilla central, yesterday I had to sign in 5 times.

The thread was intentionally deleted, just don’t know why. Luckily it was still in the change log.

@Juxtaposer, thank you for the advice, I can see that you know what you are doing, I’m not sure what types of leaves I’m using, I have dark leaves about 60cm in length and 30cm wide with a very strong but lovely smell, and a light almost golden leaf about 90cm long and 20cm wide, I don’t know if you can identify the strain with this description, but I will ask the farmers next time I buy from them. Wet ropes? Is it rolled up leaves that is left to ferment? I need to ask sorry.

@Juxtaposer, I selected the leaves out of 2 big stockpile of tobacco in December 2013, I took the lightest and the darkest leaves I could find, I don’t know how long the farmers fermented it but I got it about 3 months ago and I kept it in a well ventilated, cool, dry and dark room.

Its ok. no harm done

Gawith Hoggarth Bob’s Chocolate Flake. Grinder. Sieve. Nostrils. I like it

Well, I just finished turning a 50 gram pouch of Drum rolling tobacco into about 20 grams of snuff, once I’d dried it and accounting for waste. I used my ball mill, originally intended for polishing rocks. A very good product, if I say so myself. Mind you considering that a pouch of Drum here costs six bucks, it’s not exactly cost efficient, considering I could get a tin of Toque for slightly cheaper. Still, nice to know that I can produce my own if and when it becomes impossible to import the professionally made stuff. Next task is to approach my friendly local tobacconist and see what he can offer in the way of a rolling tobacco that resembles Drum. I tried a few spoons of it straight from the mill, and it was already pretty good. I’m mixing in the washing soda and salt now. Oh, my advice is to not go overboard with the washing soda. You can easily produce a snuff with a nicotine hit that is just too strong for comfort. More is not always better.

Since the demise of my mill I’ve been using a mortar and pestle for the final phase of grinding just before running through a sieve. Problem: What used to come off the mill light and fluffy is now dense and very grainy. Any thoughts on fixing this, other than mill replacement?

I would like to add a bit of historical esoterica to all the above, highly informative posts. I have just found on Google Books a fascinating old volume on the art of perfumery. It is called, " The art of perfumery and the methods of obtaining the odours of Plants", by George William Septimus Piesse, 1862, London. The entire book is utterly interesting, and free to download or just read. The chapter on snuff making is the reason I am mentioning it. There is quite a discourse on ammonia in snuffmaking. It describes how rappees are made, toasts, Irish and Scotch, and even mentions Lundy Foote. Check it out fellow snuff historians.

@mrmanos if you have a link, I will post it in the library. Good find!

This is such a wonderful thread, I have a crop (can three plants be a crop?) of tobacco growing and should our British weather permit I am very excited about trying some of the above recipes out. Should definitely go into the snuffhouse librery…

@xander: I’ll get the link soon, and put it here. I’m just leaving now, so it’ll be later tonight or tomorrow. Its pretty interesting material!

http://books.google.de/books/about/The\\_Art\\_of\\_Perfumery\\_and\\_Method\\_of\\_Obtai.html?id=vPzNF5jwLvIC&redir\\_esc=y

I can’t find any chapter on snuff making.

Very intresting read thank you … After reading all the posts, re the posting etiquate I think its nice to add to old threads, as was mentioned to me … Old threads never die… commenting on them just keeps all that information in one place. The search function here is very good.

finally able to sign in! The edition in the posted link is too early @Juxtaposer‌ : try this one (ca. page 270 ; you can research the word snuff in all the book, either). For those who read french, I didn’t read it for the moment, but it’s quoted in Piesse and seems very interesting : http://books.google.fr/books/about/Histoire\\_du\\_tabac.html?hl=fr&id=Pg0VAAAAYAAJ

OMG the link didn’t pass, my deepest apologies : https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24170676M/The\\_art\\_of\\_perfumery\\_and\\_the\\_methods\\_of\\_obtaining\\_the\\_odours\\_of\\_plants

I was just wondering about toasting. i love the old mill snuff 'pure Virginian Toast or the high dry toast.

so when do you toast the tobacco? after curing? after it has fermented in the jar with washing soda and salt and water?

Why all the trouble fermenting/curing? Why not just use green shade-dried leaves? Much lower in TSNAs as well.

@Radium I’m pretty sure it has to do with better nicotine uptake.

“Why all the trouble fermenting/curing?
Why not just use green shade-dried leaves?
Much lower in TSNAs as well.”

Fermenting and Curing affect the scent and flavor … much for the better in most cases.  When leaves dry green, they retain a very grassy / chlorophyll property that is harsh.  Curing takes place while the leaves are still alive and the cell wall structure still intact.  This is an important phase of enzymatic activity and also the time that the chlorophyll exits the cells and ammonia is released.  After this slow, natural process takes place the leaves are much more aromatic and less harsh.  Fermentation is a secondary phase which occurs with aging and / or kilning.  Both processes further the enzymatic and microbial activity and smooth out the flavor and scent even more.

As to TSNA’s, there are many variables that affect their production starting with the genetics of the variety grown.  Also, the conditions that the curing takes place in such as temperature, humidity and ventilation all play a role.  Here’s a link I saved when I was researching the topic that has some good info:

http://www.imperialtobaccoscience.com/files/pdf/tobaccobreeding/factors\\_influencing\\_the\\_formation\\_of\\_tobacco-specific%20\\_nitrosamines.pdf

Psicko, how the leaf is processed does affect the final nicotine content and absorption rates.  One of the key factors is the final pH of the product.  A higher pH (more alkaline) tobacco will deliver the nicotine at a higher rate.  That’s why you read about people adding Sodium Carbonate (very alkaline) to their snus / snuff products.  This essentially is freebasing the nicotine and makes it readily available. 

Thanks for the info and good post of yours. Do you know anything about the TSNA content in N. rustica versus N. tabacum? I take snuff for ADHD, I have never had the chance to try any commercial snuff, so I’m curious about this scent and flavor difference you mentioned, and if it would change my opinion (about being fanatic to only using green dried leafs + soda) after I try some commercials. Commercial snuff is not available for sale in my place, and online shopping is forbidden as well.

That’s good news for cancerphobes like me who are able to deal fine with the harshness of green leaves dried rapidly in shade.

BTW, what’s the least nose irritating anti-caking agent for snuff? Another question: How long does freebase nicotine last in room temperature? I always feel it is susceptible to degradation, is it true?

@cobguy, yes. When I read fermenting I was thinking of fermentation with Sodium carbonate or washing soda with salt. That is how I interpreted the question about fermentation by radium.

Does Tobacco fermenting involve yeast like wine? What’s the process and for how long? Also I tend to always add Sodium carbonate in a 1/10 ratio. But I noticed the OP says only 1/100 is enough. Is it true? should I lower my preference then? And doesn’t salt irritate your nose? What’s the purpose of adding salt?

@Radium I’m not completely sure although I thought salt was added as a preservative of sorts, to stop the snuff going bad from mold. Don’t quote me on that though.

“what’s the least nose irritating anti-caking agent for snuff?”

Proper grind and moisture level is the best way to prevent unwanted consistency.

“I tend to always add Sodium carbonate in a 1/10 ratio.”

This is personal preference and completely up to you.  Many times, I use none at all because the strength of the leaf is plenty to start with.

“And doesn’t salt irritate your nose? What’s the purpose of adding salt?”

Just the opposite, actually.  Salt makes it easier on the nose which has a naturally saline environment.
It’s also true that salt acts as an anti-mold agent.

@ @Cobguy
Salt water instead of dry salt , at least for me or even add some salt to rum or whiskey and dissolve  it before adding to tobacco flour, G’Day

EDIT: Same goes for baking soda or slaked lime , dissolve it first in water, Rum , Or Whiskey.

Salt water instead of dry salt

Definitely!  Only Sea Salt, as well … I use Pink Himalayan Sea Salt.

It’s been a long time since I posted but since I saw this thread up I thought I’d post a recipe. Take 1 can copenhagen long cut and put it in a container in a warm place to dry out. Let it dry overnight until it’s at about half the original moisture. Add 1/4 - 1/2 tsp powdered clove and put in a good quality coffee grinder set to esspresso or turkish. After grinding it should have approx the same consistency and scent as Gekachelter Virginie with a little clove and rose. Put it back in cope tin and enjoy. You can also add 2 drops of bergamot essential oil instead of the clove for a dark SP like snuff.

I had a few questions, I have a coffee grinder and a mortar and pestle. I would like to use a mortar and pestle though. There are several different types of mortar and pestle I have a stone one with a coarse mortar, I have also seen marble smooth ones. If I do decide to use my stone mortar and pestle will i wear down the stone and end up with small stone partials in the final product? I have not used this mortar and pestle yet so I am not sure if they have to be worn in first.

I read above that menthol crystals can be added to your snuff at 0.5% to 0.65% by weight. I’ve been using the (excellent) basic recipe listed above which is based on 1/4 cup of tobacco flour. Doing the math, I’ll either need to make a huge batch of mentholated snuff or get a scale that’s accurate to 1/10 gram. Is there another way for measuring the menthol besides weight? For example, would 1/16 of a teaspoon work for 1/4 cup tobacco flour?

You could always give it a shot by that measurement. Just start small and add a bit more to your liking. You can always add, but never take it out if you add too much.

@SammyD13 I threw 1/16th tsp of Organic Menthol Chrystals (pulverized) on my Mg scale (Satorius) and got a weight of 0.183g, which at 0.5% would season 36.56g of tobacco flour. Hope that helps!

Brilliant! Thanks Psicko and Hitsuzen!

Anyone ever try adding some extra alkalyzer to increase the nicotine uptake? I was toying around with the idea but don’t want to blow a whole batch. Don’t mind the burn- kind of like it anyway…Figuring a little stash of hot stuff would pair well with the morning coffee.

@sammyd13 As I recall, if you use the forum search, there are a couple threads on this. If I remember correctly it doesn’t usually end well.

@sandwhichisles thanks! Just starting to get a hang of the website. I’ll probably be leaving the alkylizer the same and getting some rustica leaf.

Anybody ever try using liquor to case snuff? I tried this using bourbon (mainly as a means of evenly applying coffee and chocolate extracts). The results were quite amazing. The bourbon flavor is definitely there in a good way, pus it seems to deliver a pleasant, extra “kick”. Powerful, but it didn’t add enough alcohol for that to play any part (I’m guessing). Anybody had any similar experiences? I’m very curious to know which liquors lend themselves well as a flavoring agent (on their own).

I have tried to make some snuff on my own from dry tobacco obtained from the local market (unscented and pure tobacco). I toasted it slightly on a pan so as to enable it to become dry and grind’able. I then ground it fine using a mortar and pestle and got a fine to coarse level powder using a sieve. 

Now, my question is, what do I add to this to make it better? I added a few drops of water which had calcium hydroxide and salt and mixed it in.  So - 

a) Any other way to make it better and stronger? What other substance can I add and what is the quantity of salt / calcium hydroxide I can add (proportion wise)

b) After adding these substances to the ground tobacco base, should I let it sit in a closed container? How much time?

Any tips on improvement or improvisations would be appreciated. Thanks!

And @Aamon - to answer your question, using a mortar and pestle got me a fine grounded powder, but a little coarser than what we usually get in snuffs, after I used a sieve to strain the mixture. I think there should be a way to make it finer, but I am unaware of it as of now. 

This may be here somewhere but didn’t have all day and night to check. Short and informational to some maybe. http://tribes.tribe.net/tobaccotribe/thread/4164f4c1-f800-4865-af00-1dd14c1c4ce4

Yes let it sit. The longer you let it sit airtight the better. Depending on how much air is in the container it usually takes three months for changes to begin. Once opened this process will start from the begining again. It’s good to have several small jars, some that can be left untouched.

@Juxtaposer - Thanks. Yes, I have prepared two small batches. As per your suggestion I will let them sit for weeks now. 

Does your snuff have to be equivalent to size of the jar you’re using? I have a mid sized mason jar but will probably only make enough to fill half.

So I bought a 5 dollar cigar from the tobacco shop here, and a wooden mortar and pestle. Couldn’t find any sodium carbonate so I baked some baking soda at 200F for an hour. Mixed the now sodium carbonate with salt and water. Added that to my tobacco flour, then for a casing I just used regular molasses (tiny amount) and mix two drops of lemon grass essential oil in the molasses before adding it to the tobacco. Tried it after and definitely felt quite the buzz! Scent just smells like cigar tobacco with lemon grass far in the background. I noticed it was to moist so I put it in the oven for a small time at 200F (not sure if thats a good temp) but its quite toasty now and I’m going to take one more tonight and see how it is in a week. I definitely just banged it out, gonna have more of a plan next time. 

After studying some more I have realized the dangers of essential oils, I hope maybe airing it out will help? I’m shocked how deadly they can actually be!

IMO edible flavors should only be used!

Agreed. If you wouldn’t eat it or drink it, don’t shove it up your nose.

Okay thanks, makes sense

After researching the use of Turkish Izmir in the making of snuff and coming up with nothing, I was a little hesitant about buying the leaf. It turned out to be a good gamble. The scent seems distinctive but not overpowering. It has the richness and muskiness of rustica, the nuttiness of Brightleaf Virginia, and some of the “tang” of Perique. The flour density is light and fluffy. I’m not sure how suitable it would be for getting flavored or scented. The distinctive scent might get lost, and that would be a shame. For now, I’m using it for straight tobacco snuff blends. If you make snuff and enjoy natural tobacco scents, I’d highly recommend this leaf. The leaves are small and can be difficult to separate and the nic content is just moderate, but I’ve very satisfied overall.

Might try with some of my semi green leaf from last season based on the last comment… all my tobacco is air cured with some flue at end of harvest. Tip: get seeds and grow your own if you have the means. Saves money and is certainly way gratifying.

“After studying some more I have realized the dangers of essential oils, I hope maybe airing it out will help? I’m shocked how deadly they can actually be!”
where did you see that essential oil can be dangers ?

It depends on amount and particular oil, I would guess. Certain oils might be safer than others. Some snuff manufacturers use eucalyptus oil (up to 4.5% of total weight) and star-anise oil (up to 0,5137%). I’m not sure, though, but I think these oils are essential.

By far safest ways to scent snuff are addition of herbal distillate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbal\\_distillate) and indirect scenting.

As some members have pointed out, it’s safest (when flavoring directly) to go with food-grade additives.

Making snuff is easy. To make long story short, I used locally grown tobacco (55-58 N, Latvia). Surprisingly, this pretty much unsmokable northern baccy makes really good snuff!

7.4 g tobacco, 3 ml water, 0.4 g sodium carbonate anhydrous, 0.2 g salt.

Leaves (two unknown varieties, both air cured, 2016 harvest; 50/50 blend used):

Setup: bowls, potato masher, sieve, scale.

Powder in the foil is sodium carbonate (0.4 g), powder in the lid is salt (0.2 g; scales display shows the weight with WoS 5 g tin lid). I used plastic glass for measuring (weighing) water and baking paper for sieving (no photos, sorry).

Unsieved flour:

Left: sifted blended flour (dry). Right: the snuff after 48 hours, warm-fermented on the top of the stove (26-50 C).

@volunge excellent piece and nice work! The potato masher is a great idea, too.

Awesome. Can’t wait to have a go. What was the final yield? Trying to work out what my wastage would be on an order of whole leaf.

@volunge : after finished sieving and adding those sodium carbonate + salt, you toasted them again? I used microwave to toast those finished tobacco flour

@Sammy, I don’t have a proper mortar and pestle, but potato masher and ceramic bowl worked like a charm. Next time I’ll try a rolling pin (kudos to @linguist for the idea: http://www.snuffhouse.com/discussion/7279/homemade-snuff/p2). I’ve used electric coffee grinder years ago and was quite content with the grind. This time I wanted to go in old-timey manner, just to enjoy the whole process more, including the olfactorial part of grinding pleasure.

@junior, just above 10 g. I have limited amount of baccy (100 g) for experiments and want to try out different alkalizers in various ratios, so I’m micro batching only. I got my tobacco leaves in broken / scrap-like condition and it would be a pain to separate all the midribs and larger veins. However, after longer usage I find stem particles a bit cloggy, so I’ll definitely try a pure lamina batch someday, saving the midribs for a toast or chewing (I really dig them midribs as a straightforward chew!). If you like moist snuff, you can add water up to 40-35 percent and this will relatively compensate the midrib/stem wastage.

@artificialme, I didn’t. My leaves are close to bone-dry, so no toasting was needed for grinding. Only bigger particles which didn’t pass the sieve were extra dried for some minutes on the radiator for easier regrind. I aimed for the moist snuff. Actually, even if you are making dry snuff, you need to allow tobacco flour to stay moist (talking about 20-40 percent of water) after the addition of alkalizer (i. e. water solution of it) for some time (at least overnight) to properly absorb the alkali. You can reduce the moisture later. Be careful with microwave, I had wasted mine while drying some herbs in my teens

Some tips for small batch runners.

Get yourself a set of proper precision balance scales with weights (10 mg-100 g), you won’t regret it. Cheap digital scales with 0.1 g accuracy I use now is a headache for weighing those tiny amounts of salts. If you prefer digital, go for precision one (jewelry grade) with 0.01 g accuracy. Still, it won’t beat the good old balance scales.

Avoid wearing fabrics which have tendency to build up static electricity charge. Statically electrified tobacco powder is really annoying to work with.

20 percent of water (with alkalizer dissolved) is enough for moisturizing tobacco flour. Most probably you will want to add more water at this point. Resist it. Just use a teaspoon to blend the solution with the tobacco powder. It takes time (5-10 minutes for 10 grams), but eventually your tobacco will become evenly moisturized. You can taste your snuff right now, you’ll be fascinated with the natural tobacco aroma!

Don’t hurry with the salt, it inhibits fermentation. Add it to taste later (after 24 hours, at least; or even later, if you want your snuff to undergo deep fermentation in warm environment and turn dark), i. e. small amount of aqueous solution, 200-600 mg for 1 ml of water (that is per 7.4 g of tobacco in my case).

More snuff out than tobacco leaf in. That sounds great

I’m really fond of this potato masher grind, which is fairly close to my favourite Molens:

Molens Hermbstedt’s Brasil with Kashubian sauce (left, dried out) and my homemade before the addition of aqueous sodium carbonate solution.

Coarse grind and sufficient moisture (20-30 percent) are the key factors for rich tobacco aroma delivery. If you love natural tobacco flavour, go coarse and moist. I tried it really fine and dry and didn’t enjoy it at all. Salt, while acting as preservative and taste enhancer, should be used with caution - 2 percent (by weight) is enough for both purposes (snus contains 1.2-3.5 percent of salt). I upped the salt to 4 percent in my latest batch and found this amount excessive, resulting in pronounced forward drip and sharper nose burn. Extra burn is OK, but I prefer minimal drip, so will stick to 2 percent (or less) in my next batches.

And a word of warning - making snuff is addictive, probably even more than the snuff itself.

Looks good !

Jaap Bes.

I grow a Hopi Indian rustica in the summer months. The leaves are rather small, but if I age them for a year or 2, I can make a pretty decent snuff by grinding and adding some sodium carbonate mixed with distilled water and salt. Not nearly as good as the Dutch windmill snuffs of course, but it’s nice to have something I made myself.

This is fantastic. You’ve become a scientist @volunge ! Talk soon brother

I will attempt to make my own natural flavored snuff this weekend or next. Both are samples I just ordered:

|

Nicotiana Rustica (Wild Tobacco) 

|

Fronto Dark Air Cured (ALO) (Kentucky and Tennessee region)

| | | |

|

@Volunge. Thank You. I just made a batch(above recipe), of a Nicotainia Rustica and mixed leaf batch. Coarse and a little moist. Accidentally spilled a local India Pale Ale in it, when can exploded. 

 The batch is drying now. I tried as a dip and was satisfied. I don’t usually dip. I did add 2 drops of cherry flavoring, and 3 drops of Orange to the water.

Non-alkalized (left) vs alkalized (right):

Same tobacco, same moisture (20%). Both plain (unscented).

Left: non-alkalized, lightly salted (1% sodium chloride) snuff. No changes of colour and aroma in the course of one week. Low nicotine, very slow release, mild burn, no ammonia, moderate drip.

Right: snuff instantaneously turned darker after the addition of sodium carbonate (10% of total weight, dissolved in water). Noticeable emission of ammonia at room temperature in the course of the first hour, pronounced ammonia next day and later on. High nicotine, fast release, sharp burn, strong forward drip. Smell is mildly sourish, similar to rye bread.

A very simple way to scent small amounts of any coarse and moist snuff (10-15 g):

Open a tea bag, replace the tea with a  g e n e r o u s  amount of natural scenting medium of your choice (ground coffee, spices, dried and crushed herbs, fruits or mushrooms), fold or stapple to close shut, put into the large tin or snus can with snuff, cover the lid and leave for some hours or overnight. Give occasional shake. Use large snuff tin or snus can.

Freshly ground coffee and caraway seeds worked like a charm with my homemade, Taxi Red and NTSU.

OK, I’ve got a mortar and pestle, and have just ordered a pound of non-steamed whole leaf Rustica (and some seeds).I get the basic recipe. My eventual goal is to mimic my favorite snuffs as closely as possible. So, NB Madras I think might not be bad. Next two are White Elephant and L260. If I could get close to those, I’ll be all set. Suggestions? How about a good resource for growing? I’m in Maine, so a short growing season. 

Thanks!

Michael

@mecompco it’s always great to see a snuffer starting the craft! Perhaps we’ll be sampling your creations some day? 

I’d suggest reading up on the gardening threads and posting there. You’ll probably see posts from other members who are experienced tobacco gardeners who could provide specific advice, too. Just a couple of them:

https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/10192/the-gardening-thread

http://snuffhouse.com/discussion/7860/growing-my-own-tobacco

@mecompco … for growing, curing and fermentation questions there is no better source than the Fair Trade Tobacco Forum.  It’s the forum for wholeleaftobacco.com who I also strongly support for the best whole leaf out there, IMHO.

If you’re going to want to use menthol (L260), this is what I use and it’s great:

https://www.amazon.com/MENTHOL-CRYSTALS-Mentha-Arvensis-Grade/dp/B01N3095WW/ref=asc_df_B01N3095WW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=343269559135&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10400314231293823040&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030289&hvtargid=pla-786183415644&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=72736834687&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=343269559135&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10400314231293823040&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030289&hvtargid=pla-786183415644

Lastly, the M&P is great for finishing small quantities but a food processor and coffee grinder make quicker work of it for me.  

Welcome aboard and happy snuffing! 

@Cobguy I actually ordered a pound of Rustica leaf from wholeleaftobacco.com as well as some Rustica seeds today. I didn’t notice their forum, will check it out. I’ve now got your recommended menthol in my Amazon cart. I’m thinking a ball mill–the M&P is already getting old. I probably go through a kilo of snuff a year, so will need to think about production. Of course, next will be making my own snus at some point. Projects never end.

Thanks for the advice!

Michael

That’s how they grind it in Kashubia (Poland/Eastern Pomerania):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H48q6FWQuA

Same size in Bavaria:

I wish my tools were that big!

My pleasure, @mecompco.  Have fun! 

@volunge, great video and I love those old horn snuff containers.  Very cool!

~Darin

Just found this book: THE COMPLETE TECHNOLOGY HAND BOOK OF TOBACCO, ZARDA, KIMAM, GUTKA, PAN MASALA, MOUTH FRESHNER, SUPARI, KHAINI, NICOTINE, CIGARETTE, CIGAR, BEEDI, SAUNF, KATHA/SNUFF, HOOKAH, AND PAN CHATNI WITH MANUFACTURING PROCESSES AND FORMULATIONS (Engineers India Research Institute (2017)

https://www.amazon.in/TECHNOLOGY-CIGARETTE-MANUFACTURING-PROCESSES-FORMULATIONS/dp/9380772947

It would be interesting to browse through.

Wow!  That looks like one interesting read!! 

Possible download here: https://www.scribd.com/document/387655339/Complete-Hand-Book-on-Tobacco

My latest 11 g micro batch of Orient Samsoun coarse:

Ingredients: tobacco 7.5 g, water 3 ml, sodium carbonate 0.4 g, ammonium chloride (salmiak) 0.1 g.

Process:

1. Aqueous sodium carbonate solution (2 ml water and 0.4 g sodium carbonate) worked into the tobacco flour, left overnight.

2. Aqueous ammonium chloride solution (0.1 g of salmiak per 1 ml of water) worked into the snuff, left to rest for a couple of hours.

3. Final sieving on the third day.

Love this recipe, will make more! So glad I purchased some salmiak this summer, it really adds to the nose burn, ammonia content and rounds up the back drip. I’ll replace sodium carbonate with potash next time to explore the difference.

Looks great! 

@Cobguy, thanks! Making another batch

Just found this mass fraction calculator: https://www.fxsolver.com/browse/formulas/Mass+fraction (really handy for quick calculation of ingredient percentage by mass; apparently doesn’t work with decimal fractions, though).

Mass fraction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_fraction_(chemistry)<!–[if gte mso 10]>

/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable\t{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\tmso-style-parent:"";\tmso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;\tmso-para-margin:0cm;\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:10.0pt;\tfont-family:"Times New Roman";\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}

<![endif]–> 

@volunge if you were in the US, your PM inbox might have as many messages from me as @Cobguy 's B-)

No problem sending a small treat across the pond from my side, @ar47. I’ll PM you next year. For the meantime I run only a week’s worth batches for own needs and have no surplus, but I’m really interested in running 100 g (or larger) batch. I need to upgrade my tools and procure other varieties of leaf for blending.

Very enlightening film about Kendal mills. It answered some of my questions, particularly related to alkalis used in traditional Irish toasts. It’s obviously a lime water there (13:32)! The part about snuff making starts at 9:00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AL2wZfFe4Rg&fbclid=IwAR1RKQfTbnqWAjzdj8D0xsnsrqzEgg3GTZS9\\_Q8317QfMPCCn8pZnDnjElI&app=desktop

Mesh and micron sizes:

https://www.industrialspec.com/resources/mesh-and-micron-sizes

@volunge that entire video is a treasure! Thanks for finding it. I was drooling over those one pound tins and all of the old packaging. There’s something rather down to earth about the look of those small factories and antique machines. I can only dream of the wonderful smells that linger.

I was curious about % expression of Juxtaposer’s basic snuff recipe ingredients (posted in the very first post of this thread). Here’s the translation:

tobacco 65.7 %
water 21.7 %
salt 11.6 %
sodium carbonate 1 %

Jux’s formula is deduced from Hannover snuff recipe, kindly provided by Jaap Bes, the head miller of Molens de Kralingse, in Snuffhouse thread “Snuffmiller’s snuff receipe” (http://snuffhouse.com/discussion/6008/snuffmillers-snuff-receipe/p1). Genuine Hannover snuff recipe goes as follows:

"A German recipe for Hannover snuff.

For 500 grams of powdered tobacco, take 10 grams of fine cut yellow sweet clover mix with 40 ml boiling water and let it cool down. Filter and add to the filtrate 50 ml tap water, 10 grams Ammonium chloride and 5 grams Potash. Mix well with the tobacco leave in a warm place to ferment. After convenient fermentation cool down with 50 grams of kitchen salt".

Hannover snuff formula in % (by weight, i. e. ingredients listed by their mass fraction):

Tobacco 75%
Water 13.5% (6% for melilotus infusion + 7.5% for salmiak and potash)
Salt 7.5%
Yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis ) 1.6%
Ammonium chloride 1.6%
Potassium carbonate 0.8%

Hi,

do you guys think I can make “Neffa Frikia” with Toque Rustica, sodium carbonate and salt?
and what leaves would I use for a Taxi Redisch DIY?
also here in Brazil snuffs are made from “twist tobacco”, which is very easy to find. anybody experimented with those?

thanks

@faktiheiny

Tobacco - 82%, agents of texture - 18 %. Fresh Neffa has nice moisture content, I would say, at least 10% (probably even a tad higher). My nose tells me there’s a sodium carbonate among the ingredients. Not sure if it contains any salt at all.

If I were to make similar snuff, I would try mixing 82% of powdered rustica with 14% of water and 4% of sodium carbonate (all by weight). I would dissolve sodium carbonate in  a  w a r m  w a t e r (30-40 C) and mix the solution with the tobacco flour. The most important step is thorough mixing - it takes time, and should be repeated several times daily in the course of the first 2-3 days. Letting it rest for a week shoud be enough for a quickie.

If I were not satisfied with nicotine delivery, I would try upping carbonate amount and reducing water content: 82% rustica, 12% water, 6% sodium carbonate. Or 10% water and 8% carbonate. In such case I would mix dry carbonate with rustica flour and add water.

@faktiheiny hi there, as a big fan of Neffa I’ve been wondering the same. I think the Toque’s Rustica is already treated with additives so its hard to experiment with it without ruining snuff. Would be better if you bought ready to go rustica leaves imo. I believe the characteristics of the snuff is beyond the percentage of added “18% agents texture”. The specific scent could be the result of the way they are curing tobacco leaves, which is the trickiest part from what I read. Got to make a further research on this topic… Soo I started my own N. rustica plants, sprouted the seeds about week ago and planning to move them into ground when they grow up. Not much to show yet… but yeah, the germination seems to be very easy!

Taxi, NTSU:

For Taxi, I would try 44% water, 6% of sodium carbonate and 50% of any tobacco (even low-nic orientals are very satisfying, when properly alkalized). Or 55% tobacco, 35% water, 8% carbonate, 2% salt.

@Johano, @faktiheiny Sure, any attempt to replicate something won’t result in achieving neither the same flavour nor texture, but you can succeed in matching the nicotine delivery. Using pH meter and precision scales ensures 100% match. I mean, it is super easy to make strong (100% freebased) homemade (even without pH meter) from any tobacco.

If my memory serves right, Roderick has mentioned his rustica powder is not alkalized. Browse his recent posts and you’ll find it.

One guy from fb snuff group has slightly boosted Toque Rustica with 1.5% of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) recently. It resulted in somewhat better nic delivery. The guy is going to run another batch, upping the slaked lime content to 2 or 2.5%.

@volunge this is amazing sir! This knowledge you bring here is priceless =D> I wonder what they use to achieve coarse grind like TAXI, NTSU etc. Definitely not something to do in kitchen mixer… Could be worth to experiment with this snuff type too!

Yes, definitely worth trying, @Johano. I cannot stress enough how simple the process is (and how satisfying the result).  I don’t know what machinery is used for grinding/cutting Taxi, but basic mortar and pestle (or wooden potato masher and any bowl) gives very satisfying (in terms of coarseness) grind.

@volunge

wow, so much nice info. thanks a lot. Will def. try out your suggestions.

nico-hit is nice, and it sure is nearly impossible to replicate those snuffs 100%; but I actualy hoped I can get something in the same direction. Who knows the result is going to be even better then the original
the advantage is that one can adjust to own taste. I would make a Taxi Redish snuff more fine grind, just with the “taste”/feel of the original

@Johano

nice little plants. I actualy grow some things like chillis. I have no ground though, to make enough tobacco leaves.
About Toque Rustica: I read somewhere it is just the dried leaves milled.

i found an easy way to scent plain snuff with menthol.
just throw some ryo mentholated cigarette filter tips in the tin and let it sit for at least one day.

you can find menthol filter tips everywhere they are cheap.

Another source of inspiration to play around with rustica:

http://www.rnta-mtk.com.tn/en/nosproduit.php?rub=2&code=4

Tunisian Neffa Souffi - rustica snuff (Souffi - Tunisian rustica variety, Nicotiana Rustica L. var. Souffi).

Ingredients: 92% rustica, 8% texture agents (carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, water).

http://snuffhouse.com/discussion/1423/neffa-suffi

Just curious, as I have no plans to make snuff soon, but eventually… has anyone here actually used wood ash for the alkalizer? That sounds better to me, personally, than most any other option. Which brings up my question, which types of wood can be used? I am picturing burning it in a clean coffee can or something similar??

@Mr_O, the pure forms of Calcium Hydroxide, Sodium Carbonate and others are quite easy to come by so making something from ash seems a bit more work than I’d bother with.  

I’ll run a micro batch tonight, just for the heck of it. We have stove heating in our household, so plenty of ashes. I don’t trust the purity of those compressed sawdust fire bricks we use (I’ve spotted some pieces of plastic strips several times last season), so most probably I’ll take only several pinches.

Next season I’ll try to procure a few sacks of aspen fire wood.

(why don’t I get email notifications even though I turned them on?)

I just alkalized my first nico powder. I imidiatly smelles a little “cowish” (nice).

now I just asked myself: Do I let it sit in an open or closed container?

Closed, to prevent moisture loss.

thanks

So, here it is. Rustica (0.7 g) and sifted wood ashes (0.3 g), simply mixed together:

Mixes beautifully and makes pretty nice snuffo, somewhat akin to my favourite Cheeta Chhap Gul.

Next time I’ll go moist way, make 10 g batch with regular tobacco and definitely up the amount of ashes to 40% by weight.

No weird aftertaste, no harsh drip, just better nicotine delivery (nothing out of this world, tho - normal nic hit).

P. S. @Cobguy, not worth the hassle, if no ashes at hand. Pure alkalizers does the job better.

damn…thats lot of ashes to put into the nose lol

Yeah, it is interesting to see the two ingredients side by side. Even with hearing alkalizer up to 40%, I still for some reason always think of that as a pinch of ash into a big tin of snuff. Just curious, does the wood ash add any smoke notes? Do you think ash from different species like cherry or oak wood would make difference in the end result? Thanks for sharing all of this knowledge @volunge . It brings a whole different sense of appreciation to the hobby

Spot-on notes and questions! No smoke notes, really. Nothing. Absolutely odorless stuff. But it might depend on the way the particular ash was produced (on the purity). Pure wood ash doesn’t contain any specific “flavour”. I’m tempted to expand and provide some data on ash constituents, which would explain the necessity for the seemingly excessive amounts, but I’ll leave it for tomorrow. I realize that the pile I used looks huge and maybe even scary.

Yes, ashes of different trees do differ. I’ll get back to this subject later. Not that I would be an advocate of this ancient way of making snuff - I find it interesting. There are more cons than pros to it, actually…

I appreciate the feedback and experimentation you guys! It is just a matter of being more comfortable with the idea of ash or salt, as opposed to some of the carbonates. If I was to use one, I would use the sodium carbonate. I would want to make a product as natural or organic as possible, and I have some reservations about over doing the alkalizer(s). I am rather a fiend about natural foods, herbs, etc. Also, I am curious whether it might be good to add some water to the tobacco and ash after you mix them, in order to marry/activate the mixture?

I would assume adding water to marry the mixture is an essential final step in the snuff making process. Then after hydrating allowing the mixture to sit for weeks to develop and marry the flavours

Generally, yes. Most nasal snuffs contain added water (even up to 50%); higher moisture content facilitates/speeds up “fermentation”. However, I think super fine lime-treated Indian white snuff might be an exception to this, as well as ash-treated Amazonian ra-peh (just a bold guess, I might be wrong at this - some of these snuffs actually do contain a small amount of water, <5%; on the other hand, such amount of water could be the residual moisture of tobacco itself); I suppose these snuffs are ready to consume straight after mixing the ingredients.

19th century Polish recipe of Peterburgian snuff (which contains 15% ashes) doesn’t call for water:

“Add 15% of wood ash, 10% of potash, 7% of salt, 2% of fragrant meleot herb to the dust of the very best mahorka; after mixing and sieving it properly, add drops of fragrant bergamot oil, then package it up”.

(mahorka = rustica)

Thanks for the info you guys! I totally have to try making a little batch sometime.

Now back to the wood ash. I’ll try to summarize the material I skimmed through.

Chemical composition of wood ash is dependent on the tree species, although it varies even among the same species in different locations of the same region, and differs in particular parts of the very same timber (stem, bark, root, branches, foliage). Variation is soil and climate dependent, wood burning temperature is another variable. In general, hardwood ashes contain more potassium (opt for hardwood stem, if you are going to purify (leach) potash, which is highly water-soluble and fits the bill for moist snuff) than softwoods (especially the bark part), which contain more calcium (almost insoluble and probably better for making fine dry snuff). After some investigation and comparison of several analyses, I arrived at a conclusion that the best local source of both Ca and K (main alkalis of interest, when it comes to snuff making, present in wood ash in forms of (mostly) carbonates) here in the Baltics is pine and fir (Pinus sylvestris and Picea Abies; something which I generally avoid to feed my stove with due to high amount of tar in the smoke - the case with most coniferous - which clogs the chimney), birch (Betula). Take a look at Table 1 (Element concentration in wood ash from various sources) and Table 2 (Element concentrations in wood ash from specified tree types) in this article: Wood ash use in forestry – a review of the environmental impacts | Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research | Oxford Academic

Linden (Tilia) ash is abundant with K (over 30% of K, according to one local study), but is pretty much unavailable as fire wood here. Straw and sunflowers ash is another great source of K (36%).

Main problem with wood ashes is contamination with heavy (toxic/carcinogen) metals (both endogenous/accumulated from environment, and external - from containers/burning beds). This interesting study sheds some light on on punk and willow ashes, traditionally used to alkalize Alaskan iq’mik (TLDR: tables IV and V, Discussion):

https://watermark.silverchair.com/32-4-281.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW\\_Ercy7Dm3ZL\\_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAlYwggJSBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJDMIICPwIBADCCAjgGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMhUZIQkVcoxsjJ0e1AgEQgIICCYMx5N2GpPkb-hieGzqGyu\\_zIFNrW6uc3dCiTzhD9UgRU9ajSxXuwXsnIXHrB7zkLYwow88IvMLLMWaXII2fQgct4slrhazU3HpLZkmU8gYAvapljuA6JR32aygeXp0bWqtI\\_3JUO7d8dY\\_WEg4StZGT6MyqfikpMe-8FjYWRmNGTyToMnouWZI6QCEg1pB3xwp4USZ-yZgN6jlZjg7z2yrb4YhruIculGdsluwnPqsdMjzN-09NnSwg1OiE4IV05x9bSQKjlHOgeVtKusvGdIp4qCTYrpjgrlEMywsYe3Ht10fz9G8QU9-LqYRLeClMD9uOC3yNQvLKUfvdqaaFEzUj\\_WJKDGvROtqgZRa8dOgNAzNQSwJqhRJLuY93UO5Ac-KYUB\\_gIzo\\_5L7i5IIreV2kMlwM2vPw984tSN6YcJa7SCrWxbPcF6O36VhF-dqfFphsH\\_vkVR3zayblFLW5e7UDCKL7ht070VCDhnCK2Nx9DYvZq7\\_fYKiLlf07VCBliTeuF1N8QUpOze4rNVoMd93NHtoOBMH6QBEV-tml0ITpxyKN1\\_TmwBjZguH1JvID3DKCrPIfZu4tW6w87iB82FswlwS-02aLUQ5aUrqo0FYk5HBv\\_cuYawcEDRlGcDFebISveihuZMRhY9b2M7ErVElk2tj743zOXETPwJbing9bOy1rMnfriE65

Then it’s fine ash particles size and high pH, which irritate your airway upon ash-treated snuff intake intake. It’s just as bad (or good, if you will) as any white snuff. If you are bothered by snuff “getting too deep” or concerned about your bronchia/lungs, avoid super fine and dry snuff.

Various sources give different ranges for calcium and potassium in ash; most studies indicate only oxides of Ca and K, whereas some note that the presence of oxides is non-significant, as Ca and K (bound in organic matrix) form carbonates due to high amounts of CO2 emitted during wood combustion (valid for lower temperature combustion, think domestic stove and bonfire). One can expect CaO range 23-40%, K2O range 3-12%, or 25-45% of calcium carbonate and up to 10% of potassium carbonate in the domestic ash of common fire wood. These figures explain the copious part of ash in tobacco/ash ratio (another old recipe of moist nasal snuff calls for one glass of aspen wood ash per two glasses of tobacco flour and 1 1/8 glass of water; that’s roughly 25% by vol.; source: Гиляровский "Москва и москвичи" с комментариями, фотографиями и картами.).

And here’s a basic guide (there are many of them, worth ckecking Youtube, too) for purifying potash:
Caveman to Chemist Projects: Potash. Another simple way of making natural alkalizer is burning seashells for lime. Rosinski claims using ground seashells (natural calcium carbonate).

Here’s a link to a study about Brazilian nasal snuff, including two ash-containing Amazonian Rapés (i. e. fine dry ashed rustica snuffs):
Comprehensive Chemical Characterization of Rapé Tobacco Products: Nicotine, Un-ionized Nicotine, Tobacco-specific N’-Nitrosamines, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, and Flavor Constituents - PMC . Estimated amount of tobacco (rustica) in Rapé Nu-Nu and Rapé Kaxinawa is 32-39% (however, actual amount might be different). The exact amount of ash is not known, but these are dry snuffs with 4.91-3.68% moisture content, so there’s plenty room for ash in the composition of those Rapés and Amazonian dry snuffs of this kind are known to contain up to 50% ash, by volume, and high pH (9.75-10.2) confirms ash content being rather high; however, such mixtures might contain some other herbs besides N. rustica, and it would make calculation of actual ash content difficult. According to this study, virtually all nicotine is freebased (98.2-98.3).

Most sellers of “sacred” Amazonian snuff offer Tsunu (Platycyamus regnellii) and other trees ash, traditionally used for making indigenous snuff. For instance: https://braziliantobaccosnuffs.com/product-category/rape-ashes/

And here you find some useful tips and basic information about blending rapé: Create and Blend your own Rapé - Katukina - Tribal Rapé, Mapacho, Kambo, Sananga, Shamanic Tools & Incenses

A lot of good stuff there @volunge !

sorry for the tripple post. the software is making fun of me. found out that whenever you use an accent the rest of the text is cut

just got me half a kg of moi (the o has an accent) tobacco. couldn’t find out how to upload a pic here :https://drive.google.com/file/d/14ZgpZRrWC4o5EJ-4Rbis0CY5phJpKi22/edit

all they say about rustica is true. made me a little and took a small pinch and got almost poisened.

now I see what i will do with it.

it is VERY aromatic out of the box, even compressed. my girlfriend loved the smell even she doesn’t use any tobacco

@volunge

the study about brazilian snuff is a little strange to me.
I tryed all but one of those comercial snuffs and they don’t seam to be rustica.
I have the comparison here in front of me. as you can see in the post above I just got me the tobacco which the tribes use and it is not comparable.
I made snuff out of “fumo de corda” which is the pure tobacco rolls they use in the comercial snuffs: https://http2.mlstatic.com/fume-de-corda-arapiraca-forte-100grcorra-antes-que-acabe-D_NQ_NP_739139-MLB41451671630_042020-F.webp
there is no comparison. probably many dark tobacco plants in the north-east (below Amazonia) are hybrid, and that is what the study detected

@faktiheiny, moi looks great! Did you take a pinch of raw, non-alkalized moi powder, or mixed with alkalizer?

That post cutting bug is really annoying.

 raw, non-alkalized moi powder…it just arrived. put a little in the microoven (perfect dry if you use 50%ish power) and powdered it.
i just did more and will alkalize half of it tomorrow

Did you find the potency of commercially manufactured Brazilian snuffs on the lower side?

I don’t find them very strong. stronger then tipical european snuffs, but not very strong. first time I tryed Neffa Ifrikia for example, it was a whole new world for me.
strongest I ever tryed is the Rape Moeda I use as a profle pic. but it is nothing compared to the raw moi I just produced.

we have may styles of fumo de rolo aqui. they are made like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWq573GEpIE
the comercial snuffs are made of fumo de rolo, and mainly in the southeast, far from Amazonas area.
the moi is different. it more compressed, harder, like a brick. and it seams it is rolled like a cigarr, not like a fumo de rolo

N. rustica species has many varieties. Some of them are relatively “weak” - just a little bit stronger than strong N. tabacum (3-4% nicotine, mostly Eurasian varieties), others are mind-blowing potent (up to 19% in some Mexican N. rustica samples). So, the range of nicotine levels in different rusticas is really wide…

So this would mean that all brazilian dark tobacco varieties are varieties of rustica!? there are many of those here which are used a lot for cigarr wrappers: https://www.famous-smoke.com/cigaradvisor/5-things-brazilian-tobacco
and since I never found out what varieties are used for fumo de rolo those are probably all related.
In the Amazonia region you probably have a more “root” type of rustica I would guess (mui/mapacho)

@faktiheiny brazilian cigar wrappers are not rustica. Thats a totally different plant than n tabacum with different cchemical composition

@faktiheiny, I wouldn’t think so. Like @dasr told, cigar wrappers are N. tabacum. But as that study of Brazilian rappees discloses, most Brazilian snuffs are made from rustica. There’s no grounds to doubt it, highly reliable infrared spectroscopy method was used for analyzing minor alkaloids (N. tabacum and N. Rustica have different, their own signature-like profiles).

According to study data, all commercially manufactured Brazilian snuffs are acidic (non-alkalized), with the pH below 7, and contain very low amounts of freebased (un-ionised) nicotine (0.14-2.46%). Despite of high total nicotine levels, they are “low-potency” snuffs. In contrary, Amazonian dry rustica snuffs, containing ashes, are highly alkaline (pH 9.75-10.2) and contain up to 99.3% freebased nicotine, hence can be rated as “extra strong” (and more addictive, surely).

In comparison to commercial snuffs, Amazonian dry rustica snuffs with ash shine at low total TSNAs levels, but show worse figures for PAHs (tables No.3-4). High levels of TSNAs are resulted by non-alkaline moist fermentation, PAHs - by the use of fire-cured (or dried over the low fire) leaf and/or low-purity ashes (probably contaminated with the products of incomplete combustion of wood). Using non-firecured rustica leaf, high purity ashes and dry snuff preparation method probably would result in both low TSNAs and low PAHs levels in final product ( (just an assumption).

When prepared in Amazon, snuff is made as dry as possible. Not a single drop of water is used. For pure rustica snuff, dry rustica flour is mixed with dry wood ash at 1:1 ratio (by volume). Probably the most straightforward snuff recipe.

@volunge I see. wonder how my Moi behaves once I mix it with sodio carbonate. I’m using 100:15. I’m only waiting for my new sieve which should arrive today.

If you haven’t mixed it already, maybe try adding less carbonate first. The thing is, 4% with regular tobacco make huge difference… Of course, if you find it’s too much (100:15), you can dial down the pH by “thinning” it with non-alkalized Moi powder. Anyways, it’s better to experiment with small amounts, till you find the optimal ratio. Or check the pH, it should not exceed 10 (otherwise it might cause chemical burn).

@volunge

My sieve didn’t arrive yet.
I am actualy not so sure anymore what I did last time.
First time I tried your 82% tobacco, 12% water, 6% sodium carbonate recipie which translates to 100:7,3. Found out it did somehow alcalize but wouldn’t last long. So I went higer and got better results. I think tried 100:10 afterwards.
Not sure about my carbonate, since I made it form bi-carbonate. But I weighted it after making and it came out in the weight expected.
I guess climate will alter the results. Air here in Brazil is always humid, even more where I live since I live 150m from the ocean. 

Also I think PH is limited by substance. if you put 50% sodium carbonate it can’t go higher in PH as the PH of it. The question is how much is needed to react with given volume of tobacco

I saw the chart in another forum, some guys were experimenting with rustica and carbonate. They played with pH meter and found out that approximately 13% of sodium carbonate was necessary for 100% freebasing (which was their aim). I don’t remember the moisture content, tho.

Talking about Neffa Ifrikia, I’m pretty sure it’s not fully freebased (subjective comparison of Neffa’s effects to fresh Taxi Red, which contains almost 100% of freebased nic, NTSU (88%) or MG Madras (no data on freebased nicotine content, but total amount of alkalizers (12.5%, as listed on the label ) matches the necessary for full freebasing); Taxi, NTSU and MG hits me way harder. That said, I enjoy Neffa for it’s well balanced nic delivery, which is mild, not going through the roof, but still satisfying. I can chain pinch Neffa without any ill effects. I cannot do it with SA or Madras snuffs.

It’s easy to control freebasing, using a pH meter. Freebased nicotine level in smokeless tobacco products is usually calculated “in paper” (using Henderson-Hasselbach equation) - nicotine turns fully freebased, when pH is raised to 10 (or 10.2-3). If I get it all right, it’s a constant. Your question “how much [alkalizer] is needed to react with given volume of tobacco” is essential. I would say, roughly 12% for N. rustica, 10% for N. tabacum (plus/minus 1-2%; that is, in most cases, using regular/commercially grown rustica and tabacum varieties). Working without a pH meter, a rule of thumb is “better less than sorry”. 13% of carb is max.

The tricky part is the correlation of pH and moisture levels. To put it more accurately, stabilizing pH is a bit of a challenge, when it comes to moist snuffs; pH drops with the loss of moisture (a rhetorical question: have you ever had a pinch of dried-out Taxi Red? I call it a “Taxi Dead”…). However, I have just stumbled upon one great solution, described in this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2219479A1 (TLDR: the addition of magnesium carbonate in the final stage - 1% of the end product).

@volunge. I would like to try out alcalizing without water. How does this work? will they react without water?

Probably the easiest way is mixing moi with wood ashes. That’s it, usual Amazonian rate is 50:50 by vol. Nothing to add or explain here, it’s ready straight after mixing.  Still haven’t tried 50:50, but 7:3 rustica/ashes mix looked and felt just like regular ordinary fine dry snuff, no one could tell it contained ash . Toque rustica comes super fine, i. e. grind is finer than Neffa Ifrikia, similar to Toque USA W&H.

Nice read here: https://katukina.com/doc/blending

Same goes for other alkalizers, like sodium carbonate. Just don’t go by volume and keep to sane ratio (up to 13% by weight for sodium or potassium carbonate). Grind moi and alkalizer in a mortar. I you can get hold of pure calcium carbonate, calcium hydroxide (pharmaceutical or food grade; steer clear of the one used in construction, it’s far from pure) and tolerate the taste of it, try adding 6%. Do your best at mixing. Run small batch first.

What sieve did you order?

@volunge
got me a 125 micron. afraid nothing will go trough lol. arrived an hour ago. will test it tomorrow.
about ashes. I kind of don’t like the idea. I mean, you mix 50:50. now you get a 100% freebase. ok. but now you have only half of the mass in snuff.
if you can get the same result with 13% with sodim cabonate you get a much stronger snuff.
Never the less. now I got the sieve I will do some testing tomorrow 

Well, 125 mu fits the bill for some other purposes, too. Handy size.

Would love to see a photo of tobacco powder, sieved through 125. I’m pretty sure quite a few commercially manufactured snuffs are even finer.

The guy from katukina.com mentions using 30 mu for sieving ashes. That’s probably the particle size of the White Elephant dust. Have you ever tried it? It’s like water, you grab a pinch and it escapes from your fingers… Funny stuff.

True about ashes vs sodium carbonate.

@faktiheiny, if you are having difficulties sieving moi through 125, mill it in electric coffee grinder. It would be easier that way, especially with large amounts.

A note on tobacco content and potency correlation - water content in Taxi Red is almost 45 %, the rest is tobacco (probably around 45 %) and alkalizer (likely 10 % or so); pH 10. Makla Ifrikia (oral tobacco) contains only 37 % tobacco (rustica), the rest is water (49 %), alkalizers/pH stabilizers (approximately 10 %) and texture agents (carbon and edible oil); pH 10.9. Both products are 98-100 % freebased and are among the strongest smokeless tobacco products on the market. So, it is possible to achieve very satisfying results with small tobaco proportion in moist mixtures.

Quick question, and maybe it has been answered before, is nicotine still available in just plain ground tobacco without any alkalizer?

Yes, at low levels. Generally, nicotine absorbtion from powdered raw tobacco through mucous membrane is slow. Absorbtion rates depend on a pH of a particular leaf (some varieties are acidic, some alkaline). Air-cured (burley, Kentucky, cigar tobaccos), fire-cured (except Latakia) and secondary-cured/fermented (Perique) are more alkaline than flue-cured and sun-cured (most orientals).

@volunge

it’s quite some work to pass all the powder through the 125. I would prefer a little higher mash size. I would say it’s a good size for when you like very fine grind, but I say that it is a size which you would want to buy as a second or 3rd “professional” sieve. This is the first I bought so I kind of regret it. but I might change my opinion in the future.
have you personaly tryed electric coffe grinder? heard you can get it that fine with it.

Mui ready for drying https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QeXDjfOgGRoA4tR5PUIjsZnnzymbEfsx
Mui tea sieve (rest) and 125 sieve https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eTfRlvGnm3sLNfdpJEiBxz31luLorVPR

Also I tryed dry alcalizing. left it a few days but no reaction.
Just mixed 10g Moi125 with 1,5g SoCa and a little water.
Afraid allready, cause the Moi125 raw is allready too strong (I get a bad feeling) if I take a “normal” pinch (the pinches I am used, too)

@faktiheiny, the reaction will happen in the nose. I noticed some highly alkalized commercial dry snuffs release ammonia in the nose upon the contact with moist mucous membrane. This is the main reason dry snuffs don’t loose their kick that fast, in comparison to moist snuffs, which loose the power with the loss of moisture. When snuff is totally dry, no reaction will happen till you get the stuff in the nose or… it soaks some moisture from the air.

I have used coffee grinder for various purposes, including powdering the tobacco. Had quite a few and found them all similar in performance. The finest particles tend to accumulate on the inner side of the cover (lid). That lid fraction is super fine, too fine for my liking, actually. Much finer than 125, I think.

Thanks for the photos, your 125 powder is beautiful! 

The moi you got looks deeply fermented. Not sure about fermented rustica, but dark (fire cured) tobacco turns alkaline in the course of fermentation. Initially it’s acidic, but in the final stage it can shoot at 8 or slightly above (https://aem.asm.org/content/73/3/825#T2). With high nicotine percentage it can be enough for feeling the effects (as probably is the case with this moi). If you find alkalized moi unbearably strong, mix it with non-alkalized moi or N. tabacum.

Starting with a tiny pinch is a way to go, I would say.

https://katukina.com/doc/blending

Can someone tell me whats the quickest way of making snuff out of cigars? sodium bicarobonate becaus you cn get it in supermarket. What will the result be like using cigar?

Does anybody have an idea what sieve size would I need to achieve Viking Dark grind? I was thinking of buying 3 sieves layered from larger one, to Viking snuff size and third a bit smaller than Viking, to get an even coarse texture. Could be something in beetween NTSU and VD size

High Dry

If those were fire cured stalks, I imagine it would similar to American dry scotch.

Electric coffee grinder did the magic this time. It took less than a minute to turn it into medium fine powder. Before grinding, midribs were quickly dried in the preheated oven (5 minutes at 100 C) and crumbled.

Middle photo: mixed grind (medium fine). Right: fine (top mill / “lid grade”) grind.

Ingredients: midribs 87%, sodium bicarbonate 5%; salt 3.7%, sodium carbonate 3.7%; ammonium chloride 0.6%.

“Tastes” pretty much like GH Irish D, slightly sourish. Back drip is mild. Nic is a tad below medium, just as expected from stems.

Thanks for sharing the recipe @volunge ! Sorry to do this, but I am going to bombard you with questions! Do you get a lot of smokey scents by putting it in the oven like you would with a toast? Also I have noticed that you have been adding both sodium carbonate and bicarbonate to your last few batches, is there any reason for both and are you getting good results? And lastly, the high dry recipe does not have any liquid added, does that mean it is ready immediately after mixing?

@boiledonions, no smokiness at all, 5 min in 100 C oven (preheated for 5 min or so) wasn’t enough for that. Just a hint of nuttiness, with midribs. Having some bitter experience overroasting lamina, I was probably too precautious this time.

Can’t tell the right temperature for smoky toast yet, but I’ll shed more light on deep roasting. Last time I was messing with buns, so oven was set at 180 C and was on for a good hour. I decided to take the opportunity of well preheated oven and roast some leaves for Madras snuff. Just before switching the oven off, I crumbled stripped leaves (without midribs) and enveloped in a sheet of baking paper. Then I switched off the oven. let out some heat (left oven doors open for half a minute, so temp probably dropped down to 170-150 C) and put envelope with tobacco on the middle rack… 5 minutes were more than enough and resulted in medium-roast coffee beans flavour and colour. All swell, apart bitterish backdrip.

I’ve got plenty of midribs for experiments and will try toasting at slightly higher temperature (110-140 C) next time.

On the other hand, I start doubting if it’s possible to achieve smokiness at all, toasting air cured tobacco. Most smoky among toasts is probably WoS Irish No.22, which is “[…]a very Dry, Fine blend of Dark Fire Cured Tobaccos with no added moisture or flavour[…]”. F&T HDT is “[…]a dry toasted blend of Zimbabwe Flue Cured stem, Dark fired leaf and Sun Cured leaf tobacco[…]”…

Post cut again. Lost half of it. Just a fraction of second before hitting “Post Comment”, I realized that I should save the text… But it was too late.

In short, I’m very happy with the results and find carb+bicarb combo more palatable / rounded-up. And yes, it’s ready immediately after mixing. I actually did use some water, adding sodium carbonate as aqueous solution, but reduced moisture to zero straigthaway after working this solution into the flour, which already contained bicarb and salt, both added dry. Salmiak was added dry in the final step. However, I’m sure such snuff can be made without a single drop of water, simply milling all the ingredients. I’ll try the dry route next time and will draw a comparison.

The steps in detail:

1. Mill crumbled midribs (or lamina; or whole leaf, that is, lamina + midribs) with dry bicarbonate and salt.

2. Put flour into bowl and add aqueous sodium carbonate solution (I used 3 ml water for roughly 0.4 g carbonate), mix thoroughly with spoon.

3. Reduce moisture to zero. I placed the bowl on the oil radiator with minimal power setting (1/3) and medium termostate position (3/6), it took an hour (stirred 4-5 times). Check moisture with scales.

4. Put into grinder, add dry salmiak and run final milling.

5. Sift through a fine mesh (optional).

DONE.

With midribs/stems/stalks, you really need to mill them as fine as possible. Coarse, medium coarse / medium fine grind is no-go (choky).

One good thing about midribs snuff - mild backdrip, no bitterness at all.

@volunge I tried out the method of drying in the oven for a few minutes before grinding to get a very fine grind using American Spirit RYO Perique. It worked quite well. From that I added 3% carbonate, 2% salt, and 10% water. It was a pretty pleasant snuff immediately, but I am hoping it develops a little further over the next few days. I should also probably sieve it once or twice too, as there seems to be a few pretty large stems that did not grind into a super fine powder as the leaf did. Cheers!

@volunge Would it be feasible to make a schmalzler without oil or fat?  Simply curious.  I haven’t tried to make snuff before

In general… thanks for all the people sharing their knowledge about making snuff. It seems not to be as difficult as I always suspected.

One day I gonna try this on my own. I really got itched.

I just have a question about the alkalisation; most of the time I read about carbonate. Sometimes also bicarbonsate seems to be used. But why? Which effect has each of these compositions on the product?

Anyone knows if green dried leafs would be of any use for snuff? I have a lot of fractured plants that wont be able to mature into yellow chlorophyl-free material. Would be sad to throw those away…

I can only imagine the sourness that would come off of green leaf. You may be able to get away with baking at 300c for 15mins to over-ride the greenieness with some super toasting? But it may always have that acrid super sourness underneath it all.

@boiledonions, yes, it will develop (round up to the better side) in 5-7 days, even if absolutely dry!

@Gormur, besides Brazilian fermented tobacco, true schmalzler needs fat or mineral oil (paraffin oil aka white oil). However, Polish snuff aficionados have found old recipe of pseudoshmalzer (fake schmalzler), which doesn’t call for Brazilian tobacco and the addition of any fat. Dutch snuff mills re-created the snuff according to that recipe, it was named Hermbstedt’s Brazil with Kashubian sauce. Among other ingredients, this snuff was condimented with Peruvian Balm, which added to its sweet flavour. It was a very nice snuff, but didn’t resemble real schmalzler.

Now thinking more about it, I’m not sure if this recipe was created to substitute Brazilian tobacco, or as a shmalzler surrogate…

@Humppa, eurotabak.de is probably the best place to procure whole leaf. Even if you don’t plan to try your hand at snuff making in the nearest time, I advise to stock on leaves. They only get better with time, and the current stock is already almost year-old (2019 harvest). In a few months they will offer fresh leaves (2020 harvest), which is not a bad thing, but aged is generally considered better. So, it’s about a right time to place an order. You can find more varieties and vendors at ebay.de, searching for “tabakblatter”.

Sodium bicarbonate is mild alkalizer and is suitable only for low-potency snuff. Sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate are much stronger alkalis. Slaked lime and ammonium carbonate are even more so. If you want to make strong snuff, like SG KBO, you need to use sodium or potassium carbonate. Generally, only alkalized snuffs contain bioavailable (freebased) nicotine. The higher content of the freebased nicotine, the more potent the snuff. “Safe” upper pH limit for nasal snuff is pH 10. At such pH pretty much all the nicotine in the snuff is freebased and snuff qualifies as super potent. If you don’t use a pH meter, reliable ratio is 6% of potassium carbonate (or sodium carbonate) by weight, but I would advise trying a small batch with 4-5% carbonate first. I find such amount makes snuff very satisfying in the nicotine department. I dialed it up to 14% once (a mix of 7% sodium carbonate and 7% potassium carbonate), the burn was too sharp on the first day, but in a week it turned much better (and yes, it does deliver!).

@Johano, even non-matured leaves contain a fair amount of nicotine. My Virginias and Havanas were all in the pre-flowering stage when I cut them in late August 2007, but still made a decent smoke both taste and nicotine-wise. Do not throw away any material! An exception to this are bottom leaves (“sand leaves”), many growers discard them due to the very low nicotine content.

Some varieties of rustica don’t change the colour during the regular air curing. To change the colour, you would need to run heap fermentation - to pile up slightly dried leaves in huge piles, checking the teperature inside and turning the heap upside-down when the temp rises, repeating the whole cycle until the colour change occurs. It is possible only with huge crop.

@johano Rosinski makes a few green snuffs that are literally still green when ready. I have had two and enjoy them quite a bit. They remind me of fresh cut hay or grass. I am not sure what process actually goes into them though.

@boiledonions which one of these did you get? https://rosinski-schnupf.com/webshop/en/Green-Snuff/

@boiledonions, at least one of those green snuffs is made from frost-bitten leaves. It happened to a part of my crop once. Frost kills tobacco plants instantly, the leaves turn very dark-green and shrivel. Regretably, I didn’t know it could be used for snuff… The plants looked so dreadful that I didn’t even try drying them for a smoke test.

@lenezzz I have had the morgentau and the driesener. Morganteau seems to just be the scented version of the other. But this info may be misleading to @johano given the info that @volunge just presented.

Only two out of five Rosinski’s greens are described as made from frost-affected leaf.

“Nordwind - the frosty snuff. An almost forgotten classical snuff as it used to be made by the cottagers in the fens of Eastern Germany - what leaves remained at the tobacco plant’s stem after the first sudden frosts was turned into a dark green snuff. The unmistakable scent of frozen green tobacco leaves, a touch of camphor and bay leave, and a dash of menthol. Moist, medium grind. Strong in nicotine, mentholated.”

Klippenritt contains frost leaf, too. “Klippenritt. The maritime snuff. The exhilerant fragrance of the waves breaking against a cliff. Mossy and earthy notes in the background, blended with fresh herbal scents. A frost green snuff with slight addition of a light Burley, coupled with wintergreen, incense, lime fruit an menthol. Medium grind, medium nicotine strength, fairly moist.”

Frost isn’t mentioned in the description of Driesener, Morgentau and Nordisch Grun.

@volunge thank you for the great replie. For the information about the leaves as well as about the alkalis.

Much appreciated!

Followed Juxtaposer recipe last week and made some homemilled from Canadian Classic I had in the freezer. I toasted before grinding. After a week, honestly not that bad.

Im definitely going to pass it through a tea sieve in the next few days to get the much finer grind as this is a bit too coarse for ma nez. The nic is surprisingly on point with say toque quit, not a whole lot of burn and isnt acrid on the drip (which also wasnt that bad). Ive been homemilling lots of different tobaccos (not all brand), just for the heck of it and if you are gonna do up some Virginia just laying around, I find the toasting makes it more palatable. Whether you agree with homemilling brand tobacco or not, a fair amount of folks post this kinda question from titme to time, so thought Id mention it. 

Nice snuff you made, @LeNezzz! Looks like Gekachelter Virginie.

Talking about brand tobacco, I tried a couple of volume aka DIET (dry ice expanded tobacco) MYOs - LD and Winston - and found them unsuitable for snuff. Too clogging and low in nicotine.

You are right in that it looks a lot like Gekachelter Virgine. I havent had that one yet so I will put in my next order. I have watched a few reviews of it though. I have a weird thing for converting on brand tobacco, just cuz, if I run out, cant get it or what not I want to have a good recipe to get me by. We dont seem to have any mills in Canada that ive been able to find so I wonder if the tobacco brands we do have made snuff maybe this is what itd taste like if they did. Have folks been trading their homemills lately

@LeNezzz, I would say, if brand tobacco is additives-free and doesn’t contain DIET tobacco, it’s on a par to whole leaf, when it comes to snuff making. I’ll make some small 10 g batches of snuff (a fine dry toast, medium grind medicated and moist coarse) from Poschl Pueblo RYO or RAW Organic later this summer and share the recipes and my thought about the end result here. Pueblo and RAW are widely available throughout Europe.

You might get disappointed by Gekachelter V. I can bet your homemade CC is more satisfying. GV is pretty mild snuff.

If you want to stick to a reliable (“tried and loved”) recipe and aim for stable result, you need to use scales. Going by volume is just a tad faster, but results may vary each time due to poor precision. There’s a sensible difference between, say, 3% and 5% alkalizer. Same goes for moisture content. Worth giving a glance at the spreadsheet (compiled from snuff composition datasheets publicised on German BMEL website) and other info in this thread: https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/11859/spreadsheet-ingredients-of-poeschl-bernards-and-swedish-match

@volunge I will look at the spread sheet. I am most definitely looking for a stable product. I have a small gram scale at home, so far Ive been going by volume, but as you mention that is definitely less precise. 

This batch here I used Juxtaposers recipe with some tweaking, one cup CC Virginia gold (im sure it has some additives, but I digress) flour which I toasted at 300c for 30mins, quarter tsp sodium carbonate,  eighth tsp salt, both sodium and salt independently dissolved in a tsp of distilled water. Left sit for a week in air tight  container opening occasionally to check on it and such. I want to sieve it again to get it much finer, but its still very flavourful and enjoyable. 

Appreciate the link. 

Note also ive tried from not toasting to even adding in some tobacco ash in various other batches and I like this 300 at 30 mins the best so far. 

@volunge

Another question about alkalos… I was just searching through my wife s household cabinet and found a package of natriumsesquicarbonate. It is a package of so called active soda - in german Aktiv Natron for washing and many other household things. It has citric scnet, not bad or a lot of it. But the scent is there.

Can this stuff being used as an alkali for snuff? IMO, I am just using a very short amount of it to alkalize the snuff.

I justr wnnted to know if this will cause any harm? Never hears about natriumsesquicarbonate, and so my question.

Or could baking powder also being used for it? Just took a look, it vontains natriumbarbonate E500. But also other ingredients I am not familiar with.

Sodium sesquicarbonate can be used for alkalizing snuff, it renders pretty high pH. It’s stronger alkali than sodium bicarbonate, but a tad weaker than sodium carbonate. However, I wouldn’t advice using the household product. Besides the flavouring agent, it might contain other impurities - many household chemistry is made from technical grade compounds. Opt for food/pharmacy/laboratory grade alkalizers, or even higher purity (99-99.5%) ones.

Baking powder is a no-go, it’s a mixture of sodium carbonate, starch (or flour) and acid salts. Food grade sodium bicarbonate (E500) is available in every supermarket or larger food store and is really cheap. You can easily convert it to sodium carbonate in an oven, it takes only 30 minutes at 200-220 C.

Thanks for the replie, @volunge

I went through the supermarket this morning and didnt trust the stuff sold there. So I went to the local pharmacy and ordered pure NA2CO3 at about 7 EURO for 250 Gram. A little more expensive but it is pure without other ingredients. This ammount will last a long time as the content is only in percent stage.

Slowly Im getting my stuff ready. Ordered a hand grinder as well as some Viriginia Orange Leafes (200 gram for the start). Next weekend I sould be packed up with my basic equipment …

Great choices! 250 g of carbonate is a lot, using it at 4-6%, you can make 4-6 kg of snuff.

4% gives medium, 6% - strong potency.

Virginia Orange was one of my interest as well. Aromatischer und wurziger sounds appetizing! When your leaves arrive, please check them carefully for sand/soil and other organic stuff, like other plants seeds, fluff, insects etc. Leaf often needs to be cleaned before processing it into snuff, soft / medium hard painter’s brush does the job. Before brushing off the sand (if any; check both sides of the leave, it tends to accumulate along the central vein), you need to condition (moisturize) leaves. It’s easily done, leaving carefully stringed dry leaves overnight, hanged outside (especially after rainy day). Hang the string with leaves under the roof, the firewood storing shed with open doors is ok. In the morning leaves will be elastic enough to unfold for cleaning without breaking them. It takes some time, but definitely worth doing. It’s a pleasant little job, very aromatic one. You don’t need to wear gloves, working with dried/conditioned leaf. If you want to make stronger snuff from pure lamina, strip the leaves from the midribs straight after cleaning, while they are still elastic. Save the midribs, you can make high dry snuff or toast from them. Then dry the lamina and midribs in a dry, warm place or in the warm (30-40 C) oven.

Thanks again for the advice @volunge

I gonna check them as soon as they are here and brush them free of dust and dirt… and tiny animals sitting on there.

I am looking forward on getting my first order of tobacco and doing my first homemade snuff after 21 years of snuff taking.

Anyone ever order tobacco stems used for pigeon nests? I wonder where they got theirs from and such.

https://globalpigeonsupply.com/products/tobacco-stems-crumbles-15-lb

I have stumbled upon similar Polish products recently, searching for whole leaf suppliers. Just one of many: https://zloty-lotnik.pl/shop/natural-lodygi-tytoniu/ Looks like central veins (midribs). It’s 2-6 times cheaper than EU-grown whole leaf (kg price). Not worth messing with, imo. Midribs/stems contain less nicotine. It’s clearly a by-product, waste of tobacco processing.

In some countries you can buy bags of tobacco dust, which can be used as fertilizer and insecticide.

Dang. I was like, maybe a source for a toast, but now I

@volunge no definitely not worth it anyway. The shipping cost is about 4.5 EUR. Never suspected that pigeons like bacco midribs  :))

Hi guys and gals!

I was doing it today the very first time and made myself a batch of snuff on my own.

I was usind this recipe

70/100 tobacco (vorginia orange leaf)

20/100 water destilled

5/100 salt

5/100 natrium carbonite

After cleaning the leafes I was grinding them down to dust in a mortar and prestle. For the correct measurement I was using a fine-scale that makes it own to 1/100 gramm.

The most work was the handgrinding. But a batch of 20 gramm was done within an hour. Adding the water and let it relax for a few days. I couldnt resist though. I tried it. The virginia is still strong in taste. But it almost turns into a “darker” taste - if this makes any sense at all. The smell almost reminds me on Neffa Ifrikia at least from the distance. A nic hit is also almost there but I suspect it will be more in a few days when the Na2CO3 did its work.

Great fun … and I know what is in it … LOL!

The only thing that didnt fit this first time was the grind. It was a bit too coarse to my taste. Next time I will grind it longer in mortar.

Congrats, @Humppa, your recipe sounds allright!

Coarse grind has its merits - the coarser the grind, the more flavour of tobacco snuff retains. You can use a mesh tea strainer like this for a grind similar to Neftobak https://www.hygi.de/kuechenprofi-teesieb-durchmesser-7-5-cm-pd-98127?pg=4139. I have a similar one, which I use for snuff, and sieved some Neftobak through it. 30-40% of all Neftobak particles are actually even coarser and didn’t pass through the tea strainer mesh.

Some useful tips. Using mesh strainer or sieve makes grinding easier (faster). While grinding, once in a while sieve the ground flour, saving that finer part which passes through the mesh, and continue grinding the coarser fraction.

You can achieve different grind, using the same strainer/sieve. If you prefer medium coarse grind, when sieving, don’t try to sieve all amount in one go, sieve one teaspoon (without a heap) at a time, and don’t force it - that is, don’t sieve too vigorously and stop sieving when 2/3 of the particles passed through the mesh. Return the 1/3 left in the strainer (which contains mostly coarser particles) to the mortar for further grinding. That way you can easily achieve more uniform medium coarse grind. When your snuff has rested for 3-5 days, do final sieving, using the same tea strainer. You can further regrind the coarsest grains which don’t pass the mesh, but don’t apply pressure and do it gently (carefully). Or simply save that coarsest fraction to use it as a loose snus (you’ll need to “handbake” it really hard, for it has different, less plastic texture than proper snus). Sieving 10-15 g of moist coarse homemade, I usually end up with 1.5-3 g of that coarse, snus grain-like fraction.

For coarse grind, sieve vigorously and return to the mortar only really coarse crumbs of midribs or smaller veins and lamina flakes.

For fine or medium-fine, simply… keep on grinding :).

For extra fine, you will need electric coffee grinder. Finest fraction accumulates on the inner surface of the lid. You don’t even need a super fine mesh… it’s that fine. Think White Elephant.

@volunge

Thanks for thereplie, mate.

I forgot to mention, that I used a household sieve I kidnapped out of my wife s kitchen drawer. I used the mortar and prestle as I kept to make some tobacco fflakes wth the hands. I only used the lamina. The stems I put away, not throwing them away I realised that the mortar doesnt work properly then there is too much material in dhe bowl. Too much force on the leafes is also not good. There has to be some balance in pressure.

The grind turned out to be somewhat between a Schmalzler and Neftobak. Still sniffable. But I prefer much finer snuffs. The next time I gonna grind longer or get myself a coffee grinder. That doesnt cost too much an could save time and make the result more pleasant for my liking.

I put the complete mixture in a small mason jar. And let it rest from friday on. Today (sunday) the whole smell of it changed somehow. The hayish is almost gone. It seems that there was little fermentation going on. Maybe a reaction of the salt and natriumbaronate.

Gonna try it after lunch with a mighty pinch.

@Humppa Here’s a link to the old German book on tobacco, snuff and cigars fabrication: https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb10305199.html . For snuff, jump to page 200. There are many recipes, some of them are really simple. If you decide to give them a go, use sodium carbonate instead of Weinstein. Sure thing, you can use other types of tobacco and reasonably tweak the recipes. Some aromatic ingredients might be pricey or hard to get.

@volunge

Thanks for the link … interessting read - indeed. I have to take a closer look at the recipes.

ATM I only own the Virginia and some gram of Toque Rustica. Gonna put these two together in near time - while using a very fine grind.

@volunge: It’s familair I think  I’ve used the same book but the editon of 40 years later.

Got myself an eletric coffee grinder and went on…

I took

40 % Virginia Orange Leaf

40 % Toque Rustica

10 % Water (destilled)

5 % Natriumcarbide

5 % Salt

The result went out surprisingly good.

Made this on friday… so two days ago. A question for my understanding; how much time does it need to get a nicely alkalisation? It seems any of these two snuffs I made until now is getting stronger by every passing day.

I think it needs a few days for the correct arome developement.

I would say, 3-7 days for 10% moisture.

From my own experience with 20-30% moisture and 4-6% alkalis, 3-5 days is enough for full alkalization. By that time snuff emits most part of ammonia and reaches maximal potency. However, I speed up the alkalization with some basic manipulations in the course of the first three days - press snuff really hard with spoon for night and stir it up thoroughly in the morning, giving some good stirs and shakes throughout the day.

With further “ageing”, snuff rounds up its character and turns milder (in the best sense). With a very few exceptions (“maturing” my coarse moist for 2 weeks and Madras for 1 month), I haven’t tried maturing my homemade for really long (weeks or even months), but I’m sure that any plain snuff with a “healthy” amount of carbonate and salt - like yours - is capable to withstand a test of time, improving its organoleptic properties. Some recipes (14-35% moisture, 2-4% carbonate, up to 6% salt) call for 6 months “maturation”, but these snuffs are “doctored” with ammonia compounds (say, 0.6% salmiak or 0.08% ammonia water), which ensure preservation.

Keeping snuff warm for the first 3-6 days significantly speeds up the development and results in dark snuff.

For Madras, 5 days is a minimal must.

When it comes to homemade, I find it very satifying, and so far my only complaint is bitterish backdrip (only midrib high dry was really mild drip-wise) . I tried only three tobacco varieties - two unknown, aged for 2 years, and Samsoun Orient of '19 harvest. Curious to try other leaf, especially aged for 3+ years.

THank you, @volunge for the great explanation.

These are so mich great information on that topic. A great source of knowledge. Thanks for sharing this.

Natural Menthol Rustika

I finally prepared my first homemade rustica snuff. I used some greenish leaves that were already well dried and sit in a container with fresh spearmint for a while.

I grinded the leaves in kitchen blender and used 2 sieves, one bigger and the second one a bit more selective, so I could control the grind really well. Grinded bigger particles again, sieved. Turned out pretty homogenous this way.

I aimed for Neffa moist style snuff with a hint of menthol besides leaves being already noticeably spiced up with spearmint, so I measured:

82% baccy (was about 2.8 grams, microbatch)

6% sodium carbonate

12% water,

approx. 0,5-1% menthol crystals (dissolved in 70% EtOH, just few drops ofc)

Unfortunately, after +/- 18 hours the white Na2CO3 crystals remained visible, so I added a bit warm water again, took for a spin in blender and shaked. I guess I should rather dissolving carbonate in water THEN adding it to snuff.

Well, I hurried up a lil bit I guess, because I should probably let it sit in a closed can for 3-5 days. I was also  bit worried that I could burn my nose due to undisolved carbonate, but I took a few good pinches…

This amount of menthol is enough, just feel it cooling effect without harshness. Spearmint adds up nicely to it, really natural scent. It was burning a bit, but not more than your regular fresh snuff. I was afraid that green-ish leaves would ruin the experience, but it turned out pretty decent. Almost like regular snuff, maybe caking a bit more in nose, but I think its more of a overhydration of it right now.

And it actually does got some nic in it! Took my head and heart for a spin without a doubt, even tho I took some quite big pinches of Viking Dark Rapee not long ago before it. Cant wait to try it tomorrow morning on fresh nose, but will leave the rest pressed in tin for some time to mature.

Also, Ive done some two other snuffs from green rustica leaves laying around, that I havent tried yet:

One a bit coarser, same recipe as previously but more carbonate - 10% (and in this one the carbonate dissolved better, why? no idea) closed in tin with fresh rosemary herb in teabag for scent.

The second one VERY coarse-grind, closely followed @volunge 's recipe here for TAXI type (55% water). I smelled it after few minutes… oh, sweet ammonia! I hope it will get a bit darker soon tho.

One question: should I avoid opening the tins completely for first few days?

Brilliant! And yes, better use aqueous solution of carbonate. In the course of the first 5 days open the tins daily to stir the snuff up.

I just made snuff by my own only two times now. I always used destilled water and dissolved the Na2CO3 in there.

Gave it a rest a few days and it was / is ready for use.

Definitely got even more strong after a week or so. My heart is pounding like hammer after few pinches. Also a bit darker, its dark green right now. Green snuff must me as fine as possible, because scent wise grass-like notes are a bit off and its more pronounced in coarse batch. Cant wait to try making batch from matured leaves from my plants. I surely wouldnt add more than 4% carbonate into rustica next time, its a killer!

Try cutting rustica with some regular tobacco

Is it possible to toast unadulterated tobacco leaves?  I imagine tobacco leaves catching fire, although I’ve never tried it.  I’m curious

Tobacco (whole leaves, pure lamina or midribs) is dried (or toasted) before further processing it.

Toasted tobacco on its own makes a low potency snuff. However, snuff user with a low nicotine tolerance might find it satisfying. I enjoyed my homemade snuff, made from toasted cigarettes tobacco without any additives, in my early teens. Later on, when I got my hands on industrial snuff, and got into occasional smoking, I realized that my pure homemade toast ain’t that good (in terms of nicotine)… I started experimenting with pipe tobacco and discovered it makes more satisfying snuff, but it was harsher on a throat. I ended up blending pipe and cigarette baccy (drying it in an oven and grinding with a coffee grinder). Back then I was sure I was doing it right and that snuff is basically a powdered tobacco. Literally.

@volunge Cheers for the informative answer.  I think I’m still confused though.  For example, by unprocessed I did mean either raw (non-dried) or naturally dried without additives

I’m not positive but I think I heard somewhere before that drying tobacco leaves could also have things added - to help speed up the drying process or for whatever reason

So drying fresh leaves in an oven, by toasting them.  Is that possible?  I don’t have a reason to do this but it’s just something I’m curious about.  Thanks again

If I remember it right, there’s a clear distinction (in the EU) between raw tobacco, which is additive-free colour-cured whole leaf tobacco, and the processed one. Colour-cured whole leaf tobacco, sprayed with PEG or glycerol (both are used as a preservative), is considered processed. By the way, stripped leaves (that is, pure lamina, even without any additives) qualify as processed, too.

Technically, drying fresh leaves in an oven is possible. However, I think it would result in a very unusual flavour, to say the least. Think roasted chlorophyll… I would try it right away, if I only had fresh leaves. Alas, it’s yet another year without a single tobacco plant in my garden.

@volunge Cheers!  I was curious about that

I guess this goes here too, and then I’ll be done with the questions, hehe.  I’d like to add menthol crystals to some snuff.  Can I lay a pile of them on a paper towel and place it over the snuff while closing the tin?

Yes, you can. Snuff will absorb some menthol, but it’s not the common way and I think it would result in only mildly mentholated snuff. If your crystals are large enough, you can place them directly over the snuff (without a paper towel). Close the tin, leave overnight and take out all the crystals next day. Make sure you don’t leave any inside, sniffing pure menthol might be too painful/irritating. Shake the tin well before taking a pinch.

If you can get hold of pure food grade ethanol (190 U.S. proof / 95% abv Everclear), dissolve the crystals in just a splash of it (1-2 millilitres) and work the solution into the snuff (simply mixing it). Use up to 5% menthol of total product weight (for instance, up to 0.5 g menthol for 9.5 g of snuff, if you aim for strongly mentholated). It’s the industrial route to mentholate snuff. Let the alcohol evaporate before taking a pinch, it takes about 30 minutes for 10 g of snuff in an open bowl (give a few stirs with a teaspoon to speed up the evaporation). For a full-medicated blast, add up to 4.5% of eucalyptus essential oil (by weight).

@volunge Can I simply use something like this? -> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017QE4JJA?pf\\_rd\\_r=CV3TB77ZYYX04A8X09N4&pf\\_rd\\_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee

Instead of getting 95% alcohol (which I can obtain), maybe that would work, just adding measured amounts?

@Gormur, it seems these are pure menthol crystals (solid menthol) and you would still need alcohol to dissolve them for mentholating your snuff. Safe to go.

As my rustica leaves slowly mature in the cardbox, I started wondering where does barnyard/earthy scents goes from in some snuffs like Neffa. I came across an interesting article regarding such tobacco in cigars https://www.cigars-connect.com/where-does-the-barnyard-flavor-in-cigars-come-from/. It seems this aroma is result of yeast contamination of B. bruxellensis, this strain is available to buy online for beers, wines etc. Do you think that treating the fermenting robacco leaves with the right amount of the yeast would give any results?

The term “barnyard smell/scent” is really vague to me, when it comes to snuff. And I am not a stranger to a country side life. I used to think that it’s a clear refference to ammonia, but I stumbled with various (controversial) descriptions of that particular smell, and got lost in definitions.

Is it a sweet, hay/honey-like, herbaceous smell, similar to the barn where the hay is stored? Or ammonia, like in a cattle-shed? The smell of a moist soil? All listed, or… “something in the middle”?

Now yeast… Under normal conditions, it’s pretty much everywhere. Literally, even in the air we breathe.

@volunge yes, I do realise that. But I guess the variety of yeast present in our household is very limited due to clean enviroment. However, I totally agree that its hard to describe the scent per se. It may be result of everything from using specific strain of tobacco, the curing process, to the location where its was stored etc. May be not that simple to just sprinkle a bit of yeast onto leaves and keep them warm enough during process. Yet, I am enough intrigued by the aroma to try and replicate it… maybe next year.

@Johano, @faktiheiny, I think that the smell of Neffa originates from the particular variety of rustica used for this snuff. I have no idea, which variety they use, but I would assume they use one of the “yellow” varieties, which changes colour during drying/“colour curing”. Tunisian farmers grow Souffi variety exclusively for snuff, which is called Neffa Souffi (seeds of one Souffi rustica variety is available at Souffii Setif | Сорта табака и махорки).

MdK use wine lees for St. Omer No. 1 (along other standard ingredients, like potash, salmiak and salt). I’m not sure if wine lees contain any live yeast, or it was used only as a source of bitartrate salts / tartaric acid (the latter, reacting with potash, probably forms tartrate salts). This snuff is sour (tart), for what it’s worth. Besides, it’s made of tobacco, fermented in carrot, and contains some flavourings. The use of tartaric acid salts (cream of tartar aka wine stone) and salmiak for snuff was prevalent in 18-19 centuries in continental Europe, but diminished when high purity potash, ammonium and sodium carbonate became cheaper and widely available. English snuff makers traditionally used calcium hydroxide (aka slaked lime, in the form of lime water), potash and ammonium carbonate.

Now back to Neffa Ifrikia ingredients. The composition, pH, tobacco and nicotine content are publicised on anses.fr website Les produits du tabac et produits connexes | Anses - Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail and can be accessed, clicking “Donnees de composition des produits du tabac et a base de plantes” and “Liste des autres produits du tabac et produits a base de plantes” (right-click these links and select “Open file…” to download .xls files; open the files and using Ctrl + f, search for “Neffa”, there are two of them there, Sifaco Neffa Ifrikia and Poschl Neffa Bledi).

Neffa Ifrikia composition (ingredients in mg per 1000 mg snuff):

Water 167.5

Sodium carbonate 51.25

Sodium bicarbonate 25.31

Calcium hydroxide 10

Calcium carbonate 8.75

The rest is tobacco.
pH 8, nicotine - 10.

Neffa Bledi composition (ingredients in mg per 1000 mg snuff):
Water 62.7623
Sodium carbonate 10-hydrate 28.4843
Calcium hydroxide 19.3114
Potassium carbonate 8.5453

The rest is tobacco.
pH 8.5, nicotine - 38 mg/g.

Moroccan homemade nefha:
4 parts rustica
1 part wood ash
a splash of water.

Tunisian Neffa Souffi:
Tobacco 92%
Carbonate (cation not specified)
Sodium bicarbonate
Water.

The amounts are not specified.

Nicotine - 2%.

(28.48 mg sodium carbonate 10-hydrate can be substituted with 11.40 mg regular sodium carbonate (i. e. sodium carbonate anhydrous, which you end up with after running sodium bicarbonate conversion to sodium carbonate in an oven).

@volunge Im truly impressed with your research. This is amazing, there are also all Makla snus precise ingredients and some other snuffs as well!

So basically, in Neffa Ifrikia two latter additives are added as preservatives. Would make sense using them when making extra amounts of snuff. Excluding those tiny 2,5% bicarb amount, you guessed the composition just right. Let me know via PM when/if you going to order seeds here

@Johano Will do!

Interestingly, as you have noticed, factory-fresh (i. e. moist) Neffa Ifrikia is really mild and doesn’t kick that hard as the dried-out one does. Dried-out Neffa turns more potent and hits harder and. The reason is simple: percentage of alkali in snuff rises with the loss of moisture – from original 9.53% (rounded) to 11.45%; that is, dried-out Neffa turns more alkaline.

I can say the same about my favourite water-based Kensington snuff (menthol, eucalyptus and lavender), which is released from factory with 20% moisture and 6% potash. I never had a fresh tap box of K - it always comes dry as bone, snuff net weight lacking exactly the mass of water, but man, does it kick and do I enjoy it!

Pls suggest the best preeervative for moist snuff.

@Amjaf, for your homemade? There are quite a few options.

Are you a commercial manufacturer? What is the composition of your product? Is it oral tobacco product, or nasal snuff?

Volunge, i m commercial munufacturer. My snuff is oral used in mouth under lip. Our product contains tobacco powder, wood ash, lime, guar gum and water.

You don’t need any other preservatives for such product, it already contains lime and ash.

Did you have any issues with product quality, like mold?

Volunge lime and ash do non things. The snuff smell goes bad after few days and also the color change

Pls suggest the best preservative for snuff which contain water and also the tempreture hit the 50 centegrade

Pls suggest the best preservative for moist snuff. Water base snuff

Yes we have issue. Snuff smell goes unpleasant and color change close to black

Hi everyone! I m new here from pakistan We are moist snuff munufacturer. Recipe contains Tobacco powder 50 kg Wood ash. 10 kg Lime 5 kg Guar gum 6 kg Water 50 kg We adds alot of preservative as listed below: Sodium benzoate Sodium bicarbonate Poatssium sulphate Potassium metabisulphate Citric acid Boric acid Acetic acid Methyl parben Buthyl paraben Sodium sorbate But No one work proporly. The snuff smell goes unpleasant after few days and also color change Please help me in this formulation And suggest the best preservative.

PM sent, check your inbox. @Amjaf

If by “unpleasant smell” you mean ammonia, it’s all-right. Emission of ammonia is inevitable part of this process. Ammonia also acts as natural preservative.

You really don’t need those preservatives in your snuff (some of them are nasty compounds, none of us here would use a product with, say, formaline or formaldehyde), just use the right amount of high purity ingredients, including quality tobacco and purified water. Sulphates and metabisulphites impair organoleptic properties, you should never use them. Steer clear of methyl and buthyl parabens. Check the pH of final product, it should never exceed 11. Compare your product pH with that of your competitors, maybe consumers in your area are used to less alkaline products, like 10, or even lower. Experimenting, make small batches only. Hope this helps.

Just to make clear, this thread (and forum) is dedicated to nasal snuff. As far as I know, none of us here has ever made naswar or similar oral tobacco product (bar snus) at home. There are some men from tobacco industry here, but they would never disclose the process.

You are right sir no one disclose. In snuff company no one is honest to helps other. I tried from last one year but no one help me.

My video on making dry snuff at home, with ingredients and some theory. Recipe comes from user Volunge - he’s been a tremendous help, and knows his stuff! https://youtu.be/2PdaH2oZBwU I’m seriously considering trying my hand at a moister rappee style snuff soon. If I can figure out how to mock the fermentation, it’s in the bag.

I just want to tell you guys something.

I found a little screw top tin in the depths of a drawer just yesterday after I got home from work. It contains some homemade snuff. I actually thought I almost emptied that batch. Long story short - I kept that snuff since the middle of august 2020 in that drawer without touching it.

It was a mix of mine between Orange Leaf Virginia and Rustica.

The smell out of that container was almost very very pleasant. The nic hit was a bummer - blew away my head.

I kept it there for several months without touching it, not even opening that container. I got a wonderful surprise.

What I wanted to tell ya - be patient. Snuff needs time to mature and getting better when time goes on.

My recommendation is - make your own stuff and give it time to mature and getting better during time.

Has anybody toyed with the idea/tried adding mineral oil to Samuel Gawith Elmo’s Reserve or Kendal Brown Plain?

It’s getting harder for me to use these straight, even though I like them.  That goes for all plain snuffs except toasts.  I guess I’m leaning more towards just using mentholated snuff; I got a tub (200g) of McChrystal’s O&G last month and was thinking of getting another soon.  I’m also hooked on Hedges L260 and Gawith Hoggarth CM, both of which I’ve reordered today

I’m afraid of trying to mentholate these kinds of snuffs, e.g Viking Thor’s Hammer as they’re kind of smoky, so I’m just curious if mineral oil ever works with these to make them more palatable

@Humppa It’d be great to make snuff.  What I worry about is starting out with a lot and winding up with very little, wanting an alkalized snuff and end up with one that tastes salty or making a snuff that ends up not having any nicotine in it.  How do you prevent such a thing from happening?

@Gormur : I dont know if I get you right, but it seems you are a little concerned about paying a lot of money for things to make snuff. Well - all in all the whole stuff was up to about 30 Euros incuding tobacco. The electric coffee grinder I found in a second hand store. Just cleaned the device properly. The alkaliser was also just some bucks.

My snuff doesnt taste salty at all. And the nic developes on its own, when you alkalise the powder - as long as you use alkalised tobacco the nicotine will develope.

@Humppa I never made snuff. Just tons of snus. And yes maturing/fermentation is very important for tobaccotaste. For snus I made a quick fermentation in a ricecooker. One week at 40-50 Celsius I remember a really really great smell. Always loved it. But in this time I didn’t use snuff. I‘m looking forward to make my own snuff in this way.

@Hloridison eurotabak.de carries really nice assortment now, even some Kentucky, including the sun cured one. The same vendor can be found on e-bay.de, there are some others, too. One firma even sells Kentucky from the USA.

One good thing about snuff, you can make very small test batches, like 10 grams, (consider using 0.01-0.1 g precision scales in such case). It’s mostly cold process, run at room temperature. But one can surely make pasteurized snuff as well, or play with homemade Cavendish. One old Russian recipe I’m interested to try calls for a fermentation in a stove (furnace) for a week; temperature range may be similar to that needed for rice cooker-made snus (basically, it’s humectants-free, more alkaline snus with lower moister content and a tad finer grind). Ettan composition (bar humectants and that tiny amount of non-disclosed flavour) is very similar to that of Gekachelter Virginia; if you take some homemade Ettan (before the addition of humectants), reduce its moisture to 20% and add 6-7% paraffin oil, you should end with a snuff, similar to GV.

@CobbGoots video covers the dry scotch process. Using 5% sodium carbonate and 2.5% sodium bicarbonate (skipping salt and salmiak) and adding 18% water to the dry mix of tobacco flour (sieved through 150-100 microns mesh) and aforementioned alkalizers gives you great SP-type plain snuff, which can be used immediately. It’s very, very simple and fast.

@volunge thank you for the infos. When I start making snuff I’ll definitely ask you some questions.

@volunge Im about to make some snuff from the tobacco u sent me. I just received 100g sodium carb, bicarb and potassium carb. I remember I liked your good toasted homemade (matured for 3 months), do you remember how you made it? It was yummy I want an easy foolproof recipe and make a lot, maybe blend in some rustica I got left.

I also got a lot of hard rustica stalks left that I wasnt able to grind further than approx. 0,5-1 cm size. I would centaintly try to put the material into oven for a few minutes and grind a bit longer, but maybe some kind of extract?

Grinding stalks/stems/midribs manually is time-consuming and, overall, a hassle, but using even the very cheapest electrical coffee grinder makes things so much easier. You can make nice snuff form the midribs/stems/stalks alone, but you will need coffee grinder and fine mesh sieve, anything in the range of 125-100 microns (0.15-0.1 mm), like this one: https://www.petsexpert.pl/products/23895-aquaristik-dohse-artemia-sieve-120mu. There’s a good reason why toasts are so fine - making midrib/stem/stalk dry snuff from coarser flour would result in really unpleasant texture (too robust and choky). In contrary to lamina, stem needs to be ground finely or even super finely to be “palatable”.

Collecting the dust from a coffee grinder lid (as shown by CobbGoots in his video tutorial) is a simple way to get the fine and sufficiently homogeneous grind; however, sifting that dust through a fine mesh sieve would give you “factory grade”.

My toasted homemade, the one greased with ghee -

“Madras Coarse”

• is actually very simple snuff. You need to roast lamina in electric oven. Set it to 180 C, preheat for 15-20 minutes. Wrap the lamina in a baking paper (fold an envelope), place it on a middle rack and immediately switch off the oven. Roasting takes a mere 5 minutes (not longer; I advise checking it after first 2 minutes; it is really easy to burn it at such temp!). Take it out, let it cool down for a minute and grind it in a mortar to your liking.

Ingredients for 10 g snuff (as in the batch I sent to you):
7.9 g tobacco, 0.7 g sodium carbonate, 0.7 g potassium carbonate and 0.7 g ghee (ghee is added in the final step). Consider adding less alkalis, 0.5 g of each is enough for extra strong snuff (83% tobacco, 0.5% potash, 0.5% sodium carb and 0.7 g ghee).

Dissolve both alkalizers in 3 g hot water and mix well with roasted tobacco flour. Continue mixing for approximately 5 minutes (till it soaks in evenly). Now reduce moisture to zero - put the snuff into a bowl and place it on a radiator; stir well every 10-15 minutes or so; it should turn bone-dry in about an hour. Check the weight; if you are making 10 g snuff, the dried-out mixture (still without ghee) should weight 9.3 g  (at 0% moisture).

Now add 0.7 g ghee and thoroughly mix. It shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes. Transfer the snuff into a tin and mature for at least one week. Resist the temptation to try it fresh!

Done! I vacuum sealed my madras in Viking tin, wont touch it till 2021. Thnks for the detailed description @volunge, also must say roasting is amazing experience! The whole house smells like honey :) 

Quite a few old snuff recipes and links to the books (also with a bunch of prescriptions used by Jaap Bes/MdK for producing historical snuffs) are posted in this thread: https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/12151/old-snuff-recipes#latest (more to follow!).

@volunge I got the menthol crystals.  All I have left to do is get Everclear.  Does it matter which type of dish you use to mix this mentholated snuff concoction?  I’d thought of using a glass but I wasn’t sure if it mattered.  Cheers

@Gormur, glass or porcelain ceramic bowl is OK for mixing. Dissolve menthol crystals in a small 5 or 10 ml glass bottle, giving a vigorous shake. Pure ethanol evaporates really fast.

 
This is how my madras looks after about 3 weeks. Thought it will get darker with time but its quite the same as after roasting. Some chocolate notes going on and it does smells roasted straight after opening the tin, maybe 5 minutes of roasting was even a tad too much but its not really noticeable in nose. Only con is a bit harsh backdrip. Adding ghee was good idea, it feels fluffy when pinching and easy on nose so far.

It’s beautiful!  Well done.  It must be satisfying to know you can make your own madras!  That is so freaking cool.

Shame about the harsh backdrip, but that seems consistent with every other homebrew I’ve had the honor of trying (OSP, Cobguy) and those were lovely snuffs.  Come to think of it, it’s common to “artisanal” brands as well, like Old Mill and even Sir Walter Scott.

I wonder how the big brands smooth out their backdrip.  I ignorantly assume the cause is some pH balance “issue”.

Hey I’m also a pipe smoker and in the tins is always a rest I don’t smoke. I don’t want to waste the tabacco and decided to make snuff out of it. I only smoke natural blends like virginia perique. Yesterday I bought a coffeegrinder. And now I don’t exactly know how much potash I have to add to freebase the nicotine. Potash is the only thing I have at home now. @volunge can you help me?

@Johano, a pleasure to look at! The drip will somewhat round up with time. Mine turned milder after longer maturation (without the loss of kick).

@SHbickel, the harshness depends mostly on a tobacco variety. The plain SP made from Orange Virginia turned out really mild, just like WoS Plain.

@Hloridison, 4-6% by weight. I rarely add more, my max was 7% potash and 7% sodium carbonate for homemade Madras. For comparison, Gekachelter Virginie contains only 2.7% sodium carbonate and 4% salt, rounded (also, 20% water, 6.5% paraffin oil and tiny amount of preservative). Alkalinity of sodium and potassium carbonates is the same.

Ph of most SP-type snuffs is 9.5-9.8 (also SP-type menthols, like Hedges, J&H Wilson MED 99, Kensington). Kensington contains 6% potash (and 20% water, when fresh). Poschl snuffs contain roughly 5% (a mix of 4% potash and 1% sodium carbonate, rounded).

Amount of alkali(-s) depends on a snuff type. I could bet that dark moist scotches like Viking Dark contain about 10% potash; KBs are made from mostly fire-cured midribs, moisture content is 30%.

Making dry snuff (like in CobbGoots’ video, posted on the previous page), finely pulverize potash with a spoon on a piece of baking paper. You need to do it scrupulously, the finest you can.

Here’s another recipe for fine (dry flour sieved through 100-150 micron mesh sieve), low-to-medium moisture snuff, similar to the discontinued Santa Caterina:

Tobacco 77%
Water 12%
Potassium carbonate 6.5%
Paraffin oil 2%
Sodium carbonate decahydrate 1.5%
Salt 1%

1.5% sodium carbonate 10-hydrate can be substituted with 0.6% sodium carbonate anhydrous or 0.7% potassium carbonate (total potassium carbonate content - 7.2%).
Skip paraffinum liquidum if you don’t have it, or substitute with 2% ghee or refined coconut oil.

Thoroughly mix, leave to rest overnight.

Thank you very very much @volunge. I like it a bit more too. I think I will experiment a bit with this numbers. Thank you mate!

Cheers, pal.

By the way, making snuff following Creatinker’s snus recipe would result in non-oiled and pasteurized Gekachelter V, if you reduce moisture to 20% and don’t add humectants. And you would probably need to use fire cured Virginia and 150-200 micron mesh for sieving dry flour. And yes, nasal snuff can be pasteurized (V2 Thunder nasal snuff range). Amounts of ingredients in Creatinker’s formula by mass fraction are very similar to G. V.

Yes in my snusmaking times i didn’t snuff. But the pasteurized tobacco smelled so damn good always.

For those who are interested in homemade schmalzler, here’s a link to @CobbGoots’ thread with a schmalzler making video https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/12560/made-a-traditional-schmalzler-some-insights#latest

@volunge yes this turned out pretty well, I would say its strenght is on par with USA W&H thanks to a bit of rustica, 5% of each alkalizer was more than enough here. Let me know when you receive small sample of baccy for snuff I sent you. Im curious whats your opinion on this rustica variety, it got character of its own when it comes to effects. It could be usable even without alkalizers I guess.

Here’s a super simple and fast recipe for a no-nonsense coarse and moist dual purpose snuff, suited both for nasal and oral use. Hassle-free process for most impatient ones or those in a hurry. Any additives-free RYO like RAW, Natural American Spirit or Poschl Pueblo etc. will fit the bill here. Just make sure you use true tobacco, not the volumized aka D.I.E.T. (dry ice expanded tobacco) crap, which in Europe is sold as MYO cigarette tubing tobacco, like Winston and LD MYOs, which in their smallest 30 g pouches can be easily mistaken for roll-your own.

50% mixed grind tobacco, 43% water, 3.5% sodium carbonate and 3.5% salt. Add carbonate and salt to tobacco flour as aqueous solution. Thoroughly mixed, this snuff is ready for instant use.

Medium/regular strength, anything but refined thing: https://ibb.co/vJhJCs0

Fancy a pinch of toast?

Don’t ask me, where did this fall from, but here’s one genuine formula of Irish toast.

Oven-toasted tobacco stems 81%
Sodium carbonate (decahydrate?) 11%*
Ammonium carbonate 0.5%
Calcium hydroxide 0.4%
Water 7.1%

Source does not specify the process, but one probably would not fail, proceeding as follows.

Dry the midribs in a warm oven to bone-dry. Crumble and mill with sodium carbonate and slaked lime in electrical coffee grinder. Sift through 100 micron sieve. Add aqueous solution of ammonium carbonate. Mix. Consider letting to rest for up to 5-7 days.

I haven’t tried this yet. Will give it a whirl as soon as I procure some slaked lime and ammonium carbonate.

*Please read these complementary notes regarding sodium carbonate amount – Snuff making 101 - #324 by volunge

^ I tried this recipe with Rustica stems. I’ll have to test it these days. Once I figure out how to post pictures from mobile here I’ll try to report my experiences.

@Germallet, waiting forward for your report!

Here’s a guide for posting pictures in this forum: https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/12609/newbie-decanting-setup#latest. If it doesn’t work for you, the easier and faster way is uploading picture to any image hosting site (like postimages.org , imgbb.com etc) and posting the link to it.

@Germallet, interestingly, total amount of alkalis in that Irish toast matches that of old J.&H. Wilson snuffs, which contained 12% of “salts” (moisture content - 12%). Someone have posted these figures in some old thread of this forum, J.&H. W. provided this info in an old company leaflet. Of course, “salts” were not specified, but the composition may be (very) similar.

Have you tried your Rustica toast already? Curious to hear about it. I still haven’t found local source of ammonium carbonate and have difficulties sourcing pure calcium hydroxide in reasonably small amounts. I might end up using 11% sodium carbonate without secondary alkalis, or skipping slaked lime and substituting ammonium carbonate with ammonium chloride.

@volunge Yes I have tried it several times. It’s now 3 weeks I think and it has become really flat. It was best after about 1 week. Per your recommendation (i think on FB) I added 1 drop of bergamot to 5g but that only made it worse. For my taste the bergamot doesn’t work well with the ghee. It’s too different. Additionally it turned quite dry despite almost 20% of ghee. With the medium to coarse grind it’s very rough. I’ll go ahead and add some additional water.

Recently I prepared a homemade snuff with filtered water, Salt, Slake Lime and local tobacco. It was good and pretty easy to take,but ‘N’ level little low. Since my first trial went fine, now I am planning to remove extra Menthol from some of my Indian snuff. For my nose Indian snuff are little bit heavy on menthol snuff. By any chance anyone able to successfully removed menthol from snuff? I know that by adding any rustica or additional tobacco, the menthol Level can be reduced. But, that experiment is for another day.

Sorry the picture didn’t upload in the previous post. It’s not working from Android.

@Germallet, sorry for a crappy advice. Good thing it was only 5 g… In all fairness, I haven’t tried bergamot flavoured rustica myself (neither dry nor greased), but enjoeyd it in a toast.

@Shaktimaan, mixing with menthol-free snuff is the best way to reduce menthol content. Other ways would impair the snuff itself. Say, menthol dissolves in ethanol and you could wash most part of it away, but so does nicotine and flavours. But trying to evaporate menthol in an oven from a small amount of snuff wouldn’t hurt. Leaving snuff for 10 minutes at 100 C should reduce menthol content. If that is not enough, heat it for another 10 minutes or so. This method has it’s cons, tho - you would end up with bone-dry snuff and will loose all the ammonia (especially if snuff contains ammonium salts). You can easily restore moisture level, but the kick might be gone for good.

How much slaked lime did you add? What was the complete formula you followed?

@volunge below was the formula Tobbaco Flour- 50g Salt- 2g Slaked Lime- 2g Water-10g

@Shaktiman, if you need stronger snuff, you can safely double the amount of slaked lime (add another 2 g). Or - even better - add 3 grams of finely ground sodium carbonate (or potassium carbonate). Mix very well, let it to rest at least overnight.

Your current ingredients mass fraction is:
78.125% tobacco, 15.625% water, 3.125% slaked lime; 3.125% salt. The amount of alkalizer is too low, with 3% you can achieve only low-to medium potency.

Although some very strong snuffs contain up to 12.5% alkalis, I would advise against adding more than 6% slaked lime. Better use other alkalizer for the rest 6%, like sodium carbonate. But only if you need an extra strong snuff.

@volunge my snuff is already done. Is it possible to go through the process once again on the final product or will it spoil?

No problem, you can revamp it. If you are not sure about it, you can try with small amount and see it you like it better. Just let the snuff to rest for a few days after additional alkalinization. If you don’t have sodium carbonate (or potassium carbonate), mix your snuff with another gram of dry slaked lime (say, 1 gram slaked lime for 30 g of your snuff).

In regards to the toast recipe posted on March 4, I’m pretty sure that 11% sodium carbonate stands for 11% sodium carbonatate decahydrate, which is 2.5% “weaker” than sodium carbonate anhydrous. If you use “regular” sodium carbonate (that is, anhydrous, like oven-converted from bicarb), use 4.4%. Round it down to 4%, such amount is enough, if you’ll add ammonium carbonate and calcium hydroxide (slaked lime). Dial up tobacco content to 88%. If you don’t have calcium hydroxide and ammonium carb, given amount of sodium carbonate (4-5%) will do it.

For more satisfying result use a 1:1 blend of stem (midrib) and lamina - you’ll get more nicotine and better, more heavyweight texture. If you overmill it (more than easy to do with electrical coffee grinder), you’ll end up with Indian white-like dust. Definitely use sieve, at least 150 micron fine.

If you crave for a smoky toast, blend in some fire cured or a wee bit of Latakia.

I just did my final sieve on a batch using the snus at home dark snuff recipe I’m assuming he got from @volunge - I used leaf only “dark air cured (LL)” and it turned out like Thor’s Hammer if I’m honest. I’d love a recipe for NTSU Black if you’ve got it

@canadiansnuffer, for Ntsu, I would go like this:

48% water, total (48 g)
46-43% tobacco (46-43 g)
5-7% sodium carbonate (5-7 g)
1-2% ammonium carbonate (1-2 g)

or

48% water, total (48 g)
44.5-41.5% tobacco (44.5-41.5 g)
6-8% sodium carbonate (6-8 g)
1.5-2.5% ammonium bicarbonate (1.5-2.5 g)

Process.

1. Dissolve sodium carbonate in 2/3 warm water (32 g water, if you are making 100 g snuff) and thoroughly mix with tobacco flour. Place the mixture in an airtight container and leave to rest for one week, giving a good daily shake or stir.
2. Dissolve ammonium carbonate (or bicarbonate) in 1/3 water (16 g water, if you are making 100 g snuff) and thoroughly mix with the snuff. Again, place in airtight container and leave to mature for another week.
3. Get back to this thread and leave a review.

Will do. Just need to grind some flour up. I’ll keep you posted

Just spotted these new offers for homemakers at Toque Supermarket:

Burley leaves (100 g): https://www.toquesnuff.com/product/burley/

Rustica leaves (100 g): https://www.toquesnuff.com/product/rustica/

Thuoc Lao (100 g): leaves: https://www.toquesnuff.com/product/thuoc-lao/

Prices are steep for a raw leaf. For the same price Europeans can get a kilo of Burley from eurotabak.de and other Germany-based online raw leaf vendors, but none of them carries rustica and Thuoc Lao. Americans can procure cheap rustica and tobacco leaves domestically from leafonly.com.

Still, it’s very nice to see that stuff at Toque. Those who are interested in trying their hand at making their own snuff might find it handy to procure a handful of raw tobacco from the snuff shop.

Just a heads-up, if you are going to make a toast. Fresh, it’s anything but dry. A while ago I ran a moisture test for Irish No.22, it clocks in with nice and round 10% water content (to be more precise, not less than 10%, somewhere between 10 and 12%). Haven’t measured HDT and Irish D, but judging by memory they have similar moisture level as the #22 (when fresh). Same goes for some (if not all) American scotch snuffs.

I don’t know if it’s possible to do, but I would like to rehab/ enliven if you will, my 1943 Gallagher’s High Toast. It’s still in the paper bag, originally sealed when I got it, but since opened. It never molded or was spoiled but it did lose it’s toasted scent, and presumably some of the nicotine content. I don’t know if nicotine degrades, but I still want to see if I can re-toast it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

A blast from the past tonight - this fresh homemade toast here. Just some crumbled “Spectr” (Ukrainian Burley strain) lamina, toasted for several minutes at 110-130 C, ground in a mortar and sieved through 150 micron sieve. No additives whatsoever, even not a single drop of water. Pretty mellow nic-wise, but quite nice and enough for a quick fix on a clean palate. Reminds me of my first homemade batches 25 years ago, when I did the same, only with tobacco from strong cigarettes (they were’t thinned out with D.I.E.T. and Recon crap back then). Turns out, I still dig this lil snuff. So simple, so good.

I didn’t use any sieve back then, and used to grind oven-toasted tobacco with a spoon on a sheet of paper. Later on I switched to the electrical coffee grinder, but still used spoon as a grinder on uncountable occasions. And the easiest/fastest way to toast a small quantity of tobacco (just a wad or a couple) is carefully heating it over a gas stove on a sheet of baking paper. Your nose tells you when it’s done - you’ll smell the roast just in a minute or two ;). Just don’t let it to catch a fire! Try it with a spoonful of your Gallaher’s, @mrmanos!

After re-toasting small amount of that vintage snuff - if you are happy with the result - you can toast the rest in the oven (don’t exceed 120 C and toast just for a couple of minutes, using pre-heated oven) and refreshen it with 0.5% ammonium carbonate and 10% water. I can bet your toast is bone-dry by now, and fresh Irish high toasts contain about 10% water and said amount of ammonium carbonate, which completely decomposes with time, therefore your vintage toast is ammonia-free as well. So, you would need 0.5 g ammonium carbonate and 10 g water for 89.5 g snuff, or 0.1 g ammonium carbonate and 2 g water for 17.9 g snuff. Dissolve ammonium carbonate in water, thoroughly mix with snuff and leave to rest for several days.

If you miss the smokiness, you can mix in some W.E.Garrett plain, Bruton or other smoky scotch.

I found this paper: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2733174
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6a/33/6b/c16ef97d6e2e80/US2733174.pdf

Quotes from this paper:

“Sufficient monosodium glutamate is added to the tobacco so that the final tobacco product contains between about 0.01% and about 0.20% by weight of monosodium glutamate.”

“The instant process contemplates that at some point in the production of the various tobacco products, such as tobacco for cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chewing and snufi, the tobacco is treated with monosodium glutamate.”

" Both the casing liquor and flavoring liquor are aqueous solutions and monosodium glutamate may be included in either or both of these liquors."

“In another embodiment moist tobacco is sprayed with powdered monosodium glutamate. For example, this may be done after treatment of the tobacco with the casing liquor or the flavor liquor while the tobacco is still moist.”

"When tobacco is treated with monosodium glutamate the tobacco is milder, has a more pleasant taste, and

leaves no unpleasant after-taste in the mouth. No unpleasant odor is associated with the smoke."

“In the preferred embodiment of the instant invention, monosodium glutamate is dissolved in an aqueous solution in sufficient amount to obtain between about 0.01% and about 0.2% by weight of monosodium glutamate in the final tobacco product. If the tobacco is to be used for chewing tobacco it is preferred that the final tobacco contains between about 0.1% and about 0.2% by weight of monosodium glutamate. If the final tobacco product is to be used for smoking it is preferred that the tobacco contain about 0.1 by weight of monosodium glutamate. The tobacco is sprayed or coated in any convenient manner with the solution containing the monosodium glutamate.”

So monosodium glutamate (MSG) , the flavor enhancer that is very used in cooking and pastry is also used in tobacco and in chewing or nasal snuff, to enhance the flavor and make it deeper and smoother.

Adding between about 0.1% and about 0.2% by weight of monosodium glutamate may result in a more factory made type of homemade snuff or a better aroma.

It would be an interesting experiment to make a plain nasal snuff using :

Tobacco + sea salt + sodium carbonate(or any other alkalizers) + monosodium glutamate

and one batch of the same snuff without the monosodium glutamate for comparison.

Maybe that piece of information will step up a little bit the homemade nasal snuff-making game or maybe it is totally unnecessary. 

P.S. I like the basic recipe “tobacco+alkalizer+sea salt+water” and i think it doesnt need any additional compounds added. It makes a good snuff. 

But maaaybe monosodium glutamate will add a little extra something to the flavor or feeling of a pinch.

P.S(2): Whoever will experiment with adding monosodium glutamate to homemade snuff, please report back your results and conclusions. 

P.S(3):  https://imgur.com/a/oqiqqd7

IIt is around 10 euros a kilo, but they are selling it in smaller quantity like the above picture for around 1 euro. More easy to find it at Asian cooking stores or asian mini market stores.

My very best homemade snuff is a dry toast type i made with Toscano cigars. 

Toscano Classico is pure Fire Cured Burley aged for 6 months 

Toscano Antico is pure Fire Cured Burley aged for 9 months.

I prefer the latter but the two are very similar and good in the first place.

This Toscano snuff has a profound aroma of Tobacco + Deep Smokey BBQ + Heavy Leather (like smelling a new leather shoe) + a little sweetness.

The aroma is very strong, profound and long lasting. You dont have to search for it like in the most plain dry snuffs.

Never had a bought plain dry snuff that lasts so long (15-20 minutes) in the nose.

This homemade Toscano snuff has a dark brown color .

I found that the aroma is stronger and longer lasting the drier this snuff is

(one coarse moist batch i made was very bland).

It makes sense since Toscano cigars are dry cigars (cheroot) that dont need a humidor at all.

They cost around 10 euros a pack of 5 cigars yielding to 25-50g of snuff depends on how good u can grind the hole cigar. I dont have a coffee grinder and i am struggling with a mortal and pestle so i end up throwing away the coarser  grains that i cant pulverize into fine grind. 

They are very easy to find in most Europe you can find the in bodegas and places that sell cigarettes. 

This is the snuff i enjoy the most! 

(never tried an American Scotch to compare) 

Here are some photos:

https://imgur.com/a/WXzpaHu

~The only concern i have is if it is not healthy to sniff pure Fire Cured Tobacco.

I have to work on the grind though i would prefer it a little bit finer.

@linguist for the idea: http://www.snuffhouse.com/dis

if i over hydrate the snuff can it be dried out?

Absolutely

You can leave it open to the air to dry naturally, gently heat it to evaporate more quickly, or even add more flour until it reaches your desired moistness.

I have three or four old dried out Cohiba supposedly Cuban cigars. I’m going to try to make snuff with them. I have washing soda(sodium carbonate I think), and sea salt and distilled water. I’ll start with the ingredients I have. I’m better with re-purposing old snuffs than I am at making new ones. But I always get inspired by reading what some of the other creative guys write here.

@mrmanos i love cuban leaf flavor and aromas. I made a fine and a coarse one and they are very satisfying natural snuffs. 

Also try a Toscano they are cheap and dry single origin ‘cigars’ (cheroots) pure Fire Cured aged Kentucky Burley. 

Very bold leathery-smoky-bqq-baccy aroma. I did a fine grind and a coarse one.

The coarse Toscano i alkalized it with the minimum water i could use and after a week i let it dry completely and then moisturize it with paraffin oil. It is now a Schmalzler kind of type but with a very bold real tobacco aroma.  

Question:  Is it better to alkalize  my shredded tobacco before or after it is grinded ?

Can i wet my shredded tobacco with water-sodium carbonate and leave it in a jar for a week or more and then dry it and grind it , then add salt-water?

Or is it better to grind the tobacco first and the alkalize the powder?

Better grind first and alkalize the powder.

Vice-versa is possible (according to old tobacco processing handbooks), especially when making carottes, but in such case it’s necessary to add ammonium salts which prevent moistened leaves from mould.

Also, you can mill dry leaves with dry alkalis and add water (if needed*) into resulting flour.

*Some types of snuff (Madras, Indian white type) are made without water.

Thank you @volunge

@ALLex, if I ever spot glutamate in any physical store, I’ll give it a try and get back to you here. As I have mentioned in some other thread, so far I only tried flavouring snuff with Maldon smoked sea salt, and found it toothsome.

On a side note, I have heard oral tobacco homemakers casing dip and snus with soy sauce.

I’m tempted to give a cigar snuff a whirl, but I cannot procure any where I am. Thank you for sharing your experience, it’s rousing!

You can save all the coarser grains each time you’re making snuff, and easily reduce them to powder with electrical coffee grinder when larger amount accumulates (at least 10 g; 15-20 g would be optimal for milling in e.c.g.). A very nice snuff can be made from them!

@volunge you are right about saving coarser grains for electrical coffee grinder.

I wish i could send some of my homemades or some of the cigars i can easily procure here but apparently customs here are very strict and basically i cannot send any tobacco, i tried ones and failed.

A genuine query i have is if it is safe for health to snuff pure Fire Cured Tobaccos though… 

Thats the only doubt i have with Toscano snuff.

So, yes, the oral snuff product, nowadays widely known as snus, before kneading and addition of humectants essentially is a pasteurized snuff. If you cook snus and like coarse moist nasal snuff, save a handful of non-kneaded (without a glycerine and/or PG) for your nose.

Milling Burley this morning. Leaves naturally moistened outside overnight, about 10-14% moist now. I was interested to see if my coffee grinder would cope with naturally moist leaf (usually I dry them out to bone-dry before milling), and it turned out just fine. So, taking it “neat”, as is, without any additives whatsoever, reduced to <150 (pretty fine powder) and >150 / <300 microns (coarse).

Tin notes of both fractions are rather faint, but in the nose favour blooms beautifully. The finer one is quite drippy, the coarser is a bit cloggy, but both are very enjoyable. Backdrip is minimal, and not bitter or acrid at all. I do get some nice nicotine from these little snuffs. Not a powerhouse by any means, but still an enjoyable fix. I would rate it “low” for the coarse and “low-to-medium” for the fine (fine is on a par to non-alkalized American scotches, like Tops plain).

Nothing compares to the natural aroma of non-alkalized tobacco flour with natural moisture content!

@volunge very impressive ! /Great color and beautiful grinds, I adore the coarser one. 

By the way my plain coarse homemade snuff with Cuban tobacco from tripa corta short filler relative cheap Cuban cigars had turned absolutely tasty!

I only used water and sea salt and a pinch of baking soda (in my next batch i will not use the soda, practically it was useless in that small amount).

I forgot it in a jar for a month or so. Yesterday i opened the jar and let it evaporate some of the high water content by letting it sit without the lid in a wooden drawer for a day. 

Today it has little but good moisture and a very strong and long lasting tobacco aroma in the jar and in the nose too. It smells very similar almost identical to the barnyard of NTSU, only slight better. The earthy cuban leaf did its magic. 

I now believe that an earthy cigar leaf can make a homemade NTSU with that distinct barnyard tobacco aroma and not the alkalizer content or the fermentation of ground tobacco.

I am flirting with the idea to dry it more and remoisturize it with paraffin oil. 

P.S. I will upload some photos of it later when i ll get back home.

@volunge

Cuban tobacco homemade plain coarse snuff:

https://imgur.com/a/sT8qeYH

Smells amazing very bold tobacco aroma with the same barnyard aroma of NTSU snuff.

Much better quality aroma than NTSU though.

Nicotine is solid medium very satisfying.

*Made from budget Cuban cigar but really good value for money, hand-rolled short filler tripa corta cuban cigar, Jose L. Piedra.

Some people refer to those cigars as mixed filler (little short filler with 4 long pieces of leaves for wrapper and binders if I remember correct). They are not short filler like gas station cheap machine made fake cigars or like cigarillos. 

@ALLex, indeed, looks akin to Ntsu. Nice! Can’t wait to source some cheap additives-free Cuban cigars and turn them to snuff. Will try them with and without the carbonate/salt, finely and coarsely ground (drier and moister, respectively). Just three more weeks to wait till this happens… Once again, thanks for the idea!

I was also considering procuring a tin of Robert McConnel Cuban pipe tobacco from their Pure line, along with a tin of Brasil for a homemade plain schmalzler, and Perique. However, despite the name, these Cuban and Brazilian pipe tobaccos contain some additives; namely, about 3.3% propylene glycol and about 0.1% undisclosed flavour (according to data on BMEL), and this somewhat reduces my interest in them (I don’t mind PG in snus, but in nasal tobacco I don’t need a fracture of it, and 0.1% flavouring agent might be enough to change the natural flavour). Their Perique is actually pure, tho.

@volunge 
I have seen those cuban leaf pipe tobaccos but I really doubt their authenticity. 

I feel that cigars are better fermented and aged than pipe tobaccos plus they are labeled as premium products and pipe tobaccos in general are not. 

Also Cuban cigars come from Cuba made by Cuban brand and you know that you really get Cuban tobacco.

This Robert McConnel brand isnt a Cuban Brand or made in Cuba so I doubt they use the real deal. Maybe they use Cuban seed tobaccos grown in Dominica Republic.  I dont doubt their Brasil or Perique or other varieties but only the Cubans. Actually I would like to try their Brasil too.

Jose L. Piedra cigars makes beautiful Cuban snuff (medium to strong in nicotine)

The fine grind one I made is blonde brown in color and the aroma stays in the nose for very long for such a  fine dry plain snuff. 

You can achieve the same aroma (but I think with lower nicotine but not sure about that) with the wider available Guantanamera cigars, they are Cubans but machine rolled and with precutted cap but  they still carry the same cuban aromas and they are still decent cigars for the cheap price. (nothing like gas station fake cigars with that brown paper binder).

Jose L. Piedra though are hand rolled, capped and I much prefer them for an everyday budget smoke.

I like to buy them by the bundle of 25, as my everyday cigars and I usually burn a bundle per month (still cheaper than a months worth of cigarettes)  I think you get better quality because the 25 cigars are all wrapped and boxed together aging like that in humidors of tobacco shops. The aromas u get when opening the bundle is pure heaven and for a snufftaker will instantly remind him the barnyard earth of NTSU snuff. =P~ 

But you get the same either by buying one single cigar or a pack of 5 anyway.

I like to smoke them and turn one or two of the 25 into snuff. 

I am sure you are gonna make some amazing snuffs!

Dont turn them all into snuff though ! Smoke one with a cup of coffee or a liquor they are very decent ! :)>-

P.S. There are also decent cigars out of Cuba of course. The other day I smoked some budget value for money Dominican Republic Cigars (one with Connecticut wrapper and one with Maduro). They were decent for an everyday smoke with coffee. They smelled very earthy, deep, grassy, kinda chocolaty. Not an amazing smoke but the cigar itself smelled delicious which is what a good snuff needs. I havent tried make a snuff out of them but I am sure they will make a decent snuff too! (Natural non flavored cigars with no brown paper binder of course)
I will try to turn one Dominican Republic cigar into coarse NTSU style plain snuff and see. I will use a budget value for money one of course.

But Cuban cigars have that extra iconic unmistakable aroma which is simply the best.

@volunge here is the finer dry one:

https://imgur.com/a/OgSF2dP

I swear it is more powdery by naked eye than it seems in this photo :))

Very nice home made bases! I recently bought a rock tumbler for milking the leaves. I have yet to try it. I’ll report back once it is tested. The only place I have found pure msg is at a local spice shop for outdoor cooking. I can send some out if you all really want to try doing it to a sauce.

@StudiodecolBleu, to be frank, I’m not sure about MSG, it’s rather controversial substance… Available on some local online stores where I’m at, it is ridiculously cheap. I’m really on a fence about adding it to tobacco.

But how’s your rock tumbler, have you tried running it yet?

@ALLex, you are right about Guantanamera Cristales being low-nicotinic. The pure flour itself smelled divine, and just like in your experience with other cigars, the amount of ammonia released after the addition of relatively small amount of potassium carbonate (as aqueous solution, with just a dash of salt) was astounding. Now I’m super stoked to get my hands on stronger cigars or cigarillos! I’ll try something from Partagas or JLP, and definitely Toscanos. Will get back here once it happens.

Ammonia-wise it was on a par to Taxi Red, but nicotine was rather underwhelming. Additives: 20% water (cigar itself had about 10% natural moisture, so it scored somewhere at 30%), 4% potassium carbonate, 3% sea salt.

P.S. 4% alkalizer in my books borders the upper limit of light-to-medium alkalinization.

@volunge That looks like a great snuff !  Yeah Guantanamera are a little light on nicotine.

I found they make beautiful smelling dry fine grind plain snuff though (with the addition of a very low percentage of alkalized water like two or three drops like the moisture in a toast).

Yes that Cuban aroma of dried flour is divine.

All Cubans have that aroma profile which is the best tobacco aroma in my opinion. 

Other cigars (non cubans) are very barnyardy and earthy too.

Toscanos are a different story. Cigars from fire cured burley  aka cigars from pipe tobacco, but it is so good especially in a dry fine form or in a coarse dry form with a lot of paraffin oil to moisturize it. I found that water spoils the smokiness of this snuff but maybe that was just my unlucky observations. 

Anyway keep this beautiful looking coarse snuff closed and maybe the aromas will unfold with time, something i personally witnessed with those cigars snuffs. At first when i add the water content they smell like nothing and after some days or even weeks they got that first dry flour divine aroma they used to prior the alkalization. I hope it will evolve in a good enjoyable snuff. 

But yes JLP are stronger and Partagas are famous for being strong cigars.

On another note, I found another good cigarillo for snuff making which is widely available in most Europe. A Swiss or German company cigar called Villiger. They are widely available in almost everywhere that sells cigarettes, you can buy one for like a little over 1 euro.

They are not the best to smoke but not the worst and still for someone who can appreciate tobacco they give a very decent full body 25 minute smoke for when you dont want to burn something good, like for when gardening. 

I am talking about Villiger Exports Classics (the yellow pack - there are some other packs brazil and maduro but not available in my country) and Villiger Premium No7 Sumatra (or No3 its the same but in different size). 

Villiger Exports gives a very nice cigar aroma snuff and decent in nicotine. 

Villiger No7 Sumatra gives also a very nice cigar aroma snuff with a kinda flowery edge speaking in cigar terms (not actual flower aroma) and decent in nicotine too.  (definitely stronger than Guantanamera, I called them a solid medium- medium to high nicotine hit).

They both have a peppery cigar aroma, very bold and very classic cigarish tobacco.

They are almost the same with mild differences. I think they both contain around 15% Cuban seed tobacco and 85% North American tobaccos in a Sumatra wrapper. As a binder they have that crappy fake tobacco pressed paper but just leave that outside of milling and the outcome is a really bold cigarish peppery tobacco snuff. 

I have made only fine grind with them and end up mixing them together because they were  very close in aromas (not the same though). I have to experiment with a coarser grind too. 

Also the flour seemed decent in nicotine and in this batch I added only water with sea-salt to make it more nose friendly and no alkalizers and I still find the nicotine hit decent. I imagine if properly alkalized it would maybe result in a clearly strong snuff. 

Some photos here:  https://imgur.com/a/FHj2BQx

P.S.: I finally bought an electrical coffee grinder  \\m/  :))

 

@volunge 

I saw on the Whats in your nose thread that you made some Hollander Bolongaro from Poschl Pueblo Classic tobacco  and made my mouth water 
=P~

Hello sir i use cigarettes tobacco should i add something to it

@volunge I tried it last weekend. I have no moisture meter. I have four or five different kinds of varietals grown for cigar rolling. I broke up Maryland 609 by hand. Dry enough to break apart but not to dust. Once tobacco was in tumbler I looked for something to grind the leaves in said tumbler. Looking around I found 3 silver eagle half dollars. The tumbler was on for almost a day and half. But the ideal equipment was not used. I will find some mild steel bearings and give it a go. Thanks for checking.

Hello @Abdoulaye! Maybe you should browse inside this thread. On page 11, for instance, there is a quick recipe for making snuff with roll-your-own tobacco.

May i ask why sodium carbonate exactly?! Is it for making snuff more moister?

@junipero thanks brother

And there is a sodium carbonate for food and a sodium carbonate for waching dishes wish one?!

@Abdoulaye sodium carbonate is used to increase the pH to facilitate the absorption of nicotine. I’m pretty sure you can use either or just put some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in the oven and bake it to turn it into sodium carbonate.

@n9inchnails thank you so much , i just have a fear to put baking aoda in my nose lol i fell like its going to give me a blocked nose , but hell yeah i will give it a try , thanks a lot

@n9inchnails , can you use baking soda without burning it ?!

@Abdoulaye, yes, you can use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) without converting it to more alkaline sodium carbonate (washing soda), but your snuff will be weaker if you use it as a single alkalizer. For strong snuff, you definitely want to use stronger alkalizers, like sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate, or slaked lime.

But you can use baking soda as secondary alkalizer, mixing it with other, stronger alkali. Here you can find three industrial nefha formula - https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/6032/snuff-making-101/p10 - one made by Algerian family-owned factory in Belgium, another one made by German tobacco producer Poschl and a Tunisian one. Also, a very simple recipe for Moroccan homemade nefha.

Don’t be afraid to add alkalizer to your snuff, in most cases you need to add it dissolved in water, and the amounts aren’t dangerous. Vast majority of factory-made snuffs contain alkalizers, besides, many snuffs also contain salt, some - ammonium salts.

Alkalizer is added for making snuff alkaline. In contrary to combustible tobacco (for example, cigarettes), nicotine from oral and nasal tobaccos can be effectively absorbed through bucal or nasal mucous membrane only from alkalinized tobacco. The more alkaline the snuff (the higher its pH), the more nicotine you uptake, but there are safe limits which you should not exceed. pH of most industrial European snuffs fall in the range from pH 8.5 to pH 10, which roughly corresponds to 2% - 6% water-soluble alkalizer, like sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate, by weight of total product mass). This is the safe range - or at least considered as safe by the manufacturers.

Just steer clear from the strongest, most caustic alkalizers, like lime or sodium hydroxide, or potassium hydroxide. They are too strong for snuff, or I should rather say - too dangerous. Adding such compounds to tobacco would give you a chemical burn.

Pure fire cured Kentucky snuff made from Toscano Classico cigar. No additives whatsoever, simply crumbled and milled with electrical coffee grinder. Natural moisture content – about 13% water, i. e. on a par to fresh Irish #22 in terms of moisture level. Sifted through 150 micron mesh sieve. Nicotine – solid medium, it’s way stronger than Latakia and doesn’t lack smokiness, by no means. Utmostly satisfying, super easy and fast to make.

Again, tons of thanks to @ALLex for all the recommendations!

150 micron setaccio: Artemio 3, Setaccio NEW! - JBL

Set di 4 Setacci con maglie da 150/300/600/1000 micron: JBL Artemio 4 - Set di 4 Setacci con maglie da 0,15/0,3/0,6/1,0 mm per la raccolta dell'artemia

@volunge hey brother I am glad you liked my homemade snuff recommendetion. The snuff looks awesome. Toscano snuff both in fine dry style and in coarse moist (or paraffin oiled) are staple snuffs for me the last years, I have some big jars of both grind styles. Nice satisfying smokey plain and bold snuff it is one of the better homemade snuffs. You should definitely try a coarse moist or even better paraffin oiled to my preference.

@volunge I have a tapbox with some Toscano coarse paraffin oiled snuff near me, trying it now it is a very satisfying dark snuff smokey and meaty. I find the nicotine strong and the slow release in the coarse style probably from being easier to snuff bigger boxcars but makes it very satisfying.
Nose full of coarse salted paraffin oiled Toscano snuff is very nice in the cold weather, warms the nose right.

Both coarse or fine grinds make very nice snuffs. I love the aroma of Toscanos. Enjoy the snuff mate. Cheers

My Toastscano. lol
Fine dry grind Toscano snuff.

P.S. Could have sieved it better

Hey @volunge what do u think about the Toscano snuff you made?
I would like to get your feedback after some days of using it.

Have you turned a Toscano into a coarse snuff yet?

I haven’t, yet, mainly because I dig it finely powdered without any tweaking big time, all natural, as it is. In my experience, coarser natural snuff (coarsely powdered natural tobacco) begs for at least minor addition of alkalizer and salt, and for higher moisture content. I have no doubts it will turn out it’s great, done coarser, when I eventually give it a whirl (and I will give it a whirl someday, for sure!), but it’s a very rare case when I find natural tobacco delivering very satisfying amount of nicotine in its pure shape, so it’s a great time saver for me as well. It can’t be any simpler than this, just ground and sieved powder. I’m down to just three sticks, and already started to spare it (for I cannot neither buy them in this little town nor order them online, and the closest place with a probability to find Toscanos is at least 50 km away, which I’m not going to visit anytime soon, or maybe even 150 km away; I did a bit of looking around online and found a tobacco store in a neighbouring country which sells a pack of Classico for a tempting 7.50 €, but it’s 250 km away, lol). So, right now I’m taking Toscano, cut with raw Samsoun Oriental (50:50), which is less satisfying in nicotine in it’s pure shape, but still isn’t too bad for a raw powder, and some days ago I mixed some Toscano powder with Pueblo Classic and it was even more enjoyable than my current blend. That Pueblo makes a solid sniff as well, and when I’ll run out of Toscano, I’ll be sticking to it.

So, I’ve been propelled only by this pure fine powder of Toscano for a whole previous week, and now using it cut with other natural tobaccos. Absolute delight it is, my friend.

To be fair though, by the end of the week I have started to feel the heavy nature of this fire cured tobacco. It must be super rich in PAHs and not the safest option for a daily staple by any means. I probably couldn’t use it as a stand-alone snuff for months. But I’ll definitely procure another pack of Toscanos when I reach a tobacconist!

At least one of the remaining three cigars I’ll blend with a good handful coarse siftings of tobacco flour, accumulated from making many small batches of various snuffs, and reduce to a fairly fine powder for a toast. But I need to get my hands on some ammonium carbonate and calcium hydroxide first (and maybe some sodium carbonate 10-hydrate) to follow this recipe (I would be willing to use s.carb.10-hydrate instead of three times stronger anhydrous s.carb at the amount that old prescription calls for – I suspect that hydrate form was actually used there). Older descriptions of HDT and Irish #22 do mention fire cured tobacco and stem flour (which my coarse siftings, consisting mostly of leaf side veins and a bit of midrib, are akin to) in those blends.

And another one will I blend with a whole pouch of Pueblo Classic (79% Pueblo, 21% Toscano; Pueblo is 85% Virginia and 15% Burley, if my memory doesn’t fail). One third will be sniffed as is, two thirds will be turned to alkalized snuff (probably two kinds, finer and coarser).

The third one I’ll save as a treat for later, most probably for making alkalized coarse snuff from it without the addition of any other tobaccos.

@volungw nice brother I am very happy you like it! I am too very cautious about not using it a lot cause of its fire cured nature. But yeah the nicotine is satisfying even without alkalization. I have made a coarse moist one from Toscanos using only some water and sea salt and some paraffin oil it still gives a nicotine buzz. I have also made one coarse grind alkalized with sodium carbonate and sea salt and turned out great too. Its one of the few tobaccos that alkalization isnt a must but an option I think maybe the pH of it is already right or the leaves are alkalized by fermentation prior to rolling them into cigar (cheroot).

By the way I totally agree that it blends beautiful almost with all snuffs. It blends beautiful with Pueblo snuff, Toscano is a little overpowering but I can still get the Pueblo aromas and the Toscano ones from a 50:50 fine grind blend of both.
I have also mixed it in High Dry Toast and made it smoky.
It blends better with Pueblo snuff because when mixed with High Dry Toast it overpowers it completely it feels like taking a toned down Toscano. But the mix with Pueblo gives me both the smoky bbq toscano aroma and the virginia sweetness of Pueblo.
I too love Pueblo for snuff.

When you are gonna make a coarse one, cut a Toscano in half first, and use only half Toscano for a non alkalized one (add only sea salt to help it feel good in the nose and water).
The coarse one without any other tobacco blended in is getting better over time it smells very “black” . Satisfying and tasty.

When I first made snuff from Toscanos I only produced micro-batches from half a Toscano at a time.

Anyways, I am very happy you liked it! As you said I dont know if it is clever to snuff Toscano all day everyday because of its Fire cured nature, but for sure is a nice treat now and then or a nice component for blending with other tobaccos.

Cheers my friend

So today I grinded some natural additive-free rolling tobacco. I am enjoying some pinches as it is. It is completely dry straight out of the coffee grinder and the grind seems fine but its easy to take for a toast type of snuff. Tobacco aroma is nice.

I would love to maintain that yellow color of this tasty tobacco flour. It is more yellow bright color than it looks in the pics.
Every time that I had alkalized a bright tobacco flour with some water it darkens the snuff’s color even when drying it out completely.

Will the alkalizers fuse with tobacco particles over time without adding water?
Is dry mixing alkalizers an effective way to alkalize tobacco flour?

Thanks in advance snuff makers!

https://www.snufftabak.com/resources/articles/catalogue-of-recipes-for-snuff-tobacco.html

Here I found a catalogue of old recipes!

I really wish procuring raw tobacco leaves in my country was legal.

@Johano me too my friend! Alternative to raw tobacco leaf (which I wish I could buy too) cigars make a very good homemade plain snuff!
Welcome back to the forum mate!

If it’s really dry, close to bone-dry, fusion is out of question, but… it’s not even necessary with fine flour. See, looking into it purely technically, finely ground alkalizer present in dry mix (homemade carbonate, Na or K, tend to be rather grainy and you need to grind them to fine powder in such case) dissolves in nasal fluids and instantly buffers pH sufficiently for nicotine absorption. That’s exactly what dry ashed snuff (Amazonian rapeh) is about. Same can be done with pure alkalizers which are safe for snuff - any of them. Using pure alkalizers, instead of simply mixing two dry powders (making rapeh - ash and rustica) - finely milled tobacco and finely ground alkalizer(-s), you would need to pound them together with mortar and pestle, not sparing on elbow grease. Ideally (for a wellbeing of your nose), till no crystals / grains / flakes of alkalizer are visible. Ball mill would do a very nice homogenizing job here.

Indian white snuffs are exactly this - a mixture of dry calcium alkalis and dry tobacco.

In Indian Madras snuffs dry alkalis are incorporated with oil-roasted tobacco by pounding. Sometimes you can clearly see tiny crystals of ammonium carbonate and white flakes of calcium hydroxide in snuffs of that type.

Thanks for enlighten me @volunge !

I have made some hape a year ago from toque rustica and oak wood clean ashes and it is still a nicotine bomb. I rarely snuff this though, but when I do I prefer to do it with a homemade disposable kuripe (short plastic bendable drinking straw) it is a strong snuff experience that lasts for 10-15 minutes.

Anyway I ended up dissolving the alkalizers in a small amount of water first and then mix it really well with the yellow flour and it didnt change the color of snuff that much as I thought it would. Beautiful homegrown (not from me) virginia rolling tobacco unprocessed with no additives. The toast snuff I made is very pueblo like maybe more grassy hay like.

I made a toast one fine almost dry and yellow, another not so fine grind and oiled with paraffin one (consistency and grind of Poschl snuffs) and a small amount of fine grind fake hape (virginia+ashes)…

Nothing special about the tobacco, feels and smells a lot like Pueblo!

Welcome back, @Johano! Nice to see you around and good to hear you have mended your nose. I second to ALLex, additives-free cigars make brilliant snuff. It’s a pity they are a bit pricey where you’re at – I have looked up on Polish online stores for those I have tried and loved. Poschl Pueblo Classic additives-free rolling tobacco is quite affordable, though, and you can mix it with Toscano Classico and Jose L. Piedra, or those previously mentioned by @ALLex (by the way, Pueblo Classic makes delicious snus, which I’ve been cooking every now and then for a year already). To check if the cigar of your interest is additives-free, you can use BMEL data base. Pure cigars have only one additive - a minuscule amount of glue (“tylo”). If you happen to re-visit Italy, do yourself a favour and stock up on Toscano and Jose L. Piedra cigars, they are very cheap there.

Also, it’s still reasonable to order whole leaf from Germany from eurotabak.de. My two orders were delivered to doors by DHL, I got an impression they have bypassed customs altogether (both boxes came without any declaration stickers). Even with 20€ delivery fee and recent minor rise in price per kilo it’s still a great deal and huge money saver. If delivery fee you find too costly, I’m sure you could find some local parcel forwarding company which assigns you some German address which you use for ordering, and then they deliver it to you, using their own means. That might reduce shipping costs up to two times. Such service is very popular in Lithuania, many compatriots of mine use it for procuring various commodities from Polish and German online stores (which either don’t ship to LT, or charges way too much for delivery).

Hey, I’ve tried Toscano for coarse moist snuff and it turned out superb with 4% potash, 3% salt and 25% water. Astounding staple snuff, really, absolute top-notch thing, and I haven’t experienced any “snuff hangover” with it (which I have actually noticed, using dry Toscano snuff without additives in mono mode for a week). Sincerely recommended for every moist smoky snuff aficionado!

@volunge
yes mate! I knew you are gonna enjoy the coarse toscano. so satisfying snuff. one of my favorites to fill an empty Bernard tapbox with and cary all day. especially in winter, from the back of the hand a proper amount of coarse grind moist toscano snuff would warm my nose with nicotine and amazing thick fire cured earthy tobacco aroma. So satisfying indeed my friend. I have a jar of Toscano coarse moist and one of Toscano coarse and oiled with paraffin oil. The oil goes great with it kinda rounding up the roughness of that great tobacco.

I was with Toscano coarse in the nose one day and a friend who doesnt snuff commented that i reek off smoke implying i was smoking cigarettes.

I am very glad you liked it my friend, I knew it!

It is the only snuff though that I cant decide if it is good to take all day everyday for health in long term due to TSNA levels of fire cured nature. I know it is silly and the danger of snuff is kinda the same either if it is fire cured or flue cured. But still this keeps me from this being my all day everyday snuff as I love smoking Toscanos, I enjoy milling them into snuff and the snuff is amazing.
Is fire cured tobacco in the nose really more “dangerous/ unhealthy” than any other snuff ?

@volunge I found this with my jars of Toscano. I used to make a coarse moist toscano and storage a batch in Bernard Gekachelter Virginie 50g style. fill a cellophane of a Toscanello pack (or a cigarette pack) full of toscano snuff and then pack it hard and tight inside an empty Toscanello pack. simply fold the cellophane. (I prefer Toscanos from Toscanellos for snuff making but the package of Toscanellos is the perfect size for like 40-50 grams of Toscano packed in style of Gekachelter Virginie.)

P.S. The cellophane was filled to the top some months ago.

That was so informative, thank you!

Wow many thanks for the website and also delivery tips. The price for one kilo looks promising! I was actually thinking about making my own loose snus with help of ‘Snus At Home’ yt channel
Glad to see folks here still making homemade stuff, cheers

What an interesting find, @ALLex! By the way, the author of the site has also shed full light on the new WoS production date coding format - Wilsons & Co. (Sharrow) Ltd. Production Date Code Formats - something I was wondering about for too long.

Regarding to storing snuff in plastic bags (like Bernard GV, in ziplock baggies etc), I can second - it’s quite reliable (airtight enough) way. I kept my GV in the original bag and haven’t even considered jarring or tinning it. Same goes for many samples received in zippies.

@volunge I agree I like storing GV in its original package and it has never got stale/ dry or something.
Also homemade Toscano coarse snuff is a pretty rough and robust snuff compared to other tobaccos (and Gekachelter Virginie) in my opinion and can survive hard conditions without any noticable decrease in its tobacco aroma profile or nicotine.

That specific Toscano coarse “batch” was lightly alkalized with carbonate in a salt water solution and left in a jar for a week to smooth a bit. I then let it dry completely in open air and re-moisturize it only with paraffin oil.

P.S. These days I snuff a lot of a homemade plain Dominican Republic cigar medium fine and dry. Beautiful barnyardy almost milk-chocolate along with am interesting lingering sour note. Natural choco-earthy vibe probably from the cacao and coffee fields of the terrain. Not added “natural” scents at all. These tobaccos are clearly superior to those of snuff-making factories. The pure tobacco aromas are more powerful and complex scent-wise plus they linger longer than plain factory made snuffs. If you think about it, it is reasonable that they would never sell high quality tobacco strains and leaves for grinding them up to snuff but keep them for premium cigars.

The best part for us snuff-makers hobbists is that even the cheaper premium cigar (2-5euros) is by far superior/ premium/ fermented tobacco compared to factory made ones. Plus a 2-5euro value-for-money good cigar will give you basically a full tin of snuff so it costs the same as ordering online without the shipping and the delayed delivery. Also the nicotine from a cigar is more likely to be medium or even more resulting in a satisfying snuff. Cigar tobaccos are relative stronger than the classic cigarette/pipe strains so I usually only alkalize them lightly (English style and even bellow) with an alkalizer and some salt.

Guantanameras were the only ones with low nicotine but it was still a very nice tobacco snuff.

The Dominican Republic Cigar snuff that I am snuffing these days is satisfying me with every pinch and can even get me buzzing if I oversnuff it lol.

Has anyone had experience using a hand cranked burr coffee grinder such as the Hario Skerton for grinding snuff? I am curious if it is capable of producing a nice snuff grind. I like SPs, so I guess a medium grind is what I’m after. I already have the Skerton, but I know many people use electric blade grinders.

Whichever grinder you use, for a fine snuff like that of SP-type it is necessary to use a proper sieve. For a coarser SP-type flour similar to Gawith Hoggarth SP a sieve with 200 micron aperture would do the job just right, for finer SP snuffs like WoS/McCh - 100 micron.

The best option for snuffmakers stateside are US Plastic EZ strainers. They were used and praised by quite a few American artisans. EZ-Strainers™ | U.S. Plastic Corp.

Here’s one nice and simple formula for SP-type Burley/Virginia plain snuff:

72.5% dry tobacco flour (sifted with 100 micron sieve), 20% water, 5% sodium carbonate, 2.5% sodium bicarbonate. Dissolve both salts in water, thoroughly mix with tobacco, let rest for 4-7 days, re-sift with 200 micron sieve.

Using a scale of 0.01 or 0.1 g weighing precision you can make batches as small as 10 g.

Coarser SP-type snuff made from a flour sifted with 200 micron sieve can be made up to 25% moist and resulting snuff re-sifted with 400 micron sieve.

Something very interesting, in this PDF file from Kendal Museum in page 5 it says that Kendal Brown is flavoured with camphor.

I wonder if a bit of camphor in a plain coarse plain tobacco snuff adds to the experience of the natural tobacco aromas enhancing them or whatever. Or maybe it is just a mistake some wrong information from those who wrote it.

That is interesting indeed. Thanks for sharing the document.

If so as currently produced, it would seem to me that any camphor could only be present in a minuscule, indeed homeopathic, amount, as I am quite sensitive to it and have never detected even a hint of the telltale skin burn of its presence. But then again, if it is just a tiny dash then perhaps it is much like a recipe that calls for a small pinch of a spice that you cannot taste but know that it is missing if it left out?

There was a SG Kendal Brown that had camphor in it I think it was called Kendal Brown Special

@tornpentacle, Ammonia Falls = plenty of ammonia, excessive amounts of it. Not a term, really. I should have capitalized to make it more clear.

200 micron sieve is a great option!

Ah, got it! I understand

So, you’ll recall that I alkalized a couple of ground cigars…well, I went out and bought two more (this time E.P. Carillo “inch” cigars), and a 200-micron sieve, and it’s been a lot of work but I’ve gotten a few grams out of them. I am still a bit confused as to why no alkalization should be done, though. Don’t we need to effect some chemical reaction to make the nicotine available for transport through the nasal epithelium? Natural tobacco contains nicotine citrate and nicotine malate (possibly among others), as well as a bit of free-base nicotine…so what makes the cigar tobacco different from the whole-leaf tobacco from which many produce their own snuff?

Edit: The first attempt was also a very coarse grind, about that of WoS’s Africa. Presumably the fineness or coarseness of a snuff’s grind makes a difference in whether it really needs alkalization, no?

I guess you’ll know if alkanization is needed or not. Do you get a nicotine hit? If you don’t add sodium carbonate dissolved first in distilled water with a little fine non iodized salt.

G

Cigar tobacco is naturally alkaline and Toscanos fall under most alkaline stogies. Fire cured Kentucky leaf turns alkaline during special fermentation process, there’s an interesting study about it - you can find it online, if curious.

Whichever leaf you grind, do try it pure first after sieving. The finer flour delivers nicotine faster, but whether to alkalize or not is entirely up to you. Alkalized snuff delivers more nicotine and speeds up the uptake, but pure fine flour of strong cigar I find equally satisfying, when taken on a clean palate. Abstaining from strong snuff and increasing the size of your pinch (I recommend switching to “boxcar”) makes such pure flour more enjoyable.

A tip about using 200 micron sieve. If you fancy really fine grind, similar to that of toasts or scotches, re-mill your sifted flour after the first pass (no need to repeat sieving afterwards).

To make double-fermented, either alkalize a flour of already fermented tobacco (cigars, Perique, rope tobacco or any other leaf which has undergone fermentation), or alkalize your snuff twice, adding less salts and water second time. Consider 2-6 months ageing.

Noteworthy, you won’t find the terms “alkalization”, “alkalizing” and “fermentation” in older continental literature about nasal tobacco manufacturing. The term in use was “brewing”.

P. S. Many old continental snuff recipes didn’t call for alkalis at all. MdK made quite a few non-alkalized snuffs - see Type Virginia and Type Latakia (fire cured Kentucky, actually): https://web.archive.org/web/20170126213256/http://www.snuifmolenswebshop.nl/Webwinkel-Category-524184/Type-Virginia.html (Gefermenteerde Virginia and Karotten type snuffs were treated with potash and ammonium chloride; salt was added to all types (please correct me, @snuffmiller, if I’m wrong).

@volunge: You are correct. In the historical recipes potash, ammoniumchloride and salt are often separate or in combination used to ferment the snuff. Potash and ammonium chloride both have basic properties so the fermentation proces can also be clasified as alkalization.
Greetings,
Jaap Bes

Over the last couple months I’ve been working on de-stemming, drying out, grinding and sifting up a few varieties of whole leaf tobacco to work into my snuff making project. All these tobaccos I’ve purchased from Whole Leaf Tobacco’s website. I still haven’t gotten around to finishing the Va. Red leaf.

Each of the tobaccos has been dried out completely, ground repeatedly, in-between each screening, and finally run through a 100 mesh sieve. This took quite some time to accomplish. But I’m finished with the base tobaccos.

Now I’m ready to move on to figuring out some blends to test out.
Looking for some suggestions. Please give me some of your ideas!

You can try mixing some Burley and Va. I quite enjoy Burley/Va pipe tobacco blends and SWS Auld Alliance is a blend of Burley and Va and it is a damn good snuff.

I thought I’d share my first attempt at making snuff with you all. I’ve been reading up on everything I could find snuff related for months now in an attempt to learn how to eventually make my own.
Just want to thank you all for sharing your research here on the forum. It’s allowed me to learn so much about snuff that would otherwise be extremely hard to find elsewhere.

The tobacco leaf was first deveined, shredded and dried out completely using my slow cooker set at 120f. Then I ground the dried tobacco using a coffee grinder and ran it through a 100 mesh sieve.

Below is the blend I decided on for my first attempt:

20g Maryland 609
5g Katarini
5g Va. Lemon
5g Fire Cured

1.5g Potassium Carbonate
1.5g Salt
The potassium and salt were ground using a mortar and pestle into a fine dust.

What I’m using for adding moisture to the snuff is soaked oak cubes. I bought a bag of toasted oak cubes normally used for wine and beer making. I put the cubes in a canning jar with distilled water and microwaved it until it reached boiling. After boiling I sealed the jar and let it set for a few days. This hydrated the oak cubes and brought out their oaky goodness and created a potent toasted oak liquid.

After weighing out and combining the tobacco flours, salt and potassium carbonate I sifted the mixture through a 100 mesh screen and then put the dry ingredients into a jar with eight of the soaked oak cubes. Gave the jar a few good shakes to mix the oak cubes around and distribute the moisture and then I put the sealed jar into an Instant Pot on the sous vide setting at 120 degrees fahrenheit. Durning the first couple hours I pulled the jar out of the slow cooker a few times and gave it a shake. I was hoping this would allow the oak cubes to distribute the moisture through the snuff evenly.

I kept the jar in the slow cooker over night in a total of 10 hours. When I woke up this morning I pulled the jar out and immediately noticed the top of the jar had swelled. So I guess this was a sign it had started fermentation? After letting the jar cool for a bit the lid had dropped back down to normal and I opened it up. The aroma that waifed out of the jar was absolutely intoxicating! What a glorious smell to wake up to. It was nutty, slightly smoky, oaky, a little ammonia mixed with hay, fresh baked bread, a little oriental tobacco perfume, leather and all this supported by the characteristic smell of the Maryland 609. If I had to compare this to any commercial snuff I would say it’s like Kendal Brown with greater depth and complexity and a finer grind.

Before trying my first pinch I first removed the oak cubes, which had gotten a bit clumped up with snuff so I had to scrape them down with a spoon. I then ran the snuff through an 80 mesh sieve to make sure it was of even texture and moisture.

My first pinch, Oh! the divine burn this snuff delivers is beyond comparison. The initial burn tapered off into a lingering warm glow in my nose like nothing I’ve experienced from any other snuff. I guess commercial snuffs will never compare to the intense aroma and punch that freshly brewed snuff can deliver!

My mind is blown.

I’m putting half of this batch away for a couple months to see how it ages. The other half is going up my nose this weekend

Phenomenal! Thank you so very much for sharing in such great detail. Very inspiring indeed.

I for one much look forward to further reports on your blending (and processing) experiments going forward. Great to have such information, especially when it comes to successes such as this first batch you have described here.

Bravo and cheers!

I’ve made another snuff, this time using Soppeng tobacco from Indonesia.

It’s a traditional tobacco from Sulawesi island (formally the Celebes), which is processed from smoked leaves that are then shredded into shag, brushed with palm sugar sap and then pressed into bamboo stems until firm.

It has a sweet aroma of bamboo and a hint of cinnamon that is sometimes added with the sugar sap. . It is stored for up to four months. It has fermented meanwhile. It’s not too strong a snuff

The slices of ready tobacco are pushed out of the stems with a rod and are dry cakes. I have simply milled them in a coffee grinder to a flour. I haven’t added anything but am going to try some sodium carbonate and salt. But I am already pleased with the nicotine content.

I’m really pleased with this.

I might have to try this one. Have everything but the oak on hand. Might make a nice pipe blend as well.

I’m curious how one obtains this in US. Sounds very interesting, Not finding much with a quick search.

Grinded a Guantanamera Cigar into medium grind, alkalize it with small amount of sodium carbonate, and bigger amount of kitchen salt and water. I then let it dry a bit and added paraffin oil (at the Gletscherprise level of oiliness). Let it alkalize for 4 days and then let it homogenize with the paraffin oil for 3 days.

Guantanamera cigars are light to medium in nicotine but taking bumps from the back of the hand with relative big size bumps like I do with Gletscherprise gives me enough noticable nicotine (for sure more than Gletscherprise) and the Cuban tobacco aroma lasts in the nose for long.

Its a nice snuff I can tap big pinches and snuff off the back of my hand or boxcar without hitting the back of the throat. The aroma is that of wonderful Cuban tobacco and its funkiness.

It almost feels in terms of aroma and the feel in the nose like a Virgin (no menthol) Gletscherprise. Very nice all around snuff. I just grabbed this tapbox for today and so far it is very satisfying.

P.S.: As a fine grind dry snuff and as a coarse moist (African type) snuff Guantanamera feels weak in terms of nicotine but oiled a la Gletscherprise and in the grind of German snuffs (medium) it feels right.

more pics of the above homemade snuff

So I guess Rosinski is going to close next year, and while this is sad I also think it may be a good opportunity to try making my own snuffs.

My two favourites, Kathnertabak and Nordwind are both traditional recipes, and I’m wondering where I might find such?
Particularly nordwind, which is frostbitten green tobacco with camphor and bay leaves.

In which case, does anyone here have experience making green tobacco snuffs?

@yakshini Look out if you can buy a Candela type of cigar. At least the wrapper in most of them is green leaf. Try if you can find a Candela type cigar, ask in tobacconists and cigar shops.

Then, I imagine it’s the same process as making regular snuff, alkalizing it with a small amount of water and 2-3% sodium carbonate or other alkalizers and 2-3% sea salt/ kitchen salt. Mix it well let it alkalize for some days and its ready.

If you are interested in making snuff in Rosinski’s style, keep in mind that pH of his snuffs are close to neutral. As mentioned on Rene’s website, only “Schulpmehl, gewonnen aus Sepiaschalen” is used as “Kalk” (i. e. biogenic calcium carbonate - powdered cuttlebone; most probably just a a small amount of it, like a pinch for 10 g snuff), and sea salt. So, steer clear of water-soluble alkalis like soda and potash and strong alkalis like ash and slaked lime.

Carefully read the descriptions of snuffs of your interest on Rene’s online store, including the descriptions of snuff types. The provided information might give you some clues. For instance, rosinski webshop - Green Snuff.

If you are in Europe, the only reasonable way of obtaining green tobacco is growing your own (and flash-drying it). While it is definitely worth giving Candela wrapper leaf a whirl, ordering it outside the US might be a costly pleasure or even impossible (some EU countries don’t allow importing tobacco of any sorts, either raw or processed). Besides, at least one of the Rene’s greenies is made from the frost-bitten leaves.

Yes!! Actually I think it’s two from frozen leaves, just that Klippenritt has Burley as well. There’s a little more detail on the company website I think, as opposed to the shop.
I’m really tempted to try that sort of thing, but that would require growing my own (which I might try next year, but that’s some time away).
I really want to make something like nordwind, which is frozen tobacco with camphor and bay leaves, though I kind of want to play around. . . cardamom is something that seems like it would go in this sort of thing quite well, or just substitute bay laurel with salam leaf or tez patta.
I’m in the US, so candela leaves won’t be too much trouble to get.
Thank you, that’s really helpful, I’m going to look into this.
I am wondering about the spice flavours, like Kathnertabak. . . How does that work? Like add whole spices before fermentation and then use a sieve at the end?
Also would like to know of a good source for cuttlefish bone? (substitutes?) Powdered oyster shell?
I lived in India most of my adult life, so very familiar with stuff like slaked lime and banana leaf ash (putting gul up your nose is never pleasant, so going to avoid these).
I’m a little scared to do this the first time, have never made snuff before.

I want to share my “proper snuff recipe” which always results into the same consistency proper plain snuff. Its one of the most time tested creations of mine and it always results in proper snuff and satisfying.

This is one of my best and most consistent creations and one of the most easily available ingredients.

Guantanamera cigar (in Europe costs like 2-3 euros) a cheap machine made, tripa corta (short-mixed filler) precut cigar with Cuban tobacco. They are light cigars but the aroma of the tobacco is the characteristic Cuban cigar aroma so it is better for snuff-making than smoking (though I can enjoy burning them with my morning coffee). The cigar connoisseurs will look down on Guantanamera because they compare them to other handmade x5 and x10 more expensive Cuban cigars but for their price and what they are they are very decent actually. They wont have the depths of a Montecristo but it has the same characteristic Cuban baccy aroma and its own depth, it isn’t bland at all aroma-depth-wise.

Availability in most European countries, low price and real Cuban tobacco (and its aroma) are some reasons it makes it suitable for snuff-making. Now nicotine wise it won’t yield into a high nicotine snuff but a decent light to medium nicotine one, good for an all day everyday snuff.

I have done all the grinds and moisture combinations with this tobacco and I have conclude to its best form that gives the most out of this.
The fine dry styles all yield to a perfect tobacco aroma snuff but nicotine wise they were very light.
South african or Brown Rappee style of grind, moisture and alkalization yield a high ammonia coarse snuff with nice funky barnyardy aroma in the background after the behind ammonia blast with nice burn but with little nicotine that made it actually more painful than satisfying, so this style isn’t proper either for this baccy.

The only style of making an actually very great consistency snuff is the bellow:

RECIPE:

Result snuff: Plain Cuban tobacco, medium to fine coarse, salty, oiled, lightly alkalized, light-medium nicotine (noticeable when you snuff German size bumps), satisfying nose feel, creates front drip / cleans the nose, long lasting tobacco aroma. Poschl snuff style consistency but plain.

Ingredients: Guantanamer cigar (Cristales/Decimos/Minutos), kitchen salt, sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate, Paraffin oil.

Steps:

1. Grind the cigar or cigars into a medium grind.
2. Alkalize lightly (there is no reason for a lot of carbonate in it due to its low nicotine content in the first place).
3. In the alkalization soup add water, a little carbonate and kitchen salt (as preservative and to cause front drip in the nose). I like to make it a little on the salty side to ensure it wont spoil or get mold or anything.
4. Mix it well with the tobacco flour and pack it inside a cellophane or in a small jar.
5. I let it sit for only 1 day (I don’t aim for ammonia here) and then take it out of the cellophane on a plate and let it dry almost completely. (purpose here is mainly to make the baccy salty (kitchen salt) as a preservative and lightly alkalize the nicotine, there is no point in alkalizing it more with this baccy). The smell of the dried out snuff now seems a lot more pronounced than when it was moist.
6. Add edible Paraffin oil in amounts like Poschl snuffs (not Schmalzlers levels). I eye ball it by mixing a little per time and stir homogenize it repeat etc. Oil the snuff to gain moisture but not to the point of being oily, more in the drier side of oiled, like Red Bull or Gletscherprise or even a bit lower my preference.
7. Sieve it and pack it inside the cellophane bag and let it sit for a week or more for the oil to get completely merged and homogenized with the tobacco I believe letting another week to sit with the oil would benefit more the consistency and the volume of the aroma.
8. After a week, open the baggy and smell the wonderful funky, barnyardy, leathery, tarty almost fruity, pronounced tobacco aroma. The aroma is refined and not ammoniac and it is consistent every time I made this using this method/recipe (I have made it around 7 times with one cigar per time).
9. You fill a tapbox and tap on the back of the hand or boxcar and snuff it.

The nicotine I get from this snuff is noticeable if I snuff a decent size of bump like I would with a Poschl snuff. It is soft but noticeable and satisfying in this form.
This snuff feels like its the “Poschl plain” snuff that their list is missing.
The grind and oil and consistency and the ease to naturally taking bigger bumps of this is what makes it a decent proper snuff. The tobacco aroma lasts for ages in the nose and is very pronounced (I believe this is due to letting the tobacco completely dry before adding the paraffin oil and so it has only very tiny percent of water content in it.). It sits in the nose and gives flavor and a lightly proper (like factory made, not extreme) tingle burn sensation in the nose and a some nicotine (if you do bigger bumps or back to back).
This snuff isn’t meant to be a nicotine bomb but an all day plain snuff. But doing bigger (normal size German) bumps with this or back to back got me nicotine wired. And the tobacco aroma here is the main character, plus the medium grind and the soft alkalization gives it a nice soft tingle in the nose and not the acidic burn that a higher alkalized snuff can sometimes deliver. Never gets to the back of the throat, always sits where it should without even paying attention when snuffing it.
The salty nature of it results in a nice warm front drip building like 5-10 minute after taking the snuff.
You blow your nose and its out all easily, not leaving many bits behind inside the nose, and there is still a faint aroma of the tobacco in your nose. Proper snuff in my opinion.

P.S.: I wish I could send my homemade snuffs to forum members to try them but sadly the laws here forbit to send tobaccos outside of the country, even within other EU countries. Thats why I share this recipe. This snuff in the nose feels very commercial factory made by Poschl, its not rough and its refined and with a strong tobacco aroma. An all day everyday one.

One time I had made a medicated out of it with menthol, camphor, eucalyptus and it was the closest tobacco background aroma to Gletscherprise base. Of course they don’t use Cuban leaf for Gletscherprise but the funkiness of the tobacco base behind the menthol is very similar and more pronounced in my homemade. If I would aim to create a homemade Gletscherprise or Red Bull I would go with this as a tobacco base. In my Cuban medicated I made it stronger in menthol levels than Gletscherprise and the tobacco base was still present in the background. Its a nice tobacco base for a light-medium nicotine medicated snuff with a tobacco background aroma.

Good tobacco base for homemade Redbull or Gletscherprise in my opinion. And you don’t need to add extra oils (like Cedar etc) to achieve the Gletscherprise aroma with this tobacco base. Only Menthol, Camphor & Eucalyptus.

Wondering if empty teabags cut would make good snus portions, hair straightener method?

I have started wrapping my loose into tea bags more often this summer, but wasn’t even tempted to try sealing my portions - blame my old habits (as an ex smoker of rolling tobacco, I just wrap a fresh portion on the go, that is, I keep some pre-cut sheets of tea bag tissue under the catch lid and make a portion when I need it, just like I used to do with rollies). I do remember though other homecookers mentioning that some tea bags are heat-sealable and some are not, but all those fellas were mostly referring to the tea bags which are sold empty, and I cannot remember any brand names.

Reportedly, FILT brand snuff rolling paper isn’t heat-sealable.

My tea bags of choice are LIDL’s Lord Nelson tea bags. One tea bag is enough for 8 portions. The tissue itself feels soft on gum. The tea I do not bin, consume it just like any loose BOP tea.

And no, such portions don’t unfold in your lip.

Thank you for the insights, thats some good ideas. I will try and report back. Remeber buying some empty generic teababgs for herbs online, but they were kind of rough and thick unlike commercial teabags. Cheap china export product I guess.
Really need to prepare some portions beforehand for when at work.

You can comfortably keep at least 5 non-sealed (simply folded) portions under a catch lid (keeping loose in the main compartment of your snus can, if you use loose after work). Even one properly folded portion doesn’t unfold under the catch lid - there’s simply no room for it in that tiny compartment. Skipping heat-sealing saves your precious time, and there’s really no need for such step - folding is absolutely reliable way to keep things neat. If you don’t use loose and use 5-10 portions during your work hours, small plastic snuff containers like those of Neffa Ifrikia or Makla might suit your daily usage better (smaller can feels more comfy in the pocket).

Basically, just make a prilla and wrap it up, folding the ends, applying some pressure when done to evenly distribute it throughout / flatten.

And here’s how the pre-cut sheets of a tea bag tissue look like in the catch compartment - one 4 x 3.5 cm sheet is large enough to host about 1 g snus (or even a tad more - I just don’t use more than 1 g per time, so haven’t tried wrapping 2 g, but it seems doable to me) and one tea bag gives 8 sheets of such size:

Tea bag portion-making video guide, made by some fellow from r/DIYSnus:

@Johano

Works suprisingly well, thanks! Also good to have those unsealed in the lid I guess, thank you for the tip @volunge


Really nice portions DIY, easy to make hair straightener method. I will switch entirely to making them, feels convenient and no mudslides since my snus is still not clay consistency. A hint of bergamot is there since I used flavoured earl grey teabags.

Made full can today, gets quicker with practice

Also, do you clean tobacco leaves before cook? I noticed dust on my Burley but carried on since I couldnt wait for my first bach done. Also overbaked a bit stripped leaves in my oven I guess, but it turned out decent anyway. I put 2 min for 150C to be bone dry.
Another thing, what makes snus more clay like? Is it water ratio or grinding more fine I should try for better prilla baking? Or maybe humectant would make it more clay like, not sure. Last step I barely done that is ‘massaging’ the snus after adding alkali, the Snus At Home used special kind of bag made of specific plastic. Forgot the name of this process. I red somewhere that its done even for 8 hours in factory process, to even out the product somehow.

Still reluctant to swallow juices from my snus, not sure if safe when theres this dust and it was too long roasted in oven. The smell is nice though, hoping to improve quality next batches and experiment with more or less alkali, or potassium carbonate instead sodium one.

I have a standard tea strainer from walmart, what is the best sieve for viking-ish grind size? Also have a blade electric coffee grinder, will this give me a silky medium/coarse grind or will I need a mortor and pestal for a final rub to get it silky?

Thanks
Brady

@Johano, I do scrupulously inspect and clean the leaves for snuff, but I’m way less maniacal when it comes to snus.

For instance, Eurotabak’s bone-dry, full of bug droppings Samsoun Orient was a pita to clean for snuff; in order to unfold it neatly for running the cleanse I had to recondition leaf moisture, the whole process was a major time-killer (fortunately, at least it was virtually sand-free). But I didn’t bother to run a slightest cleanse before milling it for snus, believing that 4 hours-long pasteurisation kills all bacteria.

“Massaging” snus is kneading; in the last step of making snus you knead it like a dough. There are many ways to do it. You can use a silicon or PE bag, electrical blender /meat grinder / coffee grinder, or simply pound it with a potato masher in a pot. Small amounts like 100 g can be kneaded in a large-enough bowl with a tablespoon - depending on tobacco(-s) used, manual kneading of said small amount takes from about 5 to 15 minutes (my way). Both Pueblo blends are super easy to knead.

Besides other functions, humectants add to the taste. Get hold of some PG and glycerine and add 3% of each before kneading (some vape shopes sell cheap 50:50 PG/VG plain nicotine-free e-juice, so-called “base” - it fits the bill). Miniscule amounts of essential oil(-s) or liquid food aromas can be mixed with humectants. Menthol solubility in PG is about 30% (in case you are interested in making some mentholated snus). PG can be used for aromatic extracts - you can easily make your own aniseed and mint extract for licorice snus, for instance. Fine licorice powder can be mixed with finished snus (up to 5% of total weight doesn’t reduce the potency noticeably, if snus is made from strong tobacco, like Pueblo Classic).

Blade electric coffee grinder is good for all kinds of grind. If you don’t want to end up with a fine powder, mill your tobacco carefully, in several passes, each pass for just 10 seconds or so (sift after each pass, set aside that part of the flour which have passed through the mesh, re-mill the coarse flour remaining on the mesh). Milling naturally moist tobacco (think smoking tobacco moisture level, or a leaf moist enough for cutting with a shredder - not bone dry) prevents from too fine grind. For a fine powder you would need to mill your tobacco dried to bone.

If you end up with a flour a bit too coarse than desired, carefully re-mill it one last time. Remember, tobacco grains will expand after mixing with alkaline brine.

For viking-ish (SG) grind I would use 300 micron sieve. If my memory doesn’t fail, SG made their dark vikings from fire cured Virginia. I would make a small batch first with 6% potassium carbonate, 4% salt, dissolved in 30% water and mixed with 60% tobacco (dried to bone after sieving). If snuff does not release enough ammonia by the the third day, to the next batch I would also 0.5-1% ammonium chloride or ammonium carbonate.

ALLex: i made some flour with a few of the Villiger natural exports and another with a couple Bolivars. They smell devine as flours. Haven’t snufferized them as yet but will shortly.

@cigargod Villiger Natural Exports make a decent flavorful and strong nicotine wise flour. I had made a fine grind one and milled it together with a Villiger Premium No 7, which is kinda close to Exports and the results are divine. Light brown toasty color and strong solid medium nicotine with a woodsy, tobaccoey, almost bacon like aroma. I also detect some pepperiness, which I believe its from Sumatra leaf of Villiger Premioum No. 7 . Its strong aroma wise and lasts in the nose. (Only thing remove the binder reckon brown tobacco paper, other than that the tobaccos in them are very good and additive free).

I really like that I can buy a pack of 5 Villiger Exports and/or Villiger Premium No. 7 or No.3 almost everywhere here, and turn them into a decent amount of fine dry snuff, which is strong in nicotine and in tobacco aroma. I haven’t tried them in a coarse grind but I think the fine dry style suits these tobaccos very well. Its like a delicious homemade scotch/ toast. To my nose the aroma is very straight forward cigar tobacco with a spiciness and a bacon like edge (which I haven’t found in other cigars).

I’ll try to post some pictures of my Villiger Exports + Premium No.7 and have a pinch of my Villiger snuff later today.

I am glad you enjoy the results! Cheers!

These two Villiger tobaccos are similar to each other and they mix very well together. I grab a pack of each, break them and mill them all together in a coffee grinder, then alkalize with a splash of water, small amount of carbonate and a bigger amount of salt. I prefer them a bit salty so it can create mucus and a runny nose after some time in the nose. This snuff warms and cleans the nose perfectly. And the tobacco cigar aroma is long lasting in the nose, unlike most commercial plain snuffs.

Haven’t made a snuff with Bolivars but I have smoked a lot of them and I can see they make decent snuff too as almost all of the cigars do.

@cigargod This is my Villiger snuff. It’s more light blonde colour actually, the photo makes it seem darker. Nice cigarish, tobacco snuff with a kinda smoky and savory bacon-like edge to it.

When I first grinded the Villiger Exports and the Villiger Premioum No.7 I noticed that they are kinda the same with the latter having a pepperiness kinda aroma, so I decided to blend them together and from then I always grind Exports and Premioum No.7 together resulting in this snuff that I like very much. They are dry cured cigarillos so they make the perfect fine dry snuff in my opinion.

@cigargod Thank you for reminding me to take a pinch of the awesome snuff my friend! Cheers

Does the premium 7 also have the homoginized binder?

@cigargod yes, the only downside. There are always better quality cigars even the low price value for money long filler sticks make decent very strong tobacco aroma natural snuffs. Villiger happens to be available in every corner gas stations, supermarkets etc. But every time I go to a tobacconist for cigar shopping I also pick a low price stick for snuff making. Villiger has a very nice tobacco aroma though and to me it feels solid medium nic in the nose.

If you already have Exports I wouldn’t care to buy the Premioum 7, you aren’t missing anything much different than Exports. Its just those two are easily available here, but they are kind of the same.

My first homemade snus from some Pueblo rolling tobacco. Tastes very nice actually. Surprisingly the loose snus ball stays compact in the right place and doesn’t spread through the whole mouth. Only after half an hour it starts to making mud in the mouth. The grind of the dried flour was very coarse actually and only after repeated kneading I got this clay like texture. Thanks to @volunge @Johano and the youtuber “Snus At Home” for the infos and inspiration.

I found kneading in coffee grinder to be good enough. Good job, I also had not so great results without this step done well. Now I experiment with flavoured snus, made menthol one already.

I found my sweet spot with Burley to be 6g sodium carbonate per 100g, wondering what other snusmakers go for there. 8 grams alkalis I found too strong for my taste, could be good smaller prilla though so more cost efficient. Suprisingly not hard on gums at all after good kneading it.

Also thought about adding can of Toque Rustica to next batch, 90/10. That would make for a good filler and less alkali I guess.

made some snuff from some local virginia leaf tabacco. added 5% sodium bicarbonate 5% salt and 10% water. % from flour weight .

smells good but kinda weak on nic, compared to poeschl snuffs

@StevenSpark, sodium bicarbonate is relatively weak alkali. Consider giving sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate a go next time. The former you can easily make at home from sodium bicarbonate, heating it for 30 minutes in a well-preheated oven at 200-220° C, spread in a thin, even layer (0.5-1 cm) on a clean baking glass tray or on a sheet of baking paper. Let it cool down and store in an airtight jar. Same can be done with potassium bicarbonate, if you can get hold of it locally (sometimes it is easier to find reasonably small amounts of potassium bicarbonate than potassium carbonate).

100 g sodium bicarbonate yields 63 g sodium carbonate anhydrous.
100 g potassium bicarbonate yields 70 g potassium carbonate anhydrous.

I will do it on my next batch. Thank you for you great tips!

Cuttlefish bone can be substituted with a food grade chalk.

Yes, whole spices like black pepper and allspice corns, tonka beans, clove buds and whole bay leaves can be mixed with a plain snuff and left in a jar for some days / weeks. All give pretty strong flavour. Can be removed by sieving or picked out one by one from snuff before using.

With herbs, you would use a decoction or tinctures.

I randomly found this e-shop on Etsy.com that sells tobacco leaves (Virginia & Burley mix). The shop is located in France, so I think they will ship easily & fast within Europe.

(post deleted by author)

Ok i got a question or three. First of all due to the current situation as explained to me by Roderick over at Toque, getting orders through to us here in Eastern Europe and Germany prove difficult at times. Not to mention the shipping costs and such. ANYWAY, a friend of mine grew a shit ton of Burley this year and had gifted me with a huge bag of the stuff. It’s only been dried for a few months. First question…should i let it age longer? Nonetheless, after reading this thread i got the bright idea tonight to have a go. I dried some out as suggested in my crock pot set on low, the smell was amazing by the way. I love toasts and all natural tobacco based snuffs so not really into adding more than is needed, One day i would like to ferment though but that is beyond my skill level at this point. I had some edible lime i got from an Indian shop, and melted a bit down is a little water and added it to it regarding alkaline and all. It was amazing and so damned simple. Second question…is lime enough? Third question…how long should i let it sit? New to all this so any relevant answers would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I am back. posted here in May 2020. see my man Volunge is still here.
I never showed my finished Mói snuff. Got a new delivery of raw material coming in.
How do guys post pictures directly here?

Also got a kg of pure sodium carbonate on the way (dead cheap). used for swimming pools here

Welcome back, waiting forward to see your Mói Snuff!

I’ll try to upload some photo:

Success! There’s a small button with a picture icon beneath the message field, on the right side. Click it and select a photo from your device:

Wondering about your disappearance, @faktiheiny, I assume you are experiencing accessibility issues. I really hope you are still receiving email notifications. If you cannot access the forum via your common browsers, install Brave browser (brave.com) and try accessing Snuffhouse on it. That was the only solution which worked at my side.

95.5% fine cigar flour + 4.5% calcium hydroxide.

Uncomplicated, absolutely foolproof, time-saving, super effective no-nonsense mix-and-go formula for highly potent snuff with just a couple of ingredients.

Mill naturally moist cigar with electrical coffee grinder, sift through 150 or 120 micron sieve and thoroughly mix the resulting fine flour with calcium hydroxide in a mortar to homogenous powder.

To make mixing easier and achieve most homogenous mixture, at first thoroughly mix calcium hydroxide with similar amount of tobacco (by volume), then gradually add more flour, thoroughly mix, then add some more flour, thoroughly mix, etc etc.

For 10 g batch, mix 9.55 g fine tobacco flour with 0.45 g calcium hydroxide (aka slaked lime (food grade, preferably) / pickling lime).

Yo I am back again on this forum! I had lost my passwords etc and didn’t have access.

Yesterday I got perma-banned from Reddit because I replied back to a brat that was swearing and cursing me just because I had a different opinion on a product (in another subreddit that has nothing to do with nasalsnuff, this didnt happen at nasalsnuff subreddit). The moment I swore back, after receiving more than 20+ swearing and toxic bullying comments, I got banned… (My username in Reddit was “baccysnuff”).

I knew reddit is a weird place but that is simply unfair. Honestly I am glad it happened cause Reddit is like a curse, with lots of energy vampires inside. It sucked my energy, there were many times that I had a stressed feeling after using it and after interaction with some angry toxic redditors. Energy vampires. And I am glad I saved my energy from there. Reddit is a weird place, it isnt about knowledge and conversations and community like forums are and like Snuffhouse is.

Anyways I am glad that I have managed to find my passwords and such to this forum again.

@volunge What a great snuff you made my friend!
What cigar is this? I am gonna try this exact recipe with a Jose L. Piedra cigar which my local tobacconist has restocked recently.

To me no factory-made snuff can compare to these cigar homemade snuffs. Especially if we talk about Cuban cigars, that is the aroma that is Top 1 in my list of tobaccos.

These days besides NTSU (which is nice and decent) I give store-bought plain snuffs a try again from my old jars and they really dont smell like tobacco at all. At least the aroma of tobacco I know and appreciate.

On the other hand cigar snuff is 100% this. Be it from Dominican Republic or my beloved Cuba their aroma stands out.

Out of curiosity, what cigar did you use for this my friend?

Do you believe the wider available and also beloved to me Guantanamera Cristales would result in a “strong-medium strong” snuff by mixing with food grade calcium hydroxide? Because I remembered them as weak in nicotine with the sodium carbonate.

Cheers brother! After all this absence from this forum I went back today and the first thing I saw was your truly beautiful homemade snuff. Yummy

You opened my appetite for a cigar homemade snuff. Today I am gonna buy the cigar after work and tomorrow I am gonna go and purchase food grade lime I found in a place a bit far from where I live but I bet it is worth it for a fine dry plain snuff.
Cant wait to put them all in the electrical coffee grinder hehe.

On a side note, with this J.L. Piedra cigars I am planning to make a plain cigar snuff because I love the aroma and another one flavored with Islay Scotch Whisky which gives a thick BBQ smokey flavor and scent to snuff. Its the only aromatization/ scenting I approve for snuff, as I generally prefer plain snuffs only. If you wanna try this as we talked in reddit a bit about it, I would suggest going with miniature bottle because you arent a drinker in the first place. If you want I can recommend you my favorites and the best Islay scotch whiskies I know.

This is my most “sophisticated” recipe I created for flavoring thus far because it flavors any tobacco (air cured or flu cured) with the aromas of fire-cured snuff. Literally makes any tobacco flour smell like toscano after letting it completely dry.

Cigar snuff + scotch whisky = let it dry and evaporate till dry and Voilà! Peaty smoky bbq snuff.

Sharing this simple recipe video I randomly found for making “shamanic snuff” aka a plain strong fine dry organic snuff (tobacco + clean ash + a splash of water).

I like this video because it shows how to make it in a very very simply way, simpler than SnusatHome’s amazonian rape snuff tutorial which in my opinion is so foul and he should remove that video from the internet. I said this because he used Cigar ashes mixed in the rustica… Thats literally a no-no in my book… I cant find logic in doing it. tobacco ashes are dirty and arent like wood ashes at all. Might be just me but I found it a huge red flag to use cigar ashes in snuff… Ashes must be clean white and must be from wood. Or else why dont just ash a cigarette in a snuffbox and snuff it? yikes… Tobacco ash is dirty and it doesnt belong inside a snuff for alkalization.

This video here (besides the new-age hippie bullshit about the powers of shamanic rape experience which is just a nic kick) shows the simple and original way to make organic snuff. I am not that much of a fan of using ashes just for the health and safety aspect of it i prefer to use the pure carbonates like sodium carbonate and others. But for an “organic” strong snuff its a perfect recipe. You dont need to have rustica to make this. Even Virginia leaves or cigar flour will result in a strong plain dry snuff.

Cheers snuff-makers!

Welcome back, Allex! You were missed here!
I must say that I have become quite fond (or fiend?) of the Amazonian snuffs, so thanks for sharing the video.
I hope you are doing well. Enjoy the comeback to the forum!

Thank you @junipero ! Its great to be back here in this awesome community of nasal snuff!

As for “amazonia snuffs” I like the style of them in a sense of their simplicity. Dry tobacco + pure ash (+splash of water but you let it dry again). I only dislike the marketing and the high prices small bottles they sell them. But I have made homemade hape before and I like it.

I have made virginia fine grind mixed with clean white wood ash before in an amazonia snuff style like 70:30 bacco to ash and it looked literally like a indian white snuff in color and it packed a huge punch too, not so long or intense as a rustica-ash mix but still tears-dropping nicotine kick. I like the flavor of regular tobaccos more than rustica’s personally but that me.

I had also made cigar snuff mixed with ash fine dry and the Cuban turned like very light white brown color and so strong in nicotine punch. A dominican republic cigar hape gave me an almost grey brown snuff in color. Still not as intense or long lasting as blowing rustica through a kuripe but damn strong kick and buzz.

I have tried all of those homemade amazonian snuffs I made with a kuripe they all are intense but like they have a lower roof to the kick compared to rustica. I have pinch them and used them as snuff too and they are strong snuffs. In kuripe they give a huge lasting punch. I dont like the kuripe method personally I only have done it a few times it isnt something that draws me back. But its damn strong.

I like them all a lot with the cigar hape first and then the rustica and then the virginia (that looks like Something-Photo White Elephant or Cheeta snuff but way tastier in my opinion).
I had used toque rustica for this type and it makes a proper hape.

I now dont have any homemade amazonian snuff by hand, but I am willing to make some soon with a nice cigar I have, just for the sake of snuff-making.

Cheers

I second you in your feelings about the marketing of the Amazonian snuffs. I think it’s up to each one’s beliefs. Anyway, they are quite at hand for me so I have a nice supply. I can feel the rustica in them, but some of them are made with rope tobacco.
I have grinded some rope and made a clear, tasty flour. I still don’t take the step to alkalize it, but it works for me just as it is when it comes to the nic punch.
Man I should try grinding a cigar. It feels criminal, but you and @volunge seem to have great times making snuff from it!

Welcome back, brother @ALLex!

Yes, Guantanamera Cristales makes a stronger snuff with calcium hydroxide than with sodium carbonate. I recommend starting with 4% calcium hydroxide to 96% fine cigar flour (el. coffee grinder job), milled with natural moisture. Make a dry mixture (no addition of water at all, just cigars’s own moisture), gradually incorporating calcium hydroxide into cigar flour with a mortar and pestle (start with equal amounts of alkali and cigar flour, rub to homogenous mixture, then add some more tobacco, rub with a pestle till evenly mixed and add more tobacco, rub etc etc till no larger flakes of calcium hydroxide are visible (some left in the snuff won’t hurt, to be fair, but it’s nicer when mixed properly).

I don’t remember which cigar I made the snuff in the posted pic from, but it was either Don Tomas Robusto or Guantanamera Cristales (I have re-discovered the latter, they seem stronger to me now than the first time I tried it).

Definitely worth getting your hands on some food grade slaked lime! Go for it, my friend - you’ll start making your own Madras and sparrows in no time!

Thanks only thing I didn’t have yet is the slaked lime. I appreciate the reference.

At .4% slaked lime, I wonder how critical it is for the results of this recipe, that I locate some? I always forget it when I have the money.

Let me put it like this - you won’t regret the purchase, when finally stumble upon it. You need some pickling lime, trust me. Especially, if you are interested in making some Indian style snuffs (I assume you fancy some hard nic).

It’s not crucial in this recipe (were are talking high dried (“toasts”), right?), but even at that small amount it increases nicotine delivery capability.

Ammocarb, then. I’m glad you put your hands on it. You’ll use tiny amounts to boost those ammonia-free and light-on-ammo tobaccos (think some rusticas, midrib flour, and even some Virginias).

Sorry for late reply, pal.

No thank you greatly, I have decided it is my next purchase on my necessity list, as soon as I get the scratch I’m going to order it on “My Spice Sage” and then I will had all the salts. I want to make a white snuff, I was doing Janta Naswar Indian Rustica for breakfast this morning. It has barely any drip at all, but it gets you so high.

Afterwards, I need to find some Camphor. I’ll tell you what from my DHOLAKIA order, their “African” is outstanding. Think birch, and Tea-berry gum, I find it worthy of a reorder. I would like to get my reorder from the same “batch”, alot of snuffs I have reordered have a huge amount of variability from batch to batch. Maybe the highly perfumed snuffs don’t tend to have as much drift tho.

Sad truth. Always this annoying lottery factor.

To make true white snuff, you would need to start with sun cured rustica (White Patta). If you don’t mind different colour and/or darker shades and smell, you can use any other rustica, or any stronger tobacco type. Reduce bone-dried leaf to silly-fine fraction (dust) and thoroughly mix with 5-6% pickling lime, using mortar and pestle. Start with 4% lime first, it might suffice. Elephant contains close to 6.5%, if my memory doesn’t fail. Don’t exceed that.

Worth making small 10 g batches from all the tobaccos you got. That bright VA you got is plenty strong, right? Burley red tips, cigar leaf, your own rustica (and that from leafonly.com).

So the Arm & Hammer Laundry Booster is safe for use?
I quit using the stuff under advice of another, and started producing mine from baking soda

What’s the process to measure a snuff’s pH?

I’m guessing a pea sized amount of snuff on some pH indicator paper and drip just enough distilled water on it to get a reaction on the paper.

@Dunravin, mix 1 part snuff with 10 parts water, by mass, and measure the pH of resulting slurry after a minute or so.

If you can use reliable digital pH meter, opt for it (also, in such case worth considering following strict protocol for measuring pH). Colorimetric testing with common strips is anything but accurate, yet reliable enough for checking if your creation isn’t too acidic or caustic.

For example, here’s a pH reading of my homemade snus:

Reads as 8-9, roughly. I’m happy to know it falls (as expected) in the pH range of factory-made Swedish snus products.

I’ve tried making enough toast to know I haven’t come close, but I have only used cracker dry stem/midrib, I think maybe a large part of the taste and characteristics comes from actual heating of the stems.

@Huff-N-Snuff If I remember it right, oven drying was advised by that prescription, or suggested by me.

Some entries in this directory Sorts of Snuff Tobacco Reference mention drying / heating / roasting as a part of processing for that type of snuff.

Welch. (Welsh.) This term was historically used to refer to snuff tobacco of, from, or associated with Wales and also to a particular sort of snuff which was said to have typically been made from tobacco stems that had undergone a fermentation process before being roasted and then ground, that was legally permitted to have included limewater as an alkalising agent, and that was dry and unscented.

Lundy Foot’s High Toast. A sort of snuff tobacco that was made from “stalk” and leaf of “Virginia Tobacco” which had been fermented and subsequently high-dried, which is to say roasted, and that did not contain any ingredient other than tobacco and water, the latter in a quantity certainly not more than “from 15 to 18 per cent” (S. Foot, 1844).

High-Dried. A sort of snuff tobacco that during manufacture is subject to a dry heat process, which is to say a roasting.

Some descriptions of tobaccos used for blending currently manufactured snuffs of high dried / Irish (“toast”) type:

F&T High Dry Toast “is made from Zimbabwean Flue Cured Stem, Dark Fired Leaf & Sun Cured Leaf”.

Irish No. 22 is “a blend of dark fired tobacco and stem” / “has a natural tobacco flavour drawn from Zimbabwe, Burley, Malawi and flue cured tobaccos”.

There’s also SWS take on historical Lundy Foot. “A finely milled, toasted, high nicotine blend of American Virginias and Indian Rustica tobaccos”. As disclosed by the artisan, only lamina is used for making this snuff.

Generous addition of midribs of strong Oriental tobaccos like (like Samsoun, Trabzon) to the blend of flue cured and a just a wee bit of fired might bring you right there without any actual roasting. Yes, dry it all to bone in a warm oven, but resist the temptation to roast.

Moving this piece here from essential oils thread.

Assuming you don’t have an allergy to a particular essential oil(-s), it (they) can be safely added to the snuff directly, thinned with high purity food grade ethanol (95-96 %, or 190 U.S. proof), or USP grade mineral oil (paraffinum liquidum). In both cases you need to thoroughly mix it with the snuff. If you add it dissolved in ethanol (one millilitre of 95-96% food grade ethanol is more than enough to dissolve tiny amount needed for scenting 10 grams of snuff), air it out from the snuff before taking a pinch after the mixing is done (leave the snuff in an open bowl for 30 minutes, giving some good stirs).

You might find that some essential oils are too flat/dull to be used on their own - eucalyptus, peppermint, juniper (I wasn’t too excited with pure lavender as well), and better flavour can be achieved by blending different essential oils. Or… adding some menthol! Menthol does wonders, combined with juniper, eucalyptus, peppermint and lavender (those few that I tried).

To mentholate your snuff, you need to dissolve menthol crystals in pure food grade ethanol (95-96 %) (again, one millilitre is enough for dissolving up to 0.5 gram menthol) and mix this solution with snuff. You can add camphor and essential oil (-s) in the same solution. Air out the ethanol before taking a pinch. For oiled (German type) snuff, menthol, camphor and essential oils are dissolved in slightly warm (42 C is warm enough) USP grade mineral oil (paraffinum liquidum) and mixed with any not oiled base snuff of your choice.

The amount of some essential oils in % (by weight of total product), used by some snuff manufacturers (max values, as listed in various public databases; obviously, can be added in smaller amounts):

Star anise essential oil - 5.8%

Pine essential oil - 7.4%

Lavender essential oil - 1.1%

Orange essential oil - 1%

Bergamot essential oil - 1.75%

Clove essential oil - 0.5%

Peppermint essential oil - 4%

Lemon essential oil - 0.75%

Rose oil - 1%

Camphor oil white (Cinnamomum camphora wood oil, CAS number 92201-50-8) - 3.2% (not to be confused with camphor or cinnamon; despite the name, the flavour has nothing in common!)

Menthol - up to 5.8%

Camphor - up to 2%

Eucalyptus essential oil - up to 4.5%

Sources:

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture database: https://service.ble.de/tabakerzeugnisse/index2.php?ssk=dd246d17bb&site_key=153

Belgium’s Federal Public Service (FPS) website for official information on tobacco products: https://apps.health.belgium.be/smokinginfo/home

Essential oils have different density, so universal accurate weight-to-volume conversion is not possible. For flavouring 10 grams of plain snuff with bergamot oil you won’t need more than 3-4 drops, which is roughly 0.1 g (1 drop = 25-37.5 mg). https://formulabotanica.com/never-measure-essential-oils-in-drops/

A rule of thumb when you are measuring by drop (as I actually do) - use less, if uncertain.

A word of warning. If you do not have a pipette and are going to add e. oil directly from the bottle (most of them come with a mounted dropper-cap), first dose out one drop of e. oil into empty container, which you will be using for mixing, then add snuff. Most e. oils are relatively thin; I have just accidentally poured 6-7 instead of 1, using mounted dropper-cap, and had to scoop away some snuff with oil excess.

(BMEL tobacco products ingredients database: BMEL - Navigationspunkt Tabakzusatzstoffe-Datenbank)

Ingredients in this spreadsheet are listed in mg in 1 g product. For instance, one gram (i. e. 1000 mg) of medium-medicated Mac Craig Royal snuff contains 26 mg menthol (rounded down from actual 26.096 mg), 16.7 mg camphor (rounded down from actual 16.701 mg) and 12.4 mg eucalyptus essential oil (rounded up from actual 12.394 mg) - 2.6% menthol, 1.67% camphor and 1.24% eucalyptus essential oil.

For comparison, heavily-medicated Hedges L260 calls for 4.5% menthol and 4.5% eucalyptus essential oil (as listed on vintage tins of this snuff), McChrystal’s Original & Genuine - 2% menthol, 2% camphor and 3.5% eucalyptus essential oil (source - The Public Health Authority of Sweden: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/livsvillkor-levnadsvanor/andts/regler-for-tillverkning-handel-och-hantering/tobak/offentliggjorda-rapporter/tobak/?id=00931-16-11001 ).