This is a recipe from one of our professional snuff makers that you might like to experiment with. This is the first of an occasional series that will be placed in the FAQ section. 

If you make it - or adapt it - please let us know how you got on.

An old Rotterdam recipe produce an “Odor” snuff. Take 500 grams of powdered tobacco ground through a coffee grinder and add 22 drops of Bergamot oil, 12 drops of Clove oil and 10 drops of Lemon oil. Mix well, strain through tea sieve, leave overnight. Ready.

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 convient fermentation cool down with 50 grams of kitchen salt.

I haven’t tried the Hannover recipe yet, but I hope you have enough to go on.

Kindest regards,

Jaap Bes.

Wow, Thanks a bunch. The timing on this is perfect. Here are some notes on what I will be doing today. Due to my limited ingredients it may seem as if I have changed the recipe completely but if               you do look close enough I really have not strayed too far. 

               1/4 cup tobacco flour

               2 teaspoon woodruff herb water in which was 2 teaspoon woodruff herb steeped sub for clover

               1/8 teaspoon sodium carbonate sub for ammonium chloride

               1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar sub for potash

               jarred and set in towel warmer (110’) for 12 hours then set at room temp to check until salted

               1/2 teaspoon salt 

   notes;

            My Burley leaves were in such great condition it was difficult for me not to imagine all the cigarillos that I could have rolled with what I was tearing up. Taken out of case in a metal bowl over a crock pot. Ground and sieved, I prefer sieving dry. The strained woodruff tea was very mildly scented. Coumarin being the matching ingredient to the yellow sweet clover. Tonka bean might be a good substitute here. This tea is the casing for fermentation not necessarily the topping or final scent. Mixed the alkalizers into the tea making sure completely dissolved. Put flour back to whirl in the solution. Some fiddling and scraping to ensure a complete mix. Immediately the scent of ammonia developed. To set aside in my 110’ towel warmer may be overdoing it but since such effort was made to find such a device I will use it. I remember recently reading about snuff fermentation regarding the twelve hours so I will use that number in the chamber however the supply of oxygen will be limited as the half full jar is sealed. I will edit my next post tomorrow after the jar has cooled and opened to check. At that time I will decide on whether or not to salt right away or let sit. 

What is the Cream of Tartar for Jux?

Cream of tartar sub for salts of tartar sub for potash. My potassium substitute. I know that’s a big leap (my biggest) but I have read about cream of tartar being used in snuff and now here is my chance.

   notes;

            Opened up the jar after about twenty four hours of so twelve of which were at 110’ artificial heat. It still has a strong ammonia smell. It’s a lot darker than when first jarred. Separated a pinch to air for testing. Surprisingly the tea which I thought weak gave this a distinct pleasant scent. I had a hard time getting myself to put a whole teaspoon of salt in just 25 grams of snuff so I opted for a half teaspoon. I tried to get the salt to dissolve in a little water for mixing in but to much water was necessary for that and the snuff is already a little too moist so I gave it a whirl with the salt thrown in dry. After salting the scent was more pronounced and much longer lasting. Now to let it rest for a week or so… As if I won’t be picking at it the whole time.

Good deal, thanks for the hint.  Let me know how it works out.  

Remind me what cream of tartar is please - I’m going to risk a very dumb question but I assume this is not the condiment?

It is used in baking. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream_of_Tartar

Ok so instead of starting a new thread, I will post my question here. Has anyone used leafonly.com for the leaves? If you have, how did it go? Thank you for your answers and this thread in general.

Did you spot this in the WIKI for cream of tartar?

Potassium carbonate can be made by igniting cream of tartar producing “pearl ash”. This process is now obsolete but produced a higher quality (reasonable purity) than “potash” extracted from wood or other plant ashes.

the purist can also just buy the stuff.

@juxtaposer Any results?

@Juxtaposer it looks like if you ignite that shit you’ll get your potash or something even better.

@luxaorta i made one order from leafonly.com and it had a wonderful outcome. Quality leaf and fast shipping.

Précious cookery.isn’t it ? >:D<

Results… I have twenty five grams of fresh Woodruff Hannover snuff! I am amazed by the herb scenting and am looking forward to using other herbs in this manner. I have a lot of saucing/casing ideas that will work using this type of recipe. A lot of fun will be had experimenting with fermenting times too. I’m a lot more interested in saucing/casing and fermenting than I am in topping / scenting.

*I never did double check my math work on that recipe I used. I suppose I should get a gram scale to measure weight in stead of estimating volumes.

*This fresh snuff appears to be still burning through oxygen after 48 hours as the jar lid was vacuumed on pretty well. I should re-think the airtight environment I gave it on its fermentation phase. It seems it could have used more oxygen than I gave it. 

I was going for a recipe for Brazil Carotte as it is very similar to our C&B described as smelling like old Cheshire cheese, but I had to put this one down due to Juxtaposers use of cream of tartar. It’s an incredibly easy recipe if you have access to some rose petals.

“Take forty parts of French or St. Omar tobacco with twenty parts of fermented Virginia stalks in powder; the whole to be ground and sifted. To this powder must be added two pounds and one- half of rose leaves in fine powder; and the whole must be moistened with salt and water and thoroughly incorporated. After that it must be worked up with cream and salts of tartar, and packed in lead to preserve its delicate aroma.” The celebrated gros gram Paris snuf.

Don’t go off and buy a packet of Gitanes, our Quit and some cheap Scotch snuff should be fine. I’d guess 50g Quit 25g Scotch and 75g rose petals. For the salt water mix 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt in 1/4 a mug of warm distilled water allow to cool, mix in but stop before it becomes a paste. Then add cream of tartar to taste. I’d also skip the lead casket if you want to live. I’ll just add the immortal line “Not to be tried at home”. LOL!

It’s not quite over yet. The vacuuming is slowing down but the ammonia is still wicked strong. Hopefully I can time the airing of it so that the moisture content is perfect when it is completely ready for consumption. I will likely load a box in a couple days to see how that goes.

Edit; another day and it’s clear it’s not really slowing its oxygen consumption like I assumed.

OK I just decided to leave the lid off and let some moisture evaporate. Its almost black and I think the high moisture is driving the cooking. I certainly don’t want to put any more salt in it.

Day5; I am only leaving it open to air while I am around so that I can keep an eye on the moisture levels. All in all, even with all these notes, the fermentation times and temperatures are not recorded very accurately , nor is any of the time spent with lack of oxygen or time spent airing recorded in great detail. What effects these have will remain to be seen in further snuff making experiments. What I do have is a fantastic one of a kind snuff. That is for sure! 

Here’s a quick, five minute recipe using everyday, household items. Don’t forget to pick up the Chapzugar and jaggaree the next time you are in a 7/11. 

To 10 lbs of Snuff (which it is indispensable should be of a sweet Brazil character) take first 1.1/2 of the best French Plums. Let them simmer for at least 5 hours until reduced to the feel of a soft…pulp, adding while simmering about 2ozs of grated Chapzugar Cheese; add thereto while simmering 1.1/2 salt - when the plums are sufficiently soft rub them through a cane sieve in order to seperate the stones - then spread out your snuff and force the plums through a wire sieve on to the snuff - mix it well up with your hands and 1.1/2 pints of best Olive or Almond Oil and work the whole twice through the wire sieve: add about two glasses of Port wine lees.

If you can get any Jaggaree disolve 1.1/2 ilbs in hot water with 2 ozs Chapzugar and salt, if necessary a little wine  lees - This is a much better recipe and requires no Plums - but the foundation must be a sweet luscious flavour’d snuff.

Jaggaree is presumably the same as jaggery (unrefined cane sugar). Chapzugar appears to be Swiss green cheese (green because of herbs, not mould). Interesting. Nineteenth Century sweet cheese snuff, anyone?

That recipe is, of course, from the best snuff book ever - “Snuff and snuff boxes” by Hugh McCausland, Batchworth Press, London, 1955. An absolute must have book for anyone seriously interested in the art. McCausland had access to the F and T archives when the firm was still going strong, Smith’s, WoS and a few now long since forgotten. I don’t know of another book where the author had such a wide range of resources to draw from, full of wonderful snippets from the old order books like ‘such and such a date, Arthur Wellesley, 1 pound of this that or the other, supplied in lead canister’ type of thing. Long, long since out of print but probably findable on Amazon or somewhere. 

http://www.archive.org/stream/bookofsnuffandsn011626mbp/bookofsnuffandsn011626mbp\\_djvu.txt

Snuff and snuff boxes … 30 second google

Woodruff Hannover … It has notes of honey. I can’t wait till the ammonia wears off. I’m curious to see how it matures. As it is there is no noticeable tobacco note. More and more I see similarities comparing pipe tobacco and snuff tobacco in the nuances that tobacco varieties have. For example Burley here plays a neutral and unobtrusive host to the woodruff casing.

Thats the Matoom Curtis one of the same name, not nearly as good and much more dated in style, it does have a large set of photographs of old snuffboxes though, including some early American boxes.

@Juxtaposer, why don’t you write your collected manufacturing experiences down and we can put it on the FAQ? It seems that you have taken home snuff making  a lot further than anyone else; would be a valuable resource.

@Snuffster You first!

 Ok, Ok, I’ll try to make a straight forward make your own snuff thread starting simple then jamming it with notes, tips and tricks.

@snuffgrinder I’m starting to go over some of my math on this project. I figure that my soda use is at two percent which is around the one to three percent I have seen prescribed around here and also matching some of the German snuff ingredients listings listed here. http://service.ble.de/tabakerzeugnisse/index2.php?detail_id=101363&site_key=153&stichw_suche=lowen&zeilenzahl_zaehler=1 

By my calculations you are using soda at one half percent. Is this correct?

Thank you @Juxtaposer for starting the Snuffmaking 101 thread and sharing!

Will someone please check my math work. I have extremely poor math skills and do not want to lead anyone astray with improper values. Especially when it comes to the chemical ingredients being used. Also I have taken some liberties by replacing weights with volumes. My intent is to get a usable recipe within the general guidelines of the original. Any help in this area would be appreciated.

Thank you @snuffgrinder that is exactly what I needed to hear. Judging by the snuff I have made I am going to edit the amount of soda until I can weigh out the differences to calculate volumes. 

You’re the expert. I can only make Abraxas;)

The ‘deleted user’ marker is because snuffgrinder asked me to delete his account; I have kept the content to keep the threads he was on legible.

What a shame. He had a lot of good knowledge, I’m glad at least you’ve kept all his posts intact. I wonder what happened. Though, I guess its none of my business. Farewell @snuffgrinder if you see this. You will be missed.

Question for you, @juxtaposer, what exactly is the reason for the soda and potash? I guess I always thought that most snuff was merely powered tobacco and a flavoring agent, so - how exactly does the whole fermentation part play into things?

It is an alkalizer that releases more nicotine from the tobacco.

I am saddened by this sudden loss. I certainly drew off his experience all these years. I guess it does get tiring just repeating the same old stuff over and over.

@SnuffinClown I too have some questions regarding the reactions of tobacco to the alkalizers. 

Does pre sweated/fermented tobacco react the same way to them?

What are the ranges of times and temperatures can the mix be left at before salting?

Is it actually fermentation or chemical burning or both and to what degree?

I can say that moisture plays an important role in fermentation so for example you could add the soda, ash, and salt with minimal liquid to a tobacco and get a fresh snuff with little (or no fermenting?).

Perhaps some of my questions will help answer yours regarding this fermentation phase that gets induced by these alkalizers. I would still agree their main purpose is to adjust the ph of the snuff.

Quite a shocking and sudden loss…

Unexpected user departure is unexpected.

Ha! I see what you did there. Also, has anyone else found that homemade snuffs make your nose run more? My latest batch seems to make my nose run like the dickins and I want to know if this is normal.

No, homemade snuff should not necessarily make your nose run more. Assuming that you have dealt with the over alkalization I would ask how well did you do your grind? A gros grind will create somewhat more thin mucus as well as a grind that includes harder vein pieces. Did you sieve your flour? 

Aie, I took care of that issue by adding extra flour to the batch. It’s as fine as I was able to get it, I used a combination of mortar & pestle and coffee grinder and then sieved it through a stocking. The strange thing is that when I compare it side by side with a commercial snuff, the grains are the same size. Think it could just be that my nose needs to adjust to the lower quality tobacco?

You are changing the Nicotine from some sort of acid, to a base. Like… theres this one thing I heard about where instead of DRUG HCL you turn it into DRUG Carbonate. This changes the solubility,boiling point, temperature of decay, and other properties of the drug in question… (there was one that became famous in the 80s for this exact process.but I digress).

Anyhow, remember the discussion on Bruttons having the highest level of free Nicotine?, this is a combination of nicotine content, and alkilization. So… because I dont recall any additives used in curing cigar tobacco, or cigarette tobacco, I am assuming this is just like chewing on coca leaves with lime in your mouth.

In other words, add it at the end.  Tobacco fermentation should not need any additives, you do all your doping at the end. You can let it “rest” or “age” once its finished and you added your salt and base, but I would wait until all of the preparatory steps are complete.

Reitteration from another post :

Also, about the pH issue. from what ive read Baking soda can only produce a pH extreme of 9. Household bleach is 12-12.6 pH so at 9 you’d be 3 orders of magnitude less or better.

 I wouldnt be as worried about the pH being too high as I would be worried about snuff dilution. 

Here, more definitive: " formulations prepared should not vary significantly from physiological pH, which is about 7.4. In certain cases however, acidic or alkaline solutions may be needed to solubilize drugs. The acceptable pH range is 3- 10.5 for IV ** preparations and_ 4-9 for other routes_**."

from www.extemp.ie/pdfs/sterile_preperations.pdf

Some cigarette companies do use chemical cures for their tobacco, that I know. I have also heard of casings to help fermentation. It’s definitely worth researching. Doping after fermenting and/or aging is a great option, yes. Color cured unfermented tobacco makes a wonderful powerful snuff that makes for a very good reason to grind your own. It certainly is not the same after a few months. It does seem like changing the PH of tobacco helps it to ferment especially if left unsalted. I was never sure of this type of fermentation before this recipe was introduced and I am still not totally convinced it is actually fermentation that is taking place but the cues are there such as the release of ammonia and color darkening.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1259266/?page=6

By definition, this is not fermentation. It does not involve a metabolic process. I will however use the term as it is the parlance.

It looks like the vast majority of “fermentation” is for the degradation of nicotine. The paper above is measuring nitrogen release as evidence of nicotine decomposition. Ammonia, is a nitrogen carrier and here it is being created as a volatile byproduct of the nicotine decomposition. Nicotine is an irritant, as well as a very deadly stimulant as far as LD50. Its pretty obvious that moisture is necessary for the decomposition of nicotine as rapid drying arrests the process.

The other proteolytic steps breakdown organic chromaphores into ionones, damascones and damascenones which are aromatic.

To take home, the less nicotine, the less irritating it is for smoking/snuffing etc. The sweetness comes from the breakdown of the plants coloring. If you want snuff to kick your face in, pick it fresh and bake it in the oven. To get a “refined” tobacco with more character, ferment it as long as you can. The tricky part is keeping it moist but not to the point of growing mold.

I don’t think you need to add any chemicals as the enzymatic process seems to work just fine on its own.

I am aware that nicotine is the addictive part of the equation, however drinking ever clear isnt the most pleasant way to get drunk.

Proteolysis !  That is it!  I will start using that term now. Anaerobic proteolysis is what happens with our pipe tobacco while we are storing it in our jars (there, I used it). The PH is very important to this enzymatic process. Yes, you can (and I do) let your tobacco age for years and we know these results are fantastic. You can also alter the temperature, oxygen, and moisture levels as well as the PH to achieve levels of proteolytic processing. As far as nicotine being irritating in _snuff. _I do not find it so. The freshly color cured leaf that I have used was harsh and unsmokeable but as snuff was wonderfully invigorating. I hope one day to make that fresh picked, flash dried snuff you mention. My biggest concern will be the strong smelling chlorophyl. 

Any body else getting a headache here? 1925 was a good year but…

Anaerobic Proteolysis is what we should be concentrating on here, the initial PH is just a means to aid in the process. At least that is the one issue associated with “developing” a snuff. This gives the tobacco character and depth, a lot of this was originally through natural processes taking place in large bales (hogsheads) of tobacco, over time.

The final PH of a snuff is easy to manipulate, and a very good way to screw up all the goodness developed through “Anaerobic Proteolysis”.

Does salt help balance the ph in snuff? Very interesting thread. I know its old, but if anyone checks this out and can answer me, I’d be obliged. Also, does anyone know where to get rose petals? I guess I’ll Google it and find out myself.

@mrmanos‌ Salt doesn’t alter pH. There are several alkaline “salts” that do; carbonates mostly. Sodium, potassium, ammonium, etc. Each has their positive and negative impact on snuff. The only plus I find is they make nicotine more available to be absorbed into whatever mucous membranes are being targeted. Salt, sodium chloride, is the best flavor enhancer available, and it does enhance aromas as well. Added incrementally it also controls fermentation.

786 Is there a logical reason why I can’t read the recipe? It’s just a field of white. I mean, I can tell that there are words under there, and occasionally I can pick one out; but after a third of a century of wearing eyeglasses my eyes aren’t exactly spring chickens anymore.

this thread is pretty fascinating. maybe one day I’ll have time to try some of these things, barely have enough time to play with the kids and play guitar ;-(

thanks to all who share this info!

@slobandtom:   Place your mouse pointer at the beginning of the unreadable white text.  Hold down the left button and move the pointer toward the end of the text.  This will highlight and make it easy to read.  To save you can press the Ctrl and C keys at the same time to copy the highlighted text.  Then open Notepad, Word or similar program and press Ctrl and V keys to paste.

786 @spyder, Thank You, it works!  And not one, but two recipes!  I am in your debt Sir (I really hate all things technological, despite the fact that the internet has revolutionized my existence).

@slobandtom: Good luck with your experiments.

Jaap Bes.