Before I got rid of the plant which I had brought indoors in the hope that it might go to seed, I stripped it of the leaves which had grown on ‘sucker’ shoots. There were not many, and they were very small. I dropped them onto the bedroom window ledge. Since then, they have gradually yellowed. I do not know why. Some have done so quite rapidly while some have taken their time. Nevertheless, it has happened. We should also recall that a few of the early leaves on the plants in the bedroom turned a lovely colour of ‘golden yellow/brown’ of their own accord. But most of the later leaves did not, nor even showed any signs of doing so.
So what in God’s name is going on with these leaves?
The question which I asked myself about the leaves which went yellow was: “Have these leaves fermented?” I cannot see how that can be so. It seemed to me that they turned yellow in the same way and sense that leaves on trees yellow and fall off trees in the Autumn. They certainly had not been subjected to hot, humid, ventilated conditions, nor had they become sticky.
Acet suggested trying to ‘ferment’ some of the yellowed leaves in the batch of Whole Leaf which I recently acquired by ‘wadding’ them. There is not that much left, but I cannot see how trying to wad a couple of leaves can cause them any harm.
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And so I have set to. I have tied two leaves to a coat hanger with string and sprayed the leaves with warm water, without trying to unfold them. After the first spray, and allowing a few minutes, the leaves were beginning to ‘give’. I have just checked a few minutes after the second spray, and they are definitely ‘relaxing’.
Since I am in no hurry to go to bed, in the company of a bottle of red, I think that I shall see it through. So I’ll do a commentary:
17th January 2013.
01.15 am.
The leaves have definitely relaxed, and so another spray should be enough. Let’s give it another few minutes.
1.30 am.
Wow! The leaves have lost all their brittleness and are now quite supple. Notice the holes in the leaves! Clearly, insects have had a go at them:
pic.
OK. I must now ’wad’ them, but I shall remove the midribs:
I’ll cut up the midribs and enclose them within the wad. That should be OK. The leaves are drying very rapidly, so I’ll give them a little spray before wadding them.
The above pic shows me rolling up the leaves.
2.10 am.
Wadded. It remains only to give the wad a quick spray with water on the outside and then seal it in a little container and place it on the hot water cylinder where, even though the cylinder is insulated, the temp is quite warm.
This little experiment is very interesting. Will the leaves become sticky? Will they turn dark brown?
Watch this space…………….
17/01/2013 at 16:12
Very interesting. And leads me to the basis of my ‘confusion’ – all these terms, and their definition. You read on sites about ‘colour curing’ which I assumed meant allowing the leaf to go from green to yellow to brown, without allowing the leaf to actually dry out and become brittle. Right/wrong?? Then fermenting, which I assume is the process that takes place when wadding – the leaf kind of ‘composting’ through lack of air in the wad, turning a darker brown, and remaining fairly moist in the wad. Then drying, which I assume is what you do after the leaf is color cured and fermented, in order to smoke it (or age it, if you have the patience). But different sites call things by different names, which gets confusing. Certainly, with the way I’m doing it (as above), a brown leaf that I would have, that would be similar to the whole leaf that you have received, would not have been fermented (or wadded)????? This is really confusing.
17/01/2013 at 19:05
I’m trying this with you J! Unfortunately there’s no sun-dried leaf left, but I do have a huge bag full of mid-ribs.
I have soaked a big bunch of hard mid-ribs and am now in the process of flattening them with the rolling pin, after which I shall ball them up tight in polythene bags and hang them above the boiler.
It is going surprisingly easily… I’ll keep you posted
There is no reason, imo, why this should not work with the green layer of ‘skin’ around the woody main stem of the plant.
17/01/2013 at 20:28
When I was processing my own plants, I was a bit lazy and didn’t do the rolling pin bit in order to squash the center stem. I found that when I went to wad my tobacco, the stem on the outside leaf would break as I was rolling the wad, and I was able to grab the stem and pull upwards toward the top of the leaf – the inner thick part would actually peel out, leaving the skin around it, and the skin just fermented with the rest of the leaf. When I rearranged the leaves the next day, I did this again with the outer leaf. So I ended up with no woody bits at all in my finished product!!
18/01/2013 at 00:43
Terminology can be very confusing. I discovered some time ago that, in horticulture, the word ‘stalk’ is used to describe the part of a leaf which attaches the leaf to the plant. On a tobacco leaf, I assume that this would refer to the bottom part of the midrib. The problem is that, on most leaves, the ‘stalk’ is quite hard and long, but it isn’t on tobacco leaves. Another confusing word is ‘stem’. The ‘stem’ is supposed to be the part of the plant to which the leaf is attached. In the case if tobacco plants, I would assume that to be what you might call ‘the trunk’ of the plant, if it was a tree. But I have seen both these words used in reverse!
For that reason, I try to avoid the use of both of those words. I always refer to ‘the midrib’ rather than stalk or stem. I rarely need to talk about ‘the stalk/trunk’ of the plant.
I have also seen the phrase ‘colour curing’. I don’t like it. ‘Sun curing’ I understand. ‘Flue curing’ I understand. But I do not understand the phrase ‘colour curing’.
I think that we should try to keep our terminology simple.
You could take a green leaf and dry it by putting it on the fireplace (if you have one!) The result would be a very dry, green leaf. Another bad idea that I tried was to peg leaves on the washing line on a sunny day – again, the leaves just dried out green rapidlyI tried making a fag with such a leaf and it tasted foul. By towelling the leaves, we delay drying, but at the same time, we give the leaves warmth. However, as I have observed, some parts of a towelled leaf may go wet and dark brown and sticky while other parts will go yellow and stay dry, and other parts may remain stubbornly green. One trick that I used was to cut off any bits which had gone sticky and dark brown and put those bits inside sheets of kitchen roll paper. Another observation showed that even green parts of leaves which have been towelled will go brown and sticky when wadded, but not always. I have been hearten by the fact that the latest batch of whole leaf show signs of greenness here and there, which shows that even ‘professionals’ do not expect perfection.
Why does ‘wadding’ work so well? I think that it is because the chemical processes involved in turning starches into sugars are confined within the wad. This effect is emphasised if the wads are inside a sealed container.
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I have a number of experiments for this coming season in my mind. One of them is to try wadding green leaves, thus bypassing the towelling stage. By the way, the word ‘wadding ‘ simply describes the act of rolling the leaves into wads. and tying the wads tightly with string.
As regards final drying, after wadding, as far as I am concerned, the intention of thoroughly drying is twofold:
1. So that the leaves crumble easily into flakes.
2. To avoid the possibility of mold during storage.
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You can see from the length of this comment that it is impractical to try to cover every possible twist and turn. So let’s keep it simple:
1. Grow the best plants that you can.
2. Harvest the leaves from the bottom up when each leaf is fully grown and has had time to absorb as much sunlight as is reasonable. Just use your intuition, since there is no perfect time.
3. To get a good taste, the leaves must ferment so that starches turn into sugars. Build a kiln is you wish to. Towel if you wish to. Wad if you wish to. It makes sense NOT TO use your tobacco straight away, although you can. It seems to be better to let it age. I suspect that chemical reactions do not stop since ‘stinks’ still evaporate from even very dry tobacco. Certainly, my daughter has remarked that my home-grown fags do not smell as strongly since I decided, this season, not to use it until I had gathered in and processes all my leaves.
4. I personally believe that cutting home-grown into one millimetre wide strips is impractical. Thus, it does not lend itself to normal ‘rolling’ methods. Better to use a tubing machine,
5. Home-grown might have an ‘intense’ taste. Dilute as you wish. Commercial cigarette tobacco is quite mild. I suppose that rolling tobacco is quite mild. Whole leaf tobacco seems to me to be mild.
Mix home-grown with whatever you wish and see what suits YOU. Flavour your home-grown as you wish. I personally prefer to use orange peel both to flavour and to soften. It works superbly for me!
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As regards the midribs, I have borrowed my daughter’s coffee grain grinder. Tonight, I have ground the hard midribs which came with the full leaf. In a few seconds, the machine reduced this hard stuff into tiny granules. Problem absolutely solved. I would not use the machine on the leaf itself since flakes allow air spaces. These air spaces are essential for burning and drawing reasons.
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I am averse to too much mechanisation. Part of the pleasure is doing the work.
18/01/2013 at 14:36
Just to clarify fellas, by ‘woody main stem’, I was indeed referring to the trunk of the plant, which is mostly lignin and not good to smoke.
My thinking is that a freshly felled trunk could be given the rolling pin treatment with the resulting green stuff being gathered up and fermented by the wadding method. Most of the woody stuff would be discarded.
It remains to be seen whether the quantity of tobacco yielded justifies the amount of work involved.
18/01/2013 at 18:11
The soft stuff at the top of the plant sounds promising, but I know that most of the ‘trunk’ is woody.
18/01/2013 at 18:49
I can’t imagine anyone using the woody stem for anything – unless the plants were pretty small. Our greenhouse plants had woody stems that were over one inch in diameter. We needed sharp loppers to cut them down!
18/01/2013 at 19:13
Yes, a rolling pin might be a bit underpowered, perhaps a club hammer would do a better job, or failing that, stripping it off with a potato peeler.
I’ll give it a go on the morrow, weather permitting.
19/01/2013 at 03:29
Forget it, Acet. It simply is not worth the effort.