Making portions from tea bags

[nickyspaghetti]

I am a teacher of English so I must talk a fair bit at work - leaving me no chance to use all the beautiful loose I bought so I started to make it into tea bags so I didn't get brown everywhere and now I prefer it to regular portions.
I have found that the portions I bought went bad quite fast and when I use them they burn like hell and my mouth fills with water leading to a bad situation! When I make the portions they never burn at all and you just get the light flavour through. I think I will try some portions once more to try the difference next order but so far the home made ones have done perfectly.

Anybody have and different folding techniques? I cut a teabag(the ones with the string) into six and then fold into three equal parts lengthways to create a 'valley' for the pris.
I use the prismaster to make a medium pris which I place in the middle of this.
I hold it like I am rolling a cigarette and press the pris flatter and into a square then I fold over the pre made folds to wrap it.
then I just fold the ends in to completely seal it and it is ready.

[Asquar]

This came up in another thread. A couple of us have purchased heat seal tea bags, because I, at any rate, can't seem to close them well enough to put in a tin and carry around, and I don't want to have extra paper in terms of double folds or the like. With this particular tea bag paper, you can get a perfect seal with the edge of a clothes iron. Then cut any excess paper with a pair of scissors, and it's good to go.

So far I've just made a few for experimental purposes, but they work really well. If you go to eBay and search for heat seal tea bags, you can find them. I got 50 bags (enough for 200 mini portions) including shipping for $4.55.

Bondzai introduced me to the idea in this thread:

http://www.snuson.com/viewtopic.php?t=1612&start=0

[bondzai]

tea bags

Yes, with my 24 can sampler pack of Snus portions I haven't bothered making any more portions with teabags yet. I feel like a snusoholic. I wonder if I can use it all before it expires. As far as making my own portions, I will wait till I need them. But you can get teabags pretty cheap if you search around. Even on Amazon they have 100 of the large bags of the heat seal variety for under ten bucks. Just search around.

What would be really neat is if we could get specially made rolls of pris bags. Maybe something like a laredo machine for snus (if you remember those cigarette machines. Maybe between us we can automate the task of portion making.

I myself really like Skoal Peach. They don't make peach bandits. in fact, on my trip to North Carolina, besides buying three cans of Camel Snus, I bought a can of Skoal Spearmint--totally awesome.... I have only been using Snus and Moist Snuff for a month, but I gotta say I really like Skoal. And when its spent, you don't get that salty taste. I always get loose skoal in my teeth, so I think portions would be better.

My Skoal of choice has been Long Cut. I think maybe a finer cut would be superior in a pouch. I wonder if the prismaster would work on Skoal Fine Cut. Then it would be easier to load the pouches, and I think the fine cut would be ok in a pouch whereas otherwise I definitely prefer long cut.

[Kennet Klotkuk]

You probably don't wanna know how I did my own portions, but I'll tell it anyway. I took a regular teabag, removed the tea, added loose snus, folded the empty parts of the bag and closed it with a punch (maybe not the right word, I mean those metallic things used to merge papers with). It did work, although I don't recommend anyone to do this

[eli]

Think we refer to it a s staple in the US... not the kind of thing I'd want resting against my gums.

[chainsnuser]

My gums even ache from reading this.

I still have a package of tea-bags, that I bought as a brand-new snus-user. You can find empty tea-bags in almost every supermarket here. Only one tea-bag is missing. That simply was a failure. It tasted awfully and didn't hold together. Maybe I should have uses some staples :wink:.

Cheers!

[bondzai]

well if you can get the 'heat sealing' variety you can use and iron to seal them. what would be great is to find a roll of that paper.

[desirexe]

I tried many portions and found them to be too runny and most of them just too salty and gross tasting. After reading all the posts here, I decided to give los a try and LOVED the subtle flavor! HOWEVER, I refuse to go around and use los due to the 'fat lip' and 'mud' caked in between teeth, so I gave the heat seal teabag thing a try. Granted, it is a lot of work to cut the paper down to size and then seal it off with an iron, but this worked perfectly! I am actually enjoying one right now and moving it around and poking it with my tongue with no bad effects. Thought I would share a picture of a few of my 'creations' for those of you who would like to see:

[Zero]

^^ Nice work, they look lovely!

[bondzai]

I fold the paper in half and save one seam. Also can take a bag and use the edge of the iron and make a crease so can make something like a long bag that can be cut into little bags which makes it easier. I am also going to try using the prismaster to load them because a spoon is a pain.

[Asquar]

Agreed. Excellent work. What lös are you using?

[bondzai]

Got an idea. Cut a paper that is as long as possible and cut and fold it so that it is say two pris wide plus a little for a seal unfolded or one pris wide folded with a little overlap. Then make another crease where you want to seal it to make a tube. Then put a piece of wood or carboard or something inside to form a tube (flat tube until loaded) so you can iron along the overlap to seal it without putting a flap on the outside in the long tube (that would be one pris wide (use prismaster to measure)). This long tube then, like a fat straw could be cut into individual size bags. Then only two sides would have to have a paper flap edge that needed to be finally ironed. You'd iron one and then load it and iron the other end. (using just the edge of the iron holding it at a steep angle to the ironing board. Alternatively you could iron one end of the long tube, then load a pris, use the edge of the iron to make another seal, load another pris, edge to make another packet, load a pris etc... until you have a string of prises in one long bag. The cut the ironed dividers so you have your portions.

[jhof989620]

portions

nice job on the home made portions....I took a tea bag and ripped a piece big enough a small medium pris....popped it in my mouth...got it wet and it didn't fall apart. Still like it plain ol loose when I get home..

**Good to see I'm not the only woman using snus....lol

[desirexe]

Hey jhof, we are a few of the smart women tobacco users! Wish I could convince my friends to put down the cigs and try some snus, but they think it is just too 'redneck.' Oh well..I know it sucks hacking up pieces of lung and smelling like an ashtray all the time, maybe they'll discover that too and quit.

I happened to be using Roda Lacket los for the portions pictured here. The tea bag tones down its already mild flavor even more, so I think I'll stick to making portions using Skruff stark. I used the prismaster for the first one but then discovered it was easier to hand roll the snus into a fat, short tube. (time to get an icetool I think) I took the teabag material, which is awesome to work with and cut it into a square size and sealed 3 edges, leaving the top open to slide the 'tube' of snus down, then I just sealed the top and cut off the excess teabag material. It's easier to make the bags too big and then cut off the excess.

Bondzai: sounds like you are talking about how sausage is made. hahaha! I like the idea of the "string of prises in one long bag." I'll have to try that next time.

[GenuineSpirit]

This seams like a great idea!
Do you iron the edges of the potion on a piece of paper towel?