Cooking Snus - When is it Done?

[SkackMan]

Hey, so I am trying my hand at making a batch of snus. I'm using a recipe originally posted by justintempler that calls for the following:

100 grams tobacco
100 grams water
13 grams salt
10 grams glycerin

The recipe has been cooking in a small convection oven for almost 12 hours at between 75 and 85 degrees Celsius (the temperature varies slightly and has gotten a little bit warmer throughout the day). The guy who posted the recipe cooked his snus for 6 days, but I don't think mine will take nearly that long (I'm using a different kind of tobacco - American Spirit Additive-Free dark blue can). A couple of questions for any DIY people:

How often should I measure the weight and add water to bring it back to 223 grams?

When do I know the snus is done cooking? I thought of comparing the color of the snus I'm making to a can of Ettan Los. Will that work?

Thanks in advance for the assistance.

[EricHill78]

I have no idea, but wanted to give you props for giving it a shot. Let us know how to turns out bro.

[SmokedEuro]

I have no idea, but wanted to give you props for giving it a shot. Let us know how to turns out bro.

Yes definitely as Eric said and Good Luck as well

[Snusdog]

I’d PM Justin and see if he could offer you any help

One thing though………if I remember correctly………..he started with plants that he grew………..I would think the American Spirit tobacco would already be prepared……………I’m not sure if that will effect the cook time…………..but JT wouldbe the one to ask.

Also if you PM him……………give him the link to this thread and ask him to reply here so the rest of us can read it. I would be interested to hear what he has to say.

Keep us posted on how it turns out............and good luck

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

I've only done it a few times but I do mine at 180F and it turns really dark after about 3 days. Once it looks like snus I stop pretty much. It shouldn't dry out much if its covered. Don't add too much water or you'll get soup I've heard. Good luck

[Snusdog]

Also just in case you have never tried to PM anyone here is how to do it

Go to one of their posts and click on their name.

In the drop down box......... the second option on the left will be Private Message. Click it and write your message.

If you have already figured this out............please disregard this..............and move to the front of the line

[Ansel]

I'm not sure if this page might help you...

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...prmd%3Dimvnsfd

General temperatures and baking times
50-60 degrees = 6 days
60-70 degrees = 5-6 days
70-80 degrees = 4-5 days
80-90 degrees = 2-3 days
The higher the temperature the darker the finished snus.
When snuff changes from brown to dark brown, it is finished baking.

[Ansel]

It's worth googling "snus recept" or "snusrecept" and then viewing the pages through Google translate. Good luck.

Snusrecept = snus recipe

[Ansel]

also have a search for snus on here: http://tribes.tribe.net/tobaccopatch and all tribe pages here http://www.tribe.net/tribes especially posts by Batman

[SkackMan]

I checked the snus at 12 hours last night. It's already looking very brown, so I think I'll move to step two of justintempler's recipe after only 36 hours (bringing total cook time to 2 1/2 days). My reasoning is that American Spirit tobacco is a) flue-cured, producing a higher sugar level than air-cured tobacco and b) has the most alkaline nicotine levels of any American commercial tobaccos. I'm guessing (I'm no chemist to be sure) the curing process and higher pH level makes this particular tobacco brown much faster. The Maillard reaction involves a reaction between sugars and amino acids and is "accelerated in an alkaline environment" according to the wiki article, and it will accelerate even more when I add sodium carbonate.

2 1/2 days sounds about right with the high temperature (79-85 Celsius is what my oven is reading now), low moisture, and high sugar/pH levels of this tobacco (glycerin was added too), especially if the Swedes recommend only a little bit more time, 3-4 days with air-cured, at this temperature.

Thanks for your help everyone. I'm looking forward to this snus. It should be nice and strong (American Spirit, from what I've read, has a high nicotine content of about 17 mg/g and the nicotine is already 36 percent basic).

[Ansel]

Good luck with it but isn't using flue-cured tobacco instead of air-cured cancelling out (kind of) the pasteurisation process in terms of harm reduction?

[SkackMan]

Good luck with it but isn't using flue-cured tobacco instead of air-cured cancelling out (kind of) the pasteurisation process in terms of harm reduction?

Not according to justintempler. He said this:

"Using American Spirit is additive free which has a big advantage over using pipe tobacco.

The whole 'air-cured' thing is way overblown. American tobacco used to be cured in barns using propane gas heaters exposing the tobacco to the exhaust gases and starving the tobacco from oxygen which raised the TSNA levels in the tobacco. When they switched to heat exchangers to shield the tobacco from the exhaust gases the TSNA levels of flue cured tobacco dropped to levels comparable to air cured.

SantaFe tobacco is flue cured and aged up to 3 years.

The biggest drawback is cost, 150 gram tin is at least $25.00 now
Snus is half water, so roughly 300 grams of snus.
Compare that against the cost of a roll (450 grams) of lös snus.

The most common problem that I've read about so far, using prepackaged tobacco, is getting the grind fine enough. The particle size should be somewhere in the range of 150 microns and 1 mm. According to the patents."

I still plan to switch to a cheap, air-cured pipe tobacco for my next batch, Ansel.

[Ansel]

Well in the UK i think nasal snuff is tax-free so if we find that plain and air-cured i guess it would be an ideal candidate for snus making.

[voodooman]

update?!
i am really interested in this type of thing. taste, texture? would love to try it myself one of these days.

[SkackMan]

Okay, an update. The snus was good, dark, but very moist and "rubbery" in texture. I suspect the reason is that my grind was not fine enough so there were larger chunks of tobacco that could hold more moisture. Not a total disaster, but my advice would be to make sure the tobacco gets ground up as fine as possible when dealing with a coffee grinder. Taste seemed overly-salty at first, but after a day or two in the fridge all of the ingredients/proportions that justintempler called for are right on. If the snus is too salty, I would suggest ordinary black pepper as a flavor to balance out the salt.

Barring a problem with the grind, any suggestions from the snus cooks as to why it was so moist?

I've started a new batch. My ingredient list is about the same as justintempler's, since that worked well taste-wise. I am, however, modifying the recipe just a little by adding a smaller amount of sodium carbonate (maybe 5 grams instead of 7) when the snus is completely finished sweating in the oven but while it's still hot. I've read that this last-minute addition of sodium carbonate (vs. cooking the snus with sodium carbonate) is how some commercial snus achieves its characteristic flavor. I made sure to grind the tobacco to a very fine powder this time. I'm using American Spirit again, mostly the light blue package this time with a little bit of dark blue, and I've got the snus cooking at 70 - 80 degrees C in a sealed mason jar. I'll let the pressure out of the container every 12 hours, and it will hopefully be done in about 48 to 60 hours.

Hope this helps anyone who tries to make snus around here. Thanks to justintempler for the recipe.