Tobacco questions

**squeezyjohn** · 31-03-13, 09:42 AM

Hi, welcome, & kudos for making your own!

I've spent the last year experimenting with doing the same sort of thing and am still on the journey of working out what blend of tobaccos to use.

When you talk about making a snus with a real tobacco flavour - remember just how few truly plain snuses there are being sold - Ettan, the classic, with no flavourings doesn't really have a tobacco-ey flavour. Air cured burley is one of the types often given in old recipes - in the very distant past fire-cured was also used to give a smoky flavour, but for health reasons only air-cured is used now with the addition of smoke flavouring.

In my experience 100% dark air cured ligero makes a snus that is way too rich and bitter but it can work as part of a blend. I have also used pure Virginia and that makes a snus that is too mild and insipid - but it does add a touch of aromatic cigarette/pipe tobacco flavours in a blend.

Regarding whether or not to include stems - one of this forums resident commercial snus makers, Jimmy (aka sharesnusinfo) has told us that commercial snus uses more stems than lamina - and if you get the proportions wrong, you end up with a far too bitter and strong snus. In my experience that is true!

If you have access to lots of whole leaf sellers - why not get a sampler pack or a little of each variety to experiment with?

Cheers

Squeezy

**crezzyman** · 31-03-13, 02:44 PM

Thanks for the reply!

My original goal wasn't really to make just a plain tobacco flavored snus, or even a traditionally flavored snus...I'm more trying to create a Thunder Frosted clone, which from what I remember, was quite minty with a fair bit of bitterness as well. It's been about 6 months since I've had commercially made snus, so I'm mostly just working from memory. My state banned shipping of any/all moist tobacco products (though pipe tobacco, cigars and whole leaves are still fine) and outside of road tripping 3.5 hours to another state, I can't get anything from V2. I can get General white mint, original portion and los if I drive for an hour one way, but it's $7.50/tin after tax.

I'm hoping a bit of ligero in the blend would give me that bitterness that I'm looking for. The plain Burley seems to take flavorings really well but it never develops that undertone of bitterness that I remember from the Thunder Frosted. My thinking is a Burley/dark air cured/ligero blend should still take a mint flavoring well because of the burley, but should also provide a bit of bitterness.

The burley called for in old recipes is kind of confusing on it's own, just because of the variety of burley available. So far, for just whole leaves, I've seen light air cured burley, aged light air cured burley, aged 2nd priming light air cured burley and aged 2nd/3rd priming dark air cured burley. And if you start looking at pipe tobaccos, the possibilities become nearly endless!

I may just experiment with using a higher percentage of the dark air cured that I have to see if I can get that to work. The 50/50 batches that I've made haven't aged quite long enough yet, so I'm still not 100% sure what the final product will be like. They certainly have more of a kick than the plain Burley batches, which while appreciated, wasn't really what I was going for.

The extra kick could also be because I used Potassium Carbonate instead of Sodium Carbonate on the latest batches. I have to say, the Potassium Carbonate definitely seems to have a stronger reaction than the Sodium Carbonate. Whether that's because the Sodium Carbonate is home made and the Potassium Carbonate comes from a lab, or just because of the different properties of the two, I'll never know. I just know that with Sodium Carbonate the house gets a bit stinky, and with the Potassium Carbonate I have to open windows to keep from choking.

That's really interesting information about the stems. I would never have guessed the percentage of stems would have been higher than the actual leaf. I'll have to try using some stem in the near future. I saved all the ones I pulled out of the dark air cured stuff that I got, just haven't ground them up yet. Being able to use the stems would also help quite a bit with processing losses and processing speed. Taking those stems out takes quite a while....

The stems also account for about 30% of the whole tobacco weight, based on weighing just the stems compared to how much tobacco powder resulted from processing just the lamina. Processing the pipe tobacco to tobacco powder I lost about 13-15% of the advertised weight, probably because the tobacco powder is dry and the pipe tobacco comes pretty moist, plus I always seem to spill a bit. From the whole leaf to tobacco powder I lost 33% of the advertised weight – but if I use the stems, the most I'd lose would be 5% of the advertised weight, assuming significant spillage during processing.

I really only know of two places to get leaf, though http://www.leafonly.com does have quite an impressive selection to choose from, and they do offer ¼ pound “sampler” sizes for the leaves that they sell. If the dark air cured doesn't work out, those samplers would be a good way to experiment.

**squeezyjohn** · 31-03-13, 04:19 PM

Yes it is very very confusing with all the varieties! Also the different harvests between years yield quite a wide range of different kinds of flavours. You just have to try it out and make an educated guess about the kind of blend you're looking for.

Regarding the stems and lamina - Jimmy wrote this:

Originally posted by sharesnusinfo!

The stems should be included in the blend! about 45% stem & 55% lamina! orelse the snus will be to strong and to bitter.
you can read more here on how to make the snus (i have made that recipe) http://att-tillverka-eget-snus.blogs...obaksmjol.html in Swedish but you can translate it in google translate

Given that the stem weight is only 30% of the total that means you have to know someone who grows their own for smoking :-) they will always chuck their stems out ... I'm currently working on a deal to give away some of my home-grown lamina for the stems.

However - if you grow or buy a sufficiently mild tobacco variety - you could be OK with just grinding the whole thing up. Only trying it will tell you if it will work or not.

I dont think that Potassium Carbonate is any stronger than Sodium Carbonate - but if you make your own by heating baking soda you might find you don't make 100% sodium carbonate. If you (like me) are wary about lab products as an edible ingredient in snus ... all good east-asian supermarkets carry something called Lye water which is a saturated solution of potassium carbonate (about 46%)

Good luck!

Squeezy

**crezzyman** · 31-03-13, 06:02 PM

Wow, I didn't know that the flavors varied even year to year. I guess it'll just be taste and go, though I think sticking to the air cured varieties at least will probably be the best bet.

I think the dark air cured I have might work with the stems in. It's a bit potent now, so the stems should help mellow it out. I'm not picking up much bitterness with the 50/50 batch that I made, though it also hasn't had long to age just yet and I cooked it with a pretty strong sweetener.

Just FYI, leafonly does sell plain tobacco stems. The problem is that they consider it “processed” tobacco, which means there's a minimum 440 pound purchase. Their page says “on occasion we have processed tobacco leftovers that we can do lower minimums on”, but I don't know how low they'd be willing to go for a minimum order...might be worth a shot, though I don't know how well stems would make it through customs.

I did make my own Sodium Carbonate, which would explain why it doesn't seem as potent as the Potassium Carbonate – the baking in the oven must not have converted it 100%. The Potassium Carbonate that I have was labeled as “food grade” and advertised as a buffering agent for home wine making, so it should be okay to use in snus...I hope. I don't think I've ever seen an east-asian supermarket in Vermont, though I've never really looked either. I did read your old posts about using lye water, which is actually what compelled me to get some Potassium Carbonate in the first place.

On a different note, how did your batches using Ammonium Carbonate (bakers ammonia) come out? I'm curious about how it affects the overall flavor of the finished product, as it seems to have a pretty potent aroma....

Thanks for all the help!

**squeezyjohn** · 31-03-13, 08:24 PM

I think that if you've got access to the products at leafonly and wholeleaftobacco.com - then you might as well stick to buying whole leaf as it is exempt from all taxation in it's "unprocessed" form.

Sound like your potassium carbonate source is perfectly good - it was just the word "lab" that worried me!

Frankly the few experiments I've done using Ammonium Carbonate has made very little difference to the recipes I've used it in. When you add the potassium carbonate to the snus mixture - it releases a motherload of ammonia present in the tobacco leaf anyway - it may have more subtle effects as it's a milder alkali than the others used - but basically I can't tell the difference yet.

Some recipes call for Ammonium chloride (salmiak) - that's a very popular additive to sweets and foods in nordic countries in association with liquorice. Again - I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference to me unless you are actively pursuing that kind of taste.

In my experience - the blend of tobacco used and the cook length/temperature have more of an impact on the final taste than any of the minor ingredients - and if you are adding flavouring oils/essences then you may as well not bother - you just need the correct amount of alkali.

Cheers

Squeezy

PS - I'm chuffed that any of my posts have been of use to you!

**crezzyman** · 31-03-13, 09:03 PM

I think I will just stick to the whole leaf – getting a milder leaf to blend with to compensate for the lack of stem would be significantly easier than finding a place to store 440 pounds of stem I think....

That's good to know about the ammonium carbonate. I was really wondering what it would do, since it seems as though if it's left exposed to air it'll readily break down into ammonia and ammonium bicarbonate, and from there the ammonium bicarbonate would in theory just keep breaking down into carbon dioxide and ammonia. I figured it would add to the ammonia smell, but couldn't figure out what it would do beyond that.

I had seen ammonium chloride in a couple of recipes, but I've never had anything like salmiak before, so I figured it would probably be best to steer clear of it for now, at least until I can find something like it to try locally. And since I'm not really going for a “traditional” snus, I didn't think I'd need the traditional flavorings.

Your posts have been immensely helpful! I had been able to find various recipes on Google, but nothing really went into any sort of depth about the process. Reading about all of your experiments with snus making has been extremely informative. This board is really what got me started on home snus making – I started off batch #1 with one of justintemplers early recipes. Information on how much flavoring to use has been a bit tricky to come by, but that's mostly a matter of personal preference anyway.

**squeezyjohn** · 31-03-13, 09:27 PM

Cool!

The only rule with flavourings is - start small and add more if needed - it's easy to add more - it's impossible to take away!

Apart from that go with your own favourite flavours.

If you need more info on the ins and outs of different tobacco types - have a look at http://fairtradetobacco.com/forum.php - a few of us here who make and grow our own are on there and it's equally as informative - just not much about snus!

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