I can't believe that I've now completed 20 batches of home-brew snus - each one with different blends of tobacco and different flavourings, different strengths and cook temperatures. Some have been absolutely disgusting, others have shown promise and all of it has been a massive education in how the processes that go in to making snus work together to create different flavours. In the past I have experimented by attempting to copy a certain brand or simply made a snus from a single variety of tobacco to evaluate it's potential when converted to snus ... so I thought that batch number 20 should be different - I was just going to have a guess at making a great tasting snus by mixing together ingredients that had been a success over the previous 19 experiments
So what's the result ... well as usual I'm writing this down before it is aged. But this one is so different from all my other attempts ... for a start it is pretty nice straight away before the ageing has been done.
Batch number 20 is unusual in that there are not really any ingredients that I would consider flavourings ... all of them were added before the cooking process - so I'd consider them "tobacco improvers" rather than overt flavourings. None of these improvers are really noticeable in the final product - they're all right in the background - but they all combine to create a snus which is markedly different from just using tobacco alone.
So the taste is hard to put my finger on ... it's a regular stark, it's very natural tasting - and I've got the tobacco-salt-sweet balance spot on for my tastes. It has aroma and top notes without really tasting like anything other than the tobacco and it is absolutely the most usable snus I have ever come up with. It also does that weird thing that some snuses do of smelling quite different to the way it tastes ... it smells a bit like banana cake! But if I had to compare the taste to commercial brands I would say it sits somewhere between Röda Lacket and Skruf Stark ... and it's not a million miles away from Claq Qui ... which is quite something!
Apologies for the long-winded self-congratulatory nature of this post ... but I am very very proud of this one!
This is the recipe I came up with - it's a standard 100g tobacco batch that results in about 5 cans of los snus.
50g Virginia Brightleaf lamina flour (this is in most of my recipes - light flavour and holds the snus together well)
50g Burley lamina flour (results in a dark flavour and adds quite a bit of nicotine)
½ teaspoon powdered liquorice (in this quantity does not add a liquorice flavour but gives a touch of sweetness)
½ teaspoon cocoa powder (adds body and richness - again not enough for real chocolate flavour)
7 ½ grams of sea salt
20ml Martell brandy (spirits add a little sweetness and massively aid in lifting the aroma)
60ml freshly made black filter coffee (just works - it's not enough for true coffee taste - espresso is needed for that!)
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract (again - so little that it is not fully detectable in the finished snus but lifts flavour)
40ml water
3 teaspoons lye water
Method:
The liquids were combined (water,coffee,brandy,vanilla extract) and the salt was dissolved in them. The tobacco flours were combined with the liquorice and cocoa and mixed thoroughly in a glass jar and then the liquid was added and the whole lot mixed through to produce the mixture to be cooked. Consistency was that of finished snus.
The jar was then heated to 85ºC using a temperature controlled crock-pot slow cooker water bath and held there for 20 hours.
The lye water was added and mixed in thoroughly and returned to the heat for a further 8 hours.
After which the snus was removed from the heat - and allowed to cool in an outside building to age for a week or so.
50g Virginia Brightleaf lamina flour (this is in most of my recipes - light flavour and holds the snus together well)
50g Burley lamina flour (results in a dark flavour and adds quite a bit of nicotine)
½ teaspoon powdered liquorice (in this quantity does not add a liquorice flavour but gives a touch of sweetness)
½ teaspoon cocoa powder (adds body and richness - again not enough for real chocolate flavour)
7 ½ grams of sea salt
20ml Martell brandy (spirits add a little sweetness and massively aid in lifting the aroma)
60ml freshly made black filter coffee (just works - it's not enough for true coffee taste - espresso is needed for that!)
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract (again - so little that it is not fully detectable in the finished snus but lifts flavour)
40ml water
3 teaspoons lye water
Method:
The liquids were combined (water,coffee,brandy,vanilla extract) and the salt was dissolved in them. The tobacco flours were combined with the liquorice and cocoa and mixed thoroughly in a glass jar and then the liquid was added and the whole lot mixed through to produce the mixture to be cooked. Consistency was that of finished snus.
The jar was then heated to 85ºC using a temperature controlled crock-pot slow cooker water bath and held there for 20 hours.
The lye water was added and mixed in thoroughly and returned to the heat for a further 8 hours.
After which the snus was removed from the heat - and allowed to cool in an outside building to age for a week or so.
So what's the result ... well as usual I'm writing this down before it is aged. But this one is so different from all my other attempts ... for a start it is pretty nice straight away before the ageing has been done.
Batch number 20 is unusual in that there are not really any ingredients that I would consider flavourings ... all of them were added before the cooking process - so I'd consider them "tobacco improvers" rather than overt flavourings. None of these improvers are really noticeable in the final product - they're all right in the background - but they all combine to create a snus which is markedly different from just using tobacco alone.
So the taste is hard to put my finger on ... it's a regular stark, it's very natural tasting - and I've got the tobacco-salt-sweet balance spot on for my tastes. It has aroma and top notes without really tasting like anything other than the tobacco and it is absolutely the most usable snus I have ever come up with. It also does that weird thing that some snuses do of smelling quite different to the way it tastes ... it smells a bit like banana cake! But if I had to compare the taste to commercial brands I would say it sits somewhere between Röda Lacket and Skruf Stark ... and it's not a million miles away from Claq Qui ... which is quite something!
Apologies for the long-winded self-congratulatory nature of this post ... but I am very very proud of this one!
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