Some Questions on the Homemade Production of Snus

[MatthewMoisen]

Ok, I just spent the last hour and a half reading many threads in this DIY forum regarding the homemade production of snus. This is feasible.

I have a few questions (that might be better divided into multiple posts, but I'll start off by consolidating them here):

I'm under the impression that Swedish Snus uses only air-cured tobacco due to the fact that it has a low level of TSNAs. Is this true? If yes, where can I purchase pipe/cigarette tobacco that is specifically air-cured? I purchase all of my RYO cigarette tobacco via rollyourown.com, but they don't have a search function to look up "air-cured". I would rather not purchase whole leaf at this time.

Is there a specific brand for a pressure cooker that is well regarded by DIY snusmakers? I read the great thread by JustinTempler here where he uses a light dimmer to control the temperature. However I was hoping that there might be a pressure cooker that just happened to have settings that aligned with the proper snus making temperatures. I saw this thread where the OP, BillFromBryan, said he bought the "6L Kenmore" which happened to have the settings for the low and high end of the temperature range. Any other suggestions?

Speaking of JustinTempler's light dimmer design, is there a post here that describes how to create this? I'm no handy-man but can follow step-by-step instructions pretty well.

At the end of the day I'm interested in replicating General Mint. IMO the mint in that Snus is very subtle, compared to say the electronic cigarette juices I've made with mint flavorings. Does anyone have a clue as to which ingredients are used in General Mint to yield this flavor?

Regards.

Edit -- I removed the links as I can't post them yet.

[squeezyjohn]

Welcome MakingSnus!

I'll try to answer most of your questions - I have made quite a lot of snus and done a fair bit of research in my time. You could have a look at my blog post on how to make your own snus

I'm under the impression that Swedish Snus uses only air-cured tobacco due to the fact that it has a low level of TSNAs. Is this true? If yes, where can I purchase pipe/cigarette tobacco that is specifically air-cured? I purchase all of my RYO cigarette tobacco via rollyourown.com, but they don't have a search function to look up "air-cured". I would rather not purchase whole leaf at this time.

Yes - Swedish Match, and I believe the vast majority of all commercial producers use only air-cured tobacco in their products. When SM were producing their Christmas Kardus variety they also used sun-cured tobacco. GN Tobacco's Islay Whisky Snus uses some fire-cured.

You should not be trying to source your tobacco to make snus from by buying tobacco already prepared for smoking as pipe or cigarettes. This tobacco will be:
a) treated with all manner of chemicals and ingredients which make it not suitable for oral tobacco
and b) far more expensive than buying raw air-cured tobacco!

Look up whole leaf tobacco on google and find a supplier who has a variety of air-cured tobacco. If you are in the US it is very cheap as it is not subject to any tobacco taxes. Alternatively you can grow your own ... in which case it only costs you the price of your labour and a few seeds.

Is there a specific brand for a pressure cooker that is well regarded by DIY snusmakers? I read the great thread by JustinTempler here where he uses a light dimmer to control the temperature. However I was hoping that there might be a pressure cooker that just happened to have settings that aligned with the proper snus making temperatures. I saw this thread where the OP, BillFromBryan, said he bought the "6L Kenmore" which happened to have the settings for the low and high end of the temperature range. Any other suggestions?

Speaking of JustinTempler's light dimmer design, is there a post here that describes how to create this? I'm no handy-man but can follow step-by-step instructions pretty well.

What you need is a Slow Cooker or Crockpot - not a pressure cooker. If you are going to use it either in conjunction with a dimmer or PID device to regulate temperatures then you need to make sure it's an analog one and not digital. Analog ones are generally cheapest and have a simple knob on the front with "off" "warm" and "hot" settings. My advice is get the cheapest you can if you're going down that route.

I don't know of a post with a detailed instruction on how to make the dimmer circuitry work - and I would think that is only a route for someone with expertise in electronics. The PID system I use is more precise and more simple - however since JustinTempler wrote his posts on the subject, home sous-vide machines have come down in price such that it is now cheaper to get one of those than spend money on separate components and a crock-pot!

At the end of the day I'm interested in replicating General Mint. IMO the mint in that Snus is very subtle, compared to say the electronic cigarette juices I've made with mint flavorings. Does anyone have a clue as to which ingredients are used in General Mint to yield this flavor?

Swedish Match don't list individual flavouring ingredients for their brands - to achieve a copy of a flavour the best thing to do is to use your nose. For mint flavourings, look for food grade essential oils of peppermint and spearmint and experiment with blends of these ... bear in mind that a little goes an awfully long way with essential oils so dilute in vodka before adding to the snus to avoid disappointment! You can also add a small quantity of menthol crystals diluted in vodka too ... this gives the cooling lip feel associated with minty snus.

General Mint is incredibly sweet - and if you want to replicate this you will have to add some kind of sweetener ... I recommend xylitol as it is tooth-friendly - but you could use any sweetener, even sugar if you desired.

Hope that helps!

[squeezyjohn]

Just to add that some posts on Swedish forums claim that it is possible to produce snus using a pressure cooker and that it drastically reduces the time taken to cook. I haven't personally tried this method and am sceptical because home pressure cookers take the temperature well above boiling point - however commercial snus producers use pressure and shorter times in the production of their snus so I wouldn't discount it entirely!

[MatthewMoisen]

Just to add that some posts on Swedish forums claim that it is possible to produce snus using a pressure cooker and that it drastically reduces the time taken to cook. I haven't personally tried this method and am sceptical because home pressure cookers take the temperature well above boiling point - however commercial snus producers use pressure and shorter times in the production of their snus so I wouldn't discount it entirely!

Hi Squeezy John, thank you for the detailed response and I apologize for the very late reply. I never received an email notification and assumed this went unanswered.

I homebrew beer and I use a raspberry pi, a relay, a heating device, and a temperature probe. The probe sends the current temperature to the Pi, which tells the relay to turn on power to the heating device is the temperature is too low. I am thinking of adapting the same concept to an analog slow cooker. To make it work, I would need to crack the lid of the pot to feed the temperature probe in. This would permit air flow - would that be alright?

For your PID system, do you have the same issue with cracking the lid as I would have?

I was searching for "analog slow cookers" and ran across one on Amazon (Hamilton Beach 7-Quart Slow Cooker). Can I assume that if a slow cooker has a knob with the Off, Low, and High positions, that as long as it is plugged into a relay and the power switches on, the slow cooker will turn on without any thing else required?

Would you share which brand/model of slow cooker you use? I'm not sure of the size that I should get. In your blog post you wrote "My standard recipe is 120ml water and 8g salt per 100g of tobacco flour". What size fits for this quantity of ingredients?

In your post you mentioned the 5 types of tobacco and whether they were air cured/sun cured or not. Do you use burley tobacco?

[Snusdog]

As always

This is one of the best and most fascinating threads on the forum.

If you guys figure the pressure cooker thing out, please post your findings

[squeezyjohn]

Hi Squeezy John, thank you for the detailed response and I apologize for the very late reply. I never received an email notification and assumed this went unanswered.

Glad the message got through in the end!

I homebrew beer and I use a raspberry pi, a relay, a heating device, and a temperature probe. The probe sends the current temperature to the Pi, which tells the relay to turn on power to the heating device is the temperature is too low. I am thinking of adapting the same concept to an analog slow cooker. To make it work, I would need to crack the lid of the pot to feed the temperature probe in. This would permit air flow - would that be alright?

For your PID system, do you have the same issue with cracking the lid as I would have?

Not really ... the temperature probe that is attached to my PID has a very thin rubber coated wire and I just feed the wire in the side and trap it in place with the lid! It's not an elegant solution - but the lid is not so heavy that it crushes the wire - and water loss through the small gap during operation is minimal - it also doesn't seem to affect the accurate maintenance of temperature.

I was searching for "analog slow cookers" and ran across one on Amazon (Hamilton Beach 7-Quart Slow Cooker). Can I assume that if a slow cooker has a knob with the Off, Low, and High positions, that as long as it is plugged into a relay and the power switches on, the slow cooker will turn on without any thing else required?

That's how it is for me ... I have it always set to high and then the PID - or in your case the Raspberry Pi - will take care of the thermostat. If it is a digitally controlled slow cooker, however, it will not work.

Would you share which brand/model of slow cooker you use? I'm not sure of the size that I should get. In your blog post you wrote "My standard recipe is 120ml water and 8g salt per 100g of tobacco flour". What size fits for this quantity of ingredients?

My model is made by Logik (I think that's just a generic store branding) and it is a 3.3 litre capacity. In fact in the correct jar size it is possible to make a recipe scaled up to 250g tobacco flour in this model but the shape of the pot is not very efficient with space and if you managed to find a better fitting lidded glass vessel to place in the water bath I reckon you could get twice as much snus again per batch.

However - I now use a different device, a Giles & Posner Sous Vide Machine ... it's far more tidy than the mess of wires I was using and it can fit multiple jars. Since they have come down in price it is cheaper to get started this way than to buy a separate slow cooker and PID device. Although with your knowledge of control and electrics I assume you will be even cheaper with the Raspberry Pi kit.

In your post you mentioned the 5 types of tobacco and whether they were air cured/sun cured or not. Do you use burley tobacco?

Yes I do, among others. I find Burley alone makes a very intensely dark and strong snus and the flavour is not balanced and I tend to blend it 40:60 with a lighter tobacco (usually my home grown or some virginia type leaves). That being said - tobacco is a complicated thing and Burley from one supplier can be a completely different flavour and strength than burley from another! Within the guidelines I laid out in that post you're referring to, you also need to experiment with the tobacco you purchase in order to get the best results.

[MatthewMoisen]

Hey Squeezy John, this is MakingSnus (I seemed to have forgotten my password and the email reset isn't working).

Thanks to your help, I'm now on my way to home made snus!

I purchased a $35 Crock Pot 7 Quart/6.6Liter (model SCV700-B2-WM1) that can hold five, 1 pint (~0.5L) Mason Jars. Since all my RaspberryPis are occupied with my brewery, I instead used an Arduino ($20) I had lying around. The Crock Pot is set to High and plugs into a relay device (PowerSwitch Tail 2, $25) which plugs into an outlet and into the Arduino, which has a temperature probe (DS18B20, $5-10) that slips under the lid of the crock pot. This temperature probe must be much thicker than yours, because there is a definite crack in the lid which permits airflow. I tested it on 130*F(55*C) for 5 days however and it didn't lose too much water (although I had to top off at 4 days or so) and didn't seem to mess with the temperature. I'm not using a PID algorithm; I simply turn the crock pot on if the temperature drops below 1*F of my set point, and turn it off if the temperature increases above 1*F of the set point. While randomly testing it over the 5 day period, it usually hung right around 130*F/55*C, but I saw it go as high as 133*F. If I ever want to cook sous vide, I might program a PID algorithm instead of my naive algorithm, but for the snus I believe this is fine.

Here is a picture of the setup:



I did three batches; from left to right: 100g Virginia, 50g/50g Burley/Virginia, and 100g Burley. I plan on holding it at 55C/130F for 6 days.



From your blog post: "I find that doing this in a large mixing bowl with a fork is the best way to ensure the water and tobacco are thoroughly mixed together to form a light brown paste". Initially I did your ratio of 120mL water to 100g of tobacco. However, the consistency was not paste-like, so I added another 30mL to get 150mL (which you said was typically the top range). Even with 150mL it wasn't what I would call a paste. I did get it to what I would say was fully consistent, meaning I believe the salt was evenly distributed. Would you please describe what you mean by a light brown paste, or do you happen to have any pictures of what I should be looking for? Unfortunately I only took one picture of one of the batches, but here is the consistency I got it too (I believe the lighting is incorrect in this photo; from my memory the tobacco was all the same color, or perhaps I took this photo before mixing it thoroughly):



Separating the lamina from the main stem down the leaf was very tedious. At first I was trying to separate all the smaller stems out, but gave up and only removed the large stem down the middle. In the future I was considering ignoring this step all together and just grinding up the whole leaf, stem and all. Is this ill-advised?

I happened to have what I thought was a decent blender, but this process was also very tedious. The blender seemed capable of only grinding 20 grams at a time (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the volume of the blender) and would practically stop working if I put any more in. I would say that I really only got 5-10% of the plant matter down to a very fine particle matter (you called it flour). The rest was relatively larger pieces. Now I want to purchase a food processor like you recommended so I can blend 100g at a time and pulverize it to 100% flour. Would you share which brand/model you use? I did some research on Amazon-- they list the wattage of the motor, and the kind of disks/blades available (e.g., slice disk; shread disk; chopping blade), but I cannot tell which one would be capable of achieving the results we need for snus. I asked this question on a cooking forum and was told that a grinder may be better suited than a food processor. What do you think?

So right now I have 3 jars of pre-snus heating at 130F/55C for 6 days. After that I will have to add a base, add some flavorings, and age it.

Regarding step 3, the freebasing, you said we should add "sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate, mixing thoroughly and returning to the heat for a further 8 hours. If using dry powdered carbonate then 5-10g per 100g of tobacco flour can be added". Is the weight for both sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate going to be the same (or close enough)? From your Ettan snus replica thread on fairtradetobacco, you mentioned that you use "5 teaspoons of lye water" for a batch of 200g tobacco. Do you know how much that is for powdered sodium carbonate? Additionally, I assume the tobacco will still be wet enough from the initial water/NaCL combination after 6 days in the Crock Pot, so that when I take it out to add the base, I will be able to evenly distribute the sodium carbonate and it will form enough of a solution (so to speak) to freebase the nicotine evenly, correct?

For the additives, you mentioned that glycerol and propylene glycol could be used. Would you know of the ratios to use per 100g batches? [Edit]: on Page 10 of your Ettan thread, user Jitterbugdude adds "about a tsp of glycerol per ounce of tobacco"[/Edit]

For the flavors, I'm wondering how I can play around with the flavors to learn what ratio I should use before adding them to a batch. Do you have any method? For example, I was thinking of perhaps measuring 250g of water (to replicate the 100g tobacco and 150mL of water weight), and titrating some essential oils/flavoring compounds diluted with vodka until I was satisfied, and then using that amount on my batches. Is this appropriate or misguided? Do you have any specific ratio you like to use? I didn't read anything in your Ettan thread.

Thank you!

[admin]

Hi MatthewMoisen,

Sorry we were unable to respond to your mail regarding problems with your 'makingsnus' account password. We did try to contact you but the mail server handling mail for the email domain on your 'makingsnus' account kept rejecting our mails and so we had no way of reaching you.

Anyhow, we're glad you found your way back to us and we have merged your 'makingsnus' account into your new 'MatthewMoisen' account for you.


Best Regards,
SnusOn Admin Team

[MatthewMoisen]

Hey Admin, no worries. My work email address must have been rejecting the emails. Interestingly, I did receive an email saying that someone tried to log into my account 5 times (when I forgot my password), but I didn't receive any subscription notifications or the administration email you referred to. Thank you for merging them.

Hi SqueezyJohn, I'm on day 6 right now (133F/55C) but the tobacco doesn't look that much darker than when it started.

Here is the picture of the jars on day 0 after I added the water/salt:



Here is the picture of the jars yesterday on day 6 in the sous vide (this isn't the best photograph but if you compare it to the previous photograph I think it stands out):



In your blog post, you said at 133F/55C it would take 6 days minimum. Do you have any idea what the upper bound is?

After this batch was done in the sous vide and ageing, I wanted to do another 3 batches but at 185F for 2 days, and compare the difference.

Best regards,

[squeezyjohn]

Hi Matther - Making snus -- whatever you're called

It looks like you're encountering lots of the problems I have encountered myself! I think the main reason you are not getting a paste like consistency is because you are not getting the grind on your tobacco flour fine enough. Yes using a blender is a very tedious process for getting the tobacco leaf ground in to flour and it really struggles to grind up the stems - but it's the best home solution I've found - burr coffee grinders don't work at all with leaf - they just get clogged up.

Some tips: You need at least 30% of the flour to be in what is known as a dust fraction - really tiny dust size particles - in order for the snus to hold together in that clay like consistency. The only way to achieve that with a blender is to make sure the leaf is absolutely dry when you grind it. I leave mine out in full sun for a day or toast it in the oven so that it shatters when crushed - if it doesn't shatter then you will have massive problems grinding it up fine enough. This dryness makes removing the thick stems much easier - and I crush the leaf in to a coarse mixture by hand before blending it.

With regards to cooking the snus and the colour - 55ºC is at the very low end of the temperatures needed - it makes a nice flavour but the snus doesn't get very dark, especially if it uses light coloured virginia leaf - be aware that at these lower temperatures it brings the highest risk of TSNA development in your home-made snus. If you go for the higher end temperatures like I do at 85ºC you can shorten the process to 2 or 3 days and the snus goes a much darker brown. Also once you add the sodium or potassium carbonate - the snus will darken further.

Propylene glycol should only be used in very small amounts otherwise it gives a nasty artificial sweetness to the snus. I don't use it any more. Glycerol helps loose snus hold together and I would only use 1 tsp per 100g batch but you can add more.

For my Ettan recipe the equivalent of 5tsp of lye water would be about 14g of powdered sodium carbonate ... make sure it is mixed in very well when using the powder.

[MatthewMoisen]

Hey Squeezyjohn,

TSNA development? Bummer. Would you be able to point me to any learning material you have used so I can read about manufacturing snus safely?

I went to a Chinese supermarket and found some Lye water by Yuet Heung Yuen. Unfortunately, when I brought it home I noticed it did not quantity the percentage of potassium carbonate in solution as the picture of your brand did, so I ended up using 7g of sodium carbonate powder mixed in vigorously to the tobacco with 2.5 teaspoons of water.

On the second page of your Ettan snus thread, you showed pictures of the consistency of the flour as well as the finished product. Yes, my "flour" was not nearly as fine as yours. I pulled the Mason jars out today (day 8.5). Here are the three batches (100% Virginia, 50/50 Virgina/Burley, 100% Burley) You will note that they are not nearly as moudable/sticky as your final product was. I didn't add the Glycerol yet because I didn't procure it in time. Is this consistency what you would expect without the Glycerol?

After adding the base, you return your jars to the sous vide for another 24 hours. Because I am using low temperatures, should I wait more than 24 hours?



Also, I noticed some white mold in the Virginia/Burley and Burley batches when I emptied the mason jars to add the sodium carbonate. I tried to pull the tobacco out around the mold and switched it into a new jar. I assume the mold developed because of the low temperatures and because I didn't bother sanitizing anything as this was not expected. Are the batches ruined, either by a poor flavor or a health concern?


Here is a picture of the mold:



Thanks and best regards,

[squeezyjohn]

Well regarding TSNAs - I don't have the references to hand and I admit I've built that kind of knowledge over many years of reading a bit here and there. It is very well established that fermentation of tobacco (done at temperatures where micro-organisms can cause chemical changes in the tobacco) does invariably lead to the production of many compounds, some of which are the TSNA compounds. The fact that you have mould on your batch during the cooking process means that you are definitely in that territory and that's also probably a result of choosing a very low temp.

Your Lye water should be able to do the job too ... but you'll need to calculate the difference in strength approximately and adjust amounts. For the brand I use 2 tsps per 100g gives a good regular strength and 3tsps per 100g gives an extra stark type nicotine release.

I don't believe your snus will obtain the kind of consistency you're looking for with glycerol ... the grind is much more important. If it were not mouldy then I would suggest using it as it is - it would work - just be a bit messy. However I would definitely advise trashing that batch ... you have no way of knowing if it's a harmless or harmful mould variety and it's presence shows you there could be much more 'alive' in there!

My advice is to have another go (I have thrown away many more batches of bad snus experiments than I have mentioned here in my tales of success ;-) - go for a higher temp and shorter cook time ... you don't need to go all the way up to 85ºC but I would suggest no lower than 70ºC - I know people who've had success with lower temps and long cook times, but I also know that their snus has suffered from mould problems.

Finally - regarding continuing to heat the mixture after adding the base is useful only in that it speeds up the initial reaction. I normally lower the temperature anyway for that stage of the process.