Tobacco fermenting too quickly?

[mr1992]

Hey there,

I've got a question regarding fermentation and whether I'm at all doing it right. In another thread, I'd laid out my approach to fermentation (very wet leaves rolled very tightly in a towel and put in a mason jar, placed in a mason jar which is put on a heating cable in an insulated box; a thermostat connected to a heating cable keeps temperatures well above 50°C/123°; the sensor is placed right on top of the jar), just putting the leaves in a box with a source for moisture always ended up with crisp leaves, never managed to keep the moisture high enough. Hence my workaround.

The thing is, however, that leaves ferment at a very fast pace, and regardless of how well they cured. Within a day, even green leaves have taken on a very dark-brown to black colour, and you cannot tell the difference between which leaf had colour-cured well and which did so badly. Then again, there's little variation in flavour between the strains I've grown (Havanna, Corojo, and Pereg turned out very similarly last year) - now, I don't know whether it's my bad palate, mistakes in growing techniques, the weather, or this fermentation approach. I've tried some rustica straight out of the jar today, and it was good. I don't quite know what it's supposed to taste like, which doesn't help, but it was strong, refreshing/waking you up. It also smells like tobacco after the fermentation process has stopped and the baccy has dried a little; aforementioned strains had a nice cigar tobacco smell and flavour. It didn't taste as strongly as I'd like it to, though, and don't know what factor influenced it.

The catch is - this worked out in a matter of four days. Afaik, the fermentation time for cigarette tobacco is ~1 week and cigar tobacco up to ~4 weeks. So, there's a huge discrepancy which made me suspicious that I'm doing something wrong. I'm sure it hasn't turned into Cavendish, seeing that the successful attempts I've made at it produced a completely different leaf with a way blander smell and taste, and being much less likely to moisten up and generally feeling very different to the touch. When re-stacking the leafs, after two days, it smelt like spinach and after four days, it smelt like tea; this smell changed to tobacco latest within a week or two.

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated

 

[deluxestogie]

Cigarette tobacco is not fermented. It is flue-cured. That's a different process.

The method is so radically different from any approach with which I am familiar that I can't offer much guidance, other than some generalizations.

Cigar leaf fermentation cannot run to completion normally in only 4 days. It just can't happen. That, together with the "spinach" aroma suggests to me that you have cooked the leaf and perhaps subsequently toasted it. A heating tape with a sensor is likely cycling to a much higher temperature close to the leaf than your intended setpoint. While you may or may not be able to successfully ferment leaf with your unusual apparatus, my suggestion would be to build a proper kiln.

Bob

 

[mr1992]

Thanks for your quick reply Bob, that does sound like a logical explanation; I had feared that the sensor may be too far away from the heat source thus resulting in higher temperatures at the heating cable. To alleviate the issue of too much heat and doing strange stuff to my tobacco, where would it make the most sense to measure the heat - inside the roll of tobacco or inside the glass container on the bottom were the cable touches the the jar? Also, would cooking explain that even green leaves turn brown/black? There's no hint of any leftover chlorophyll in the smoke, either, though I've never heard of it being broken down by any means other than slowly drying the leaf. Regrettably, building a proper kiln is out of the question at the moment.

Btw., the notion that cigarette tobacco is fermented may be a difference between American and German growers - around here (and on a now-closed German forum), most people fermented their cigarette tobacco at low temperatures between 6-16 days, depending on the strain used and on the level from which the leaf came. At least that's what I've heard most people do here, I've mostly grown cigar tobacco; don't mean to lecture you.

 

[mr1992]

Update:

I've changed things up a bit and placed the heat sensor inside of the roll of tobacco, causing significantly lower temperatures in the process and not semi-boiling my leaves (I presume temperatures went up to about 60°C and higher/140°F+. I've also reduced the humidity by spraying less water on the tobacco when re-stacking it.
That said, I still don't know how the towel comes in to affect things; it was born out of necessity to maintain humidity since otherwise, I'd really have toasted the leaves; it keeps them compressed and also serves as a means to keep the othermost leaves from drying out too much and still being pliable to restack them; inner leaves remain very moist and "sticky" throughout the entire process. They're now ready to be smoked in about a week, I'll leave a batch in there and see how they turn out after three weeks. I've observed the spinach aroma coming from leaves that a) had a lot of green in it that slowly turned to brown and b) from leave which I've stripped from a not fully dry mid-rib. I presume the incomplete drying process may have factored in. Out of curiosity, I've thrown in a still yellow leaf (a lower leaf, so not much is lost by playing around with it), and it gave of a very pungent spinach aroma compared to the other; the part that was on the outside of the roll had already turned a nice brown though.
I'll still use the high temperature and humidity fermentation to make green tobacco usable, though with this method, even those turn out deep brown and indistinguishable from the rest.

If anyone should copy this and have some insight or just has an idea what the hell is going on here, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Especially the stickiness, which has a rather sweet swell and is a bit reminiscent of tree resin has me a little stunted; no idea what that is. The build-up of salt-like stuff occurs less but is still there.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I ferment all of my tobacco in mason jars. When I want to make Maduro leaf I make the leaf real wet and up the temperature. When I ferment "normal" I make the leaves slightly pliable by spraying a small amount of water and I set my thermostat on 120F. It seems like you are making Maduro leaf with your wet leaves. Try turning down the temp and not adding so much water. I also open my jars at least once a day (usually twice a day) to vent any gases that have formed.

What varieties of tobacco did you ferment? I've noticed that some tobaccos such as Semois are ready in about 7 days while most others take up to 3 weeks to be complete.

 

[mr1992]

Well, I don't mind my leaves turning out black, quite the contrary actually, better than what I've had before (had Java and Pergeu come out crip and looking like Virginia when I first grew tobacco) and I like deep brown/black; but thanks for the heads up, definitely will keep it in mind when I get anywhere near being proficient enough to produce cigar wrappers and want some variety in my colour. Since I've got them wrapped in towels, thereby applying some pressure, I only open and re-pack them every 2-3 days; I leave the lid off now though and only press it against a towel; I hope some gasses are released by this but fear that the towel as well as the wrap will be keeping most of them in.

How do you pack your mason jars and how do you maintain moisture? Do you fill them up to the top, or half, or do you pack your tobacco in a round bundle and press it in?

The varieties I'm growing are Havanna Dark Red, Havanna Corojo, Pereg, and probably Geudertheimer (a friend saw some tobacco plants on a field in the area and brought me a couple seed capsules; it's a commercial field, but from what I know that's the strain they're growing). The seeds are adapted so they're growing in Middle European/German climates, so I don't know whether that entails any changes too different from what you might be growing in the US.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

How do you pack your mason jars and how do you maintain moisture? Do you fill them up to the top, or half, or do you pack your tobacco in a round bundle and press it in?

I use anything from a quart jar to a 1 gallon jar. The bigger the better. I strip the leaves off the stem and just stuff as much tobacco into each jar as possible but not so much that it is difficult to remove. Another method I use (with the wide mouth 1 gallon jars) is to (after removing stems) roll a big "cigar" and stuff the leaves into the jar.

Moisture is maintained because, well... I put a lid on them.

 

[Charly]

I use the exact same method as Jitterbugdude.

 

[mr1992]

Alright, I'm doing the same thing you guys do with the big cigar, just with a towel around it. This makes me think I may be having too big a jar. I'll do some in a smaller one that fills up more and see whether I can keep the moisture better that way!

Do you ever re-pack them with the "cigar roll"? I.e. put the outermost to the inside and the innermost to the outside? On the now-closed German forum and on their website, tabakanbau.de, they advise to re-pack every 2-3 days to get the tobacco to ferment evenly and I presume also to vent some of the gasses that may be building up inside. Most members there followed the advice, wonder whether that's a concept you follow as well.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I don't repack my tobacco but every other day I put the jars back into the kiln upside down. I noticed that the tobacco at the top of the jar is more moist than the tobacco at the bottom (heated moisture rises). Flipping the jars around evens out the moisture distribution, thus making for a more even kilned leaf.

 

[mr1992]

Thanks for your reply, totally forgot to respond; I've now abandoned the approach with the towels in favour of small jars that I fill to the top; I've probably pressed them too much and thereby condensed them, meaning I've applied lots of pressure to fit many leaves; I'll give it a week to see how that turns out and might spread them out more if early results aren't any good. Which might be the case considering that there's likely not much of a path for gasses and stuff to rise to the top and go out when I air them out for a bit, but I guess I'll see.


This approach made me wonder though; given the confined space and the nature of glass (optimally) not letting any flavour in our out, has anyone ever tried fermenting with alcohol? I couldn't find anything on the forum; I'd made an attempt at creating mapacho but used too little alcohol, resulting in an insufficient amount of "tea"/infusion to continue my experiment; I've taken the little that I had, which was further reduced through cooking, and added it as a source of moisture to my rustica. That said, I wonder how, say, whisky or other alcohol would work in imparting its flavour on the tobacco, or whether it would negatively impact any processes occurring while fermenting.

 

[deluxestogie]

I would allow fermentation to run to completion, prior to adding ethanol in any form.

Bob

 

[mr1992]

Thanks, any reason as to why? Other fermentation processes actually do produce alcohol (granted, not tobacco), so what would happen with the tobacco if any were added? You may excuse my perhaps redundant questions, I'm really not very knowledgeable in chemistry or biology.

 

[deluxestogie]

The only thing that beer and wine and whiskey fermentation have in common with tobacco "fermentation" is the word. A fermentation mash to convert sugars into ethanol relies on living micro-organisms to bring about and sustain the chemical process. Tobacco utilizes active enzymes within the dead lamina cells to oxidize proteins and carbohydrates into ammonia (that evaporates) and into compounds that are not objectionable to smoke.

What happens if you add alcohol to the unfermented tobacco? I have no idea. Do let us know what you end up with.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I think it would be better to come up with a base, unflavored tobacco with which you can then try flavoring with alcoholic beverages.

Another reason for not adding it during fermentation is that by displacing water, you reduce the rate of hydrolysis. Oxidizing tobacco enzymes for the most part gather oxygen by breaking water molecules,(hydrolysis), not by pulling it out of the air.

Edit: we haven't really had this hydrolysis discussion in the forum, yet, so take that as my personal opinion.

 

[burge]

Virginia tobacco ferments. Just had to add that. It is what allows the tobacco to gain characteristics in flavour.

 

[mr1992]

Update II:

I've just taken the rustica out of the fermentation box which I'd fermented with some alcohol. Well, not only alcohol, I was trying to create mapacho, but my sources went blind since the forums I took the information from are all down. I took a couple of fresh, big leafs, put them in a small bowl and added some Pitu alcohol, covered it with a plate and let it sit there for about 2 weeks. I then took the broth and the leafs and boiled them at low heat with some more alcohol and water as well as a spoon full of organic honey; the leafs turned black and I regrettably vaporised most of the liquid, leaving me with very little to work with.
I then proceeded to press way too much tobacco in a way too small mason jar, making sure to use as much of the liquid to cover as many leaves as possible, which worked up to two thirds of the jar, the rest of which was then moistened with water. Today, 2 weeks later, I took it out and found that mould had grown on the top layers (including the leafs I'd boiled and pressed onto the very top; the had a bloody lawn growing there); I threw a good portion of those away and kept the lower bits which merely showed crystals but no mould. From the bottom part, I removed two leafs, chopped them up and nuked them in the microwave to get an idea of how it'd taste like. The result? Smashing! It was strong, full of flavour, and burnt well. It was likely way too dry and lost some nicotine whilst being heated up in the microwave, but it still kicked and tasted fantastically. I'm still far from understanding rustica, that plant appears quite elusive to me, but it's still incredible, beyond a doubt.

Now, I don't know how much alcohol was left after boiling it for a couple hours (I think about three), albeit at low heat, nor what at all happened there, but it still turned out great. The temperatures must've been around 52°C/125.6°F at the bottom part; the strain was rustica Texana. I further don't know how rustica actually should taste like, i believe the alcohol imparted some flavour and perhaps protected against the mould growing in the upper layers.

 

[mr1992]

Addition:

I've just tried some leafs from the baccy that didn't get all that much liquid, i.e. from higher up in the jar. The results were...harsh. While the rustica leafs that had cured in the juice/tobacco tea/whatever you wanna call it had a nice flavour, while still strong, the didn't have as much of a tongue bite and throat hit as this one. I.e. the more of it was covered in the juice, or the more thickly it was covered in it, the smoother it was. And had a better flavour as such. So, whatever the stuff did, it definitely helped its quality along greatly; guess some years of ageing are required to take away some of the harshness from the upper leafs.
It may also have to do with how much moisture was still in there, I don't know. I didn't nuke it for quite as long so the shredded baccy wasn't as brittle as when I first tried it. For now, I chalk it up to different fermentation comparing to what happen further down.

 

[Muggs]

The only thing that beer and wine and whiskey fermentation have in common with tobacco "fermentation" is the word. A fermentation mash to convert sugars into ethanol relies on living micro-organisms to bring about and sustain the chemical process. Tobacco utilizes active enzymes within the dead lamina cells to oxidize proteins and carbohydrates into ammonia (that evaporates) and into compounds that are not objectionable to smoke.

What happens if you add alcohol to the unfermented tobacco? I have no idea. Do let us know what you end up with.

Bob

I have read in some of the big tobacco companies that they used Alcohol
On tobacco dont know how much
They spoke about Ethanol.
Ethanol is in Anti Freeze.an a lot of the Chemicals they show using is in anti freeze.any one tried this.guess start using one are two drops at a time,to see how anti freeze effect the tobacco

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I have read in some of the big tobacco companies that they used Alcohol
On tobacco dont know how much
They spoke about Ethanol.
Ethanol is in Anti Freeze.an a lot of the Chemicals they show using is in anti freeze.any one tried this.guess start using one are two drops at a time,to see how anti freeze effect the tobacco

Ethanol is the alcohol we consume. The only reason to use it would be as an antiseptic.