Blending Questions: How to make a DFK blend?

[shantyman]

I'm trying my hand at my first DFK blend!

I'm very excited about it. Why? My local B&M has issued a challenge to all their customers: if you come up with a blend, and their master blender likes it, then they will take your recipe and slap your name on it and sell it as one of their official house blends! Heck yeah, man!

Currently, they do not have a DFK blend. So that's my ticket in.

I'm writing to this forum because I want to know the nuts and bolts. I want to know the fine details behind all of these DFK-centric blends.

For example, Mac Baren's HH Old Dark Fired and Peterson's Irish Flake both contain DFK, Burley, and VAs. But what I want to know is the percentages and the portions of these blends components? How much DFK is used? How much Burley? How much VA? What percentages of these components are used in the blend? If I can figure that out, then I can have a pretty good idea of how to create my own blend.

Is it light Burley or dark Burley?

Also, I want to know why most of these DFK-centric blends don't contain Perique or Cigar Leaf. Why not?

My blend looks like this: DFK, Bright & Red VAs, Black Cavendish, and then a toss up between either Dark Burley/Perique/Cigar Leaf only ***OR*** Perique+Cigar Leaf.

Can you help me?

 

[GreenDragon]

There is a wealth of information in the Key Forum Threads and Wiki (links in the banner) that will help you get started. Blending is a lot of fun - enjoy!

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I am a lazy blender who doesn't really keep track of anything.

My concern with using DFK is that if you use too much, it will taste like BBQ sauce. Being a brick and mortar shop, I endorse the idea of using black cav. as most of the people who buy bulk probably expect something sweet.

With this blend development, I would suggest you try, at least, a few different ideas.

My guess is that those blends you mentioned do not use perique because it would increase the cost of the blend. There's already a premium tobacco in the blend with the fire cured.

I would keep the DFK level low. Let it set the stage.
Consider trying a version where you take a blend you created that you like, remove a third of the DFK, and replace it with latakia. Compare. I predict it may be less food like, more complex, and burn better.
Don't forget that you can use oriental tobacco to reduce the VA. Oriental will have less tongue bite than VA, and reduce the amount of burley you need to balance the blend.

Have fun