Bringing tobacco to case inside a kiln

[Brennus_Coe]

I have been air curing dirt leaves to practice a more efficient setup, and am now at the stage to test my newly built kiln with actual tobacco.

The kiln has been able to successfully hold heat and moisture quite well, it takes a few days to drop from 70%rh to 50%, which seems like a reasonable leak rate given that you would have to check on the tobacco, and the kiln was empty and so only had the air to store moisture in.

However, once I have placed my air cured, and crispy dry tobacco in it, I simply cannot get it into case. I used more water when I added them into the kiln, and even misted them with a bit more boiled water since I figured they would need it, the kiln settled at 85%rh, and dropped to 79%ish over the course of about 24h. I was curious how it was doing, pulled the lid off, and they are still entirely crispy dry.

During the dry-runs I noticed it would condensate near the gaskets a bit, something something dew point, but that seemed to imply that my instrumentation was fairly accurate. Since these are 'test' leaves I sprayed them more heavily and put them back in and will see how they are tomorrow night.

Do you guys have any advice on getting these into case easier for aging/fermenting purposes?

 

[deluxestogie]

If your kiln can eventually stabilize at 123°F to 128°F with a relative humidity over about 70% (preferably 70-80%), then just allow the leaf to kiln in there. Totally dry stems will absorb a fair amount of water before the leaf lamina becomes pliable. Determine how often you need to add more water, then just check the leaf at that interval.

Bob

 

[WillQuantrill]

I don't know if this helps at all but when I load leaf into the kiln I spray it down to high case (not dripping). My thought is this: it requires much more moisture to achieve 75% RH at 75*F then 125*F. So, as the leaf is loaded into the kiln it is actually closer to ideal moisture content at 125*F. Initially I started doing this because I noticed it took my humidifier less time to recover to optimal RH from opening the door. If you notice RH crashes when the door is opened, obvious right, but its a very small window to "feel" the leaf at medium case before it really is dry because the temp is 125*F.