Curing Recommendations for Burley

[Krausen89]

This year is my first year growing tobacco, I have 12 burley plants and they are doing really well! I am starting to think about harvesting and curing. I have done some reading in this forum and saw that it takes quite some time to cure. at first i was planning on priming the plants and keeping them labeled separately. i wanted to fire cure some and then age the rest and roll cigars to ultimately age that way. i dont have any places as of right now for curing or ageing so i will need to find a place. I want to keep it simple and my plan to fire cure might be a little much for me this year. i also read that burley is usually stalk harvested. so would it make sense just to stalk harvest and let wilt under some shaded sun and then cure on the stalk somewhere with the correct humidity?

what do some of you guys recommend a newbie like me do? next year i think i may plant some cigar varieties

 

[deluxestogie]

I would plan to wait until the burley plants show maturity at the upper leaves, then stalk-harvest them. Using loppers seems to be the easiest and safest way to do that. Hang the inverted stalks (I use a diagonal nail driven into the base.) in a shed or in full shade, either location with adequate ventilation. If your 3-day average humidity persists above about 75 to 80, then consider some method of adding supplemental heat to the curing area. Look forward to its being adequately cured by about Thanksgiving. That's a smokable state, but will dramatically benefit from a year or more of aging, as well as kilning.

Bob