Inconsistent sticks

[Yvan the terrible]

A real expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that could possibly be done in a given field.

 

[plantdude]

A real expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that could possibly be done in a given field.

Why should being an expert be terminal? Life may be finite but the variables, well they are endless and variable, even for an expert.
Which brings us back to the original thread of how can an expert or a moron like myself reproduce something worthwhile. When I cook and can sample along the way I have a feel for what I can taste. If I'm cooking raw pork that's not an option, I have to rely on previous experience or the advice of someone that has done it before. Since I'm lucky to find my car keys on most days, not that I've needed them much recently, I find it helpful to make a few notes for things like recipes that I may sleep a few nights between making. Being able to pass on the same knowledge to employees to make a recipe is helpful. Being able to pass on how to make a good cigar is golden

 

[tullius]

All this talk of experts and journeymen, intellectual dead ends, pronouns, terminal terms, and ten bucks to impress your friends is immaterial.

@Jaydub28 asked how others maintain the consistency of their blend from stick to stick.

Here's how I do it with what I have the ability to control:

• buy as many similar lots as possible of good tobaccos from a known good source I trust. For me, this is WLT/ @FmGrowit
• taste a couple half leaves from each lot by rolling a tiny puro
• sort/shake out the lots according to what I'm looking to do
• make sure all leaf has same storage conditions, and time to equalize
• weigh out filler proportionally for each bunch: a pro roller does this without an external scale, to varying degrees of efficacy. I can tell you I've been surprised many times by the external scale when putting leaf on it I thought was the right amount.
• roll ten slots, smoke, adjust
• take notes. keep a record

Crops vary from year to year. Leaf position in a pillon will vary. Their processes will vary. Suppliers may vary. These are things I cannot control or focus less on controlling, in favor of the variables I can control.

 

[Jaydub28]

All this talk of experts and journeymen, intellectual dead ends, pronouns, terminal terms, and ten bucks to impress your friends is immaterial.

@Jaydub28 asked how others maintain the consistency of their blend from stick to stick.

Here's how I do it with what I have the ability to control:

• buy as many similar lots as possible of good tobaccos from a known good source I trust. For me, this is WLT/ @FmGrowit
• taste a couple half leaves from each lot by rolling a tiny puro
• sort/shake out the lots according to what I'm looking to do
• make sure all leaf has same storage conditions, and time to equalize
• weigh out filler proportionally for each bunch: a pro roller does this without an external scale, to varying degrees of efficacy. I can tell you I've been surprised many times by the external scale when putting leaf on it I thought was the right amount.
• roll ten slots, smoke, adjust
• take notes. keep a record

Crops vary from year to year. Leaf position in a pillon will vary. Their processes will vary. Suppliers may vary. These are things I cannot control or focus less on controlling, in favor of the variables I can control.

Thank you for the info. Exactly what I was looking for

 

[webmost]

I would also disagree that being an expert is an intellectual dead end for acquiring a skill. I would really hope it is a higher stage in which more knowledge can be obtained and better questions can be asked.

That defies common sense @plantdude. If consummate skill is a given sum, then the more you know, the less there is to learn, is the math of it. Nor can I grok why "I would really hope" makes a compelling argument. Please explain.

I might wish I were employed at a rolling factory where I would be compelled to roll 500 a day, day after day, just to keep a tin roof over my brood's heads. That might promise some expertise years down the road. OTOH, I am clearly too old to learn to survive on a paltry salary.

I tell you, tho, this rolling is as fun to learn as it is to do, innit?

But, not to appear indifferent to the subject of this thread:

“A few days after he had left the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him that the prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sentence and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post to Ernest, who he already knew played the organ. Ernest was at first in doubt whether it would be right for him to assist at religious services more than he was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure of playing the organ, and the privileges which the post involved, made him see excellent reasons for not riding consistency to death. Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism from which Mr Hawke had aroused him.”
― Samuel Butler , The Way of All Flesh

... a quote almost turbid enough to constitute a modern day corporate mission statement.

Likewise, I suspect that Bob does not roll for consistency. He rolls one he likes and smokes it. Me, I like to roll batches of twenty or thirty, then stash them away, knowing that I can depend on them later. It's super rare that I roll one just to smoke, and not to stash. I dunno, I like the long term stashing part of it. I love to sort and admire with complacency my kilogar, stashed in its big old Coleman fishing cooler. I spect there's something of the chipmunk in me. Perhaps a result of years at sea, where stores were the thing.

OK... nuff foolin around. I gotta go find something useful to do.