Kilning Burley and DAC

[crasch]

(1/5) I’ve been kilning some Burley and DAC over the last 8 weeks using the same setup that has been very successful in the past with cigar leaf, DAC, and Burley. The goal of this run was to end up with tobacco to be used in pipe blends. I’ve been keeping logs of the process this time and took some photos to share here.

 

[crasch]

(2/5) I started in early January 2026 with 4 lbs of Burley Leaf, 2 lbs of Burley Red Tips, and 2 lbs of Green River One Sucker from BigBonner. The leaf was in great shape, and (maybe because it had been raining in KY) everything arrived in high case. The leaf was very well cured with no green spots and a uniform light to mid brown color. According to Larry, the leaf was about a year and a half old, so I’m assuming it’s from the 2024 harvest.

I removed the midribs from most of the leaves in preparation for kilning, but I kept a few of them whole to take pictures.

Type	Whole leaf weight	Weight after removing midrib
Burley	1,875g	1,290g
Burley Red Tips	956g	640g
GROS	975g	652g

 

[crasch]

(3/5) There are many different kiln designs described on this forum. Here’s my setup: The leaf is brought to high case and placed into tubs with gasketed lids. All the stripped Burley and Red Tips fit into a 19-quart tote. The DAC fit into a small 7-liter box. I added 2 or 3 of the whole leaves for each type into the tubs and kept another 3 outside as a control. The control leaves spent their time in a box in ambient conditions while the rest was in the kiln.

I calibrated and placed SensorPush devices into the tubs to monitor temperature and humidity inside of the tubs during the run. The sensors recorded one data point every minute that I could monitor from my phone.




The tubs are inside of a larger cooler with a set of incandescent light bulbs, a fan, and a temperature controller. The cooler sits on my back porch, fully exposed to the elements. The wiring was routed through the drain hole of the cooler. The tubs with the tobacco are sitting on a grate to one side. I stacked some bricks inside the cooler to the height of the light bulbs to even out the heat of the light bulbs so that one side doesn’t get toasted to a crisp. I think the added mass may also help with temperature hysteresis. The fan is wired to be permanently on while the light bulb cycles as required by the temperature controller.

 

[crasch]

(4/5) I liked the results achieved in the past by giving burley a couple of weeks just below 120RH before cranking up the heat a moisture a few notches for the remainder of the run. Therefore, I started with the temperature set to 118F for a few weeks. I did not add moisture to the leaf at first because it already arrived in the mail in high case and the weather was very humid while I stripped the leaf and prepared the tubs.

I understand that 118F isn’t quite high enough to prevent 100% of vegetative mold growth, but there were no issues. An even distribution of heat and moisture likely helps. In the past I had made the mistake of adding kraft paper as a separator between leaf types, which caused moisture buildup around the paper and mold in that soggy area. There was only leaf in naturally high case in the tubs this time and all turned out well.

The gasket in the lid holds moisture well enough, but not perfectly. Once a week, I opened the cooler, removed the tubs, aired out and inspected the leaf, and misted the leaf with water while restacking if required.

After three weeks, I increased the temperature by a degree or two each week to end up in the 123-125F range.

Below are summarized data from the sensor readings for temperature and relative humidity inside of the two tubs.




The kiln ran for a total of 8 weeks.

 

[crasch]

(5/5) I pulled the leaf today. Everything went very well. No issues.

The leaf darkened substantially during the run. Particularly the DAC turned into a beautiful Maduro and the texture is much more oily and delicate and not as thick and leathery as the unkilned leaf. The Burley has lost its waxy sticky feel.

Pictures of the kilned leaf side by side the control leaf below.

The smell is fantastic. Chocolatey, malty. The smell permeates the entire room as the leaf is sitting here drying down to a more reasonable case for storage. I can’t give pictures of the smell, but it’s so good.

The real test is of course the taste and aroma of the smoke. I’ll wait some time to let things settle down before I sample any of it, and I probably won’t really get into using this leaf until next winter. Given the smell and feel of the results, my expectations are high.

 

[Alpine]

Very useful posts, and beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing.

pier

 

[deluxestogie]

Nice presentation and comparisons. I'll add this thread to our Index of Key Forum Threads.

Bob

 

[WillQuantrill]

(5/5) I pulled the leaf today. Everything went very well. No issues.

The leaf darkened substantially during the run. Particularly the DAC turned into a beautiful Maduro and the texture is much more oily and delicate and not as thick and leathery as the unkilned leaf. The Burley has lost its waxy sticky feel.

Pictures of the kilned leaf side by side the control leaf below.

The smell is fantastic. Chocolatey, malty. The smell permeates the entire room as the leaf is sitting here drying down to a more reasonable case for storage. I can’t give pictures of the smell, but it’s so good.

The real test is of course the taste and aroma of the smoke. I’ll wait some time to let things settle down before I sample any of it, and I probably won’t really get into using this leaf until next winter. Given the smell and feel of the results, my expectations are high.

View attachment 58898
View attachment 58899
View attachment 58900

I will be keeping up with your posts what flavor attributes turn into.

 

[Dottle]

Based on this post, I've followed you. Want to learn more. Thanks for all the work and for sharing the results.

 

[crasch]

It’s been about seven months since this kiln run, and I recently stripped and shredded the kilned leaves and the control leaves for the Burley to give them a taste side-by-side. I’ve now lit a few bowls of each, in random order, all in the same pipe. My experience surprised me.

Burley Leaf:

• Not kilned: It’s Burley. In a really good way. I’m not good at assigning food flavors to tobacco. The aroma is very pleasant and, well, like Burley. Is this what people call “nutty”? There is some harshness and a certain astringency mixed in. A little acetone on the retrohale. But overall, it’s not bad at all. I could see myself using this in a blend.
• Kilned: No more Burley aroma. It’s just spicy. Not the same kind of harshness or astringency as the unkilned version; that’s gone. But it’s pure hot sauce, without much flavor or aroma. Definitely not “nutty”. Burns my nose and tongue. What am I going to do with all this stuff?

Burley Red Tips:

• Not kilned: Strong. Harsh. The raw power makes it hard to pick out anything in terms of flavor or aroma. Rusty paint chips maybe?
• Kilned: Robust, round, strong, but smooth. Cigar-like. Malty. This is great. It made me think of German Schwarzbrot (though it obviously doesn’t really taste like it). If it weren’t so unreasonably high in nicotine, I would happily smoke this straight.

Admittedly, I must have gone into the tasting with a certain expectation. Going through all the effort and time to kiln this leaf must mean that there are significant improvements across the board, and the taste test was going to prove that to me. For the Red Tips, that’s absolutely true. I’m very happy how they turned out. For the Leaf, I’m disappointed. Yes, the harshness and off-flavors are gone, but so is all the pleasant Burley-ness. What’s left is just a spice bomb.

I also didn’t expect there to be such a marked difference between Leaf and Red Tips. They are just different stalk positions from the same harvest. I thought one would just end up a stronger version of the other.

 

[UmbriaFarmer]

It’s been about seven months since this kiln run, and I recently stripped and shredded the kilned leaves and the control leaves for the Burley to give them a taste side-by-side. I’ve now lit a few bowls of each, in random order, all in the same pipe. My experience surprised me.

Burley Leaf:

• Not kilned: It’s Burley. In a really good way. I’m not good at assigning food flavors to tobacco. The aroma is very pleasant and, well, like Burley. Is this what people call “nutty”? There is some harshness and a certain astringency mixed in. A little acetone on the retrohale. But overall, it’s not bad at all. I could see myself using this in a blend.
• Kilned: No more Burley aroma. It’s just spicy. Not the same kind of harshness or astringency as the unkilned version; that’s gone. But it’s pure hot sauce, without much flavor or aroma. Definitely not “nutty”. Burns my nose and tongue. What am I going to do with all this stuff?

Burley Red Tips:

• Not kilned: Strong. Harsh. The raw power makes it hard to pick out anything in terms of flavor or aroma. Rusty paint chips maybe?
• Kilned: Robust, round, strong, but smooth. Cigar-like. Malty. This is great. It made me think of German Schwarzbrot (though it obviously doesn’t really taste like it). If it weren’t so unreasonably high in nicotine, I would happily smoke this straight.

Admittedly, I must have gone into the tasting with a certain expectation. Going through all the effort and time to kiln this leaf must mean that there are significant improvements across the board, and the taste test was going to prove that to me. For the Red Tips, that’s absolutely true. I’m very happy how they turned out. For the Leaf, I’m disappointed. Yes, the harshness and off-flavors are gone, but so is all the pleasant Burley-ness. What’s left is just a spice bomb.

I also didn’t expect there to be such a marked difference between Leaf and Red Tips. They are just different stalk positions from the same harvest. I thought one would just end up a stronger version of the other.

Thanks so much for posting all your findings - although I'm producing cigar leaf, I'm at the stage of taking dozens of hands from the kiln right now, so reading your exploits is very interesting. Forgive my ignorance but what is DAC and also, are you saying that burley leaf and red tip come from the same plant? So they are just different primings? If so, which is harvested first, the leaf or red tip?

 

[StoneCarver]

DAC: dark air cured

somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[deluxestogie]

Since the source of the leaf is @BigBonner, a commercial tobacco grower, the burley leaves are certainly not from the same plant. I would be surprised if the lower leaf and the red tips are even from the same crop year.

Bob

 

[crasch]

Since the source of the leaf is @BigBonner, a commercial tobacco grower, the burley leaves are certainly not from the same plant. I would be surprised if the lower leaf and the red tips are even from the same crop year.

We exchanged a few e-mails when I ordered the tobacco. Larry told me that the 'dark air' on his list was Green River One Sucker. 'aged Burley' and 'Burley Red Tips' from his list were variety HB4488, about a year and a half old. Finally, he noted that the crop got too much rain early that it was too dry later, adding that "this variety usually makes some good darker tobacco but the dry heat during curing keeps it from getting really dark."

Our conversation led me to believe that they are the same crop and I assumed they were just different leaf positions. I know very little about commercial Burley operations.

 

[UmbriaFarmer]

DAC: dark air cured

somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

So I wonder what DAC is called before it gets cured?

 

[UmbriaFarmer]

We exchanged a few e-mails when I ordered the tobacco. Larry told me that the 'dark air' on his list was Green River One Sucker. 'aged Burley' and 'Burley Red Tips' from his list were variety HB4488, about a year and a half old. Finally, he noted that the crop got too much rain early that it was too dry later, adding that "this variety usually makes some good darker tobacco but the dry heat during curing keeps it from getting really dark."

Our conversation led me to believe that they are the same crop and I assumed they were just different leaf positions. I know very little about commercial Burley operations.

I have always found the naming and designations of usa origin tobacco to be very complex!