Leverhead's Flue Cure experiment

[leverhead]

It had my name written all over it and it jumped into the back of the truck! It's hard to type with this jacket they gave me, the sleeves are too long and they're coming to take me away.



A re-purposed hospital refrigerator, a high temp blower from Granger, a heater core from a $10 hair drier and some water heater vent pipe. It's got about 600 leaves in it, kinda' light load and by damn, it's going like it should! Pictures are, loaded, hour 40, hour 44.



More later

 

[Chicken]

thats does, look very effeciant.

and them leaves look very sexy,

 

[leverhead]

Hey Chicken, it's not as big as your kiln/barn but it should work good as a kiln. I'm baby sitting it tonight to run the temperature up.

 

[deluxestogie]

Now that's looking mighty professional. 600 leaves! Will it accommodate a second layer?

Bob

 

[Tom_in_TN]

You're getting close to the stage of ultimate achivement. Great to have a couple of leaders around here to show us how to cure/kiln our leaf while minimizing the mistakes. Nice job!!!

 

[leverhead]

Now that's looking mighty professional. 600 leaves! Will it accommodate a second layer?

Bob

I'm still learning how to run it, but a second layer should be pretty easily handled. I picked the blower because it's supposed to go more than 200 CFM at .5 inches of water pressure, I think the magnetic strip seals would let the doors open at less than a 1/4 inch. The doors are good and stiff so some good latches are in order. I'm thinking of a racking system that can be hung with leaf outside of the box and then loaded in a rack at a time. That would let me use a case of beer as bait to get some help. I was going to wait until next year to do this but this way I'll be good to go then. I've still got the light load syndrome, everything is tight and the moisture is still vanishing during yellowing, I think it might be the starch conversion process.

 

[leverhead]

You're getting close to the stage of ultimate achivement. Great to have a couple of leaders around here to show us how to cure/kiln our leaf while minimizing the mistakes. Nice job!!!

There's more than a couple! This one is just shiny and more than really needed, it's a Texas thing. Hell you ought to see our BBQ pits, we can BBQ a small heard on one pit. So we can feed our closest friends. They say go big or go home, I'm home so I gotta go big.

 

[leverhead]

Is there a good way to tell the difference between "Barn Rot" and "Scald"? I'm Just dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

 

[deluxestogie]

some good latches are in order

Keep in mind that magnetic latches have prevented many thousands of child deaths since they were mandated. The biggest problem is after latching refrigerators have been finally discarded.

Bob

 

[BarG]

Leverhead.

That looks fantastic. Now would be a good time to allow for some full extension drawer guides for loading and unloading.
That sucker had your name on it alright.

 

[Chicken]

if you watch my video in my grow journal.

you'll see me opening the latch that holds my door shut,

i'd just put 3 of them on there,

im gonna eventually install another one on mine,

 

[leverhead]

Leverhead.

That looks fantastic. Now would be a good time to allow for some full extension drawer guides for loading and unloading.
That sucker had your name on it alright.

Next time you come through, let me know, I'll show it to you.

 

[leverhead]

if you watch my video in my grow journal.

you'll see me opening the latch that holds my door shut,

i'd just put 3 of them on there,

im gonna eventually install another one on mine,

The doors are pretty stiff, one each would do, deluxestogie's point is a good one though. A bar and hangers might be the best solution. It's a future problem that may never happen though, it would take allot of plants to fill it that full. I'm gathering some data you might find useful, heater Watts, Kilowatt/Hrs and volume of moving air. It's not as big as yours, but it's a large enough fraction of it to be useful.

 

[leverhead]

An IMPORTANT update!!!!

In my haste, I've overlooked/under-estimated how much more conductive very moist warm air is! Open heater coils in this environment IS NOT a good idea! Ceramic staging, no mater how dense, will still pick up crud that will form tracks to short! I am going to a SEALED heater cartridge and a heat-sink!

Everything is fine here, no loss other than sleep. It could have been worse! The run is going well otherwise, not quite as pretty as I would hope, but I'm getting closer to my goal. I'm stem-drying now, so pictures on Sunday/ Monday.

If you know of anybody working along these lines, PLEASE send them a message/link! I don't want to be involved in any unhappiness!

Steve

 

[Chicken]

mines heated by a '' heat lamp'' 250 watt ,

the kind they use to keep your fries warm at a restaurant,

with a 4'' fan distributing the heat/ moist air,

 

[leverhead]

The stems dried hard in 36 hours and I'm feeling pretty good about the world. On the way home the cab of my truck was full of trash bags and it smelled great! It too dark now to sort the leaves, but I did get a couple of pictures with the wife's camera of a problem I have.



I'm not really that unhappy with my progress. For all that's written about flue curing, there's allot that's not! I'm down to the last run for the season, I'm taking Saturday off to collect my thoughts and hopefully others.

If I could impose on the collected wisdom here, I have a question for discussion. This picture of my second stringers is representative of my problem.



First some background. I've got a relative ripeness issues, most of my own doing, some not. I'm doing the best I can to sort them out of the lot and maybe the problem is I'm not doing a good enough job of it. The further up-stalk I go the longer yellowing takes, this batch I was yellowing at 93 degrees on the dry bulb and the closest I could get with the wet bulb was 88. By hour 40, yellowing was going very well. I went in to top off the wet bulb container with water and at that time I put some wet "T" shirts in to try to get the humidity up to the recommended 2-3 degrees wet bulb depression. Yellowing seemed to come to a stop! Recommendations for the yellowing temperature vary from 95 to 105 dry bulb, depending on the condition of the leaf. Which way for what condition, I haven't a clue. With the doors open and all done, I have some leaves that are over yellowed on the tips and green butts. I'm assuming that the browning is over yellowed, or it could be a scald from adding moisture so late in the game.

So, finally to my question. Would anybody care to give their opinion as weather the temperature is wrong or that the relative humidity really isn't THAT fussy and I screwed up, worrying about it and adding moisture.

 

[deluxestogie]

I have no experience with using a wet-bulb in the process. My hodge-podge process required 3 full days to yellow at 94ºF, so I just went with it. I kept water in the Crock Pot until I cranked up the temp to 115-120ºF. I noticed the yellowing speed varied not only with stalk position, but with variety, since my batches were mixed.

Bob

 

[leverhead]

Another thing I didn't mention directly is that the middle 1/3 of my patch got ALLOT of water through it with the heavy rain I got.

 

[BarG]

Leverhead, do you think that that yellowing process could be directly related to maturity of the leaf, [upper leafs ].

They are the last to yellow and cure during air drying? If your going for perfection on your first go around I say good luck.
Those bags of flue cured look pretty, save me one. Heh HEh HEh

 

[leverhead]

Leverhead, do you think that that yellowing process could be directly related to maturity of the leaf, [upper leafs ].

Yes, big time! The temperature and ventilation speed it up. I like perfection, I don't really expect it, but I like it....allot! It's all going to be up-stalk so I need to start looking for something to cut it with. There's some with your name on it, I'll give you a bag to put it in if you need it.