Necessary to de-stem leafs?

Spijkef

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Hi all, i am now a jear a lurker of this forum.
Its a good forum for information, but my question i can't find.

( sorry for my bad englisch, i am from the Netherlands)

For over a jear i buy tobacco whole leafs from Germany. Mostly Virgina and Burley.
The Virgina first class is very easy to remove the stem. 9 kg in 1,5 our. So that is good. But the Burley ( also 9 kg) are smaller leafs and takes more then triple time to de-stem.

Is it nessasery to remove al the stems? Even from the small leaves? How mutch wil the flavour of my cigarette be influenced by to manny stems?
 

Knucklehead

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I quit destemming when I started using hardware cloth to both destem and shred at the same time. I use dry leaves, crunch the lamina from around the stems, then pick out the stems. Works well in cigarettes. If there is moisture in the leaf, you will have to work harder. Once you have a blend, bring the shred back into proper case for rolling.

 

deluxestogie

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Belated welcome to the forum, @Spijkef. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum.

If you use a shredder to shred your tobacco, then you must remove the central vein from each leaf, in order to avoid jamming or damaging your shredder. @Knucklehead's approach, as he point out, does not require that. Stems burn as well as the leaf lamina, and have a similar aroma, but contain a somewhat lower concentration of nicotine.

Bob
 

deluxestogie

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Many commercial cigarette tobacco blends contain a portion of stems that have been "expanded" (rapid, vacuum decompression, like "puffed" breakfast cereals), then flattened and shredded. Aside from lowering the cost, it simply becomes an ingredient in the blend formulation.

Bob
 

loui loui

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Some bits are ok but if I find them before rolling I discard them cause it makes it easier to roll without them.
 

WillQuantrill

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Many commercial cigarette tobacco blends contain a portion of stems that have been "expanded" (rapid, vacuum decompression, like "puffed" breakfast cereals), then flattened and shredded. Aside from lowering the cost, it simply becomes an ingredient in the blend formulation.

Bob
The hot dog of tobacco.
 
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