Rustica in Southeast Alaska: @Kushtaka

[deluxestogie]

I am not growing any rustica, so I don't how how that would smell, but I don't think it should be much different

The aroma of color-curing N. tabacum and N. rustica are quite different.

Bob

 

[StoneCarver]

Can color curing be done rapidly in a kiln to reduce the risk of low ambient temps molding the leaf?

I have no experience to say this but I suspect a person could if you could control the heat and humidity in the kiln to keep it at color curing parameters; obviously, you wouldn't want the kiln set for kilning parameters and with a crockpot kiln that might be hard to do. With my kiln, yes I think I could but I don't want to have to do that since it requires fiddling with all the control settings. I had to learn the same lesson you have regarding freshly color cured leaf molding. What I'm going to do next year to avoid molding, since its impossible to avoid molding in my basement, is to bring the leaf upstairs into a dry environment the moment the lamina is color cured. I'm not going to bother waiting for the mid rib of the leaf to color cure or dry.

 

[Kushtaka]

I will be drying leaf as soon as the lamina is colored next year. The majority of the leaf I trashed today had colored lamina before I left on vacation and had started "drying" at 95%rh(raining) and 65-70F. Once the temp dropped to 50-55F there is no stopping the mold. I was waiting for the midrib to color before considering them done. That was fine earlier this summer. The first leaves I harvested hung all summer and the midrib was dried. Unfortunately, I didn't take that hand inside to dry and lost it also. I started splitting the midrib and leaving them hang once the midrib was yellow. I only split a few leaves that way as they came off the plant yellow. Interestingly the split leaves, hanging amid mold covered leaves, had hardly any mold on them. I don't know if that was due to the split midrib or that the lamina had only started drying but it looks promising. The lamina on split leaves that had dried was in a lower case than ones with intact midribs. Having the vasculature of the leaf wide open seems to help it respond to humidity changes more rapidly than just the snapped end and stomata. I think I will be trying to split the midrib before hanging on all the leaves next year. I was concerned that the lamina might dry too quickly to do that this year. I have seen that completely drying just isn't something I need to be concerned with here.

In all I only salvaged leaves that were free of mold. They are drying in a dehydrator now. If I was desperate I could have salvaged some larger pieces of maybe 50% of the trashed leaves. But my goal is chew bits and moldy chew just doesn't sound nice.

I suppose what I am proposing is no different than flue curing. Even though I won't have much leaf to age I am still planning on building a kiln with humidity and temp control. That should give me complete control over the environment the leaf is hanging in to color, dry and age much more rapidly. If I could also make this currently imaginary box cold I would have a multi purpose curing box for meat, cheese and tobacco.