Snus aging: compressed or not? Recipe included.

[highgrave]

Hi gang,

I give thanks to the the wisdom of posters here, I'm shouting out to you: squeezyjohn, jojjas, POGreen, Nic, loui loui, and wruk53! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

I have whipped up a couple batches of snus, made from WLT's Burley, and it is dynamite! I have never tried snus before this, but I am really enjoying it. I have had a life long affection for salty licorice, so snus flavoured with a bit of licorice, anise and ammonium chloride is right up my alley.

Here is the recipe I used for the second batch:

Mix in KitchenAid:
200g Burly flour, made from leaf with about half (the biggest ones) mid ribs removed
20G Kosher salt
250mL boiled well water

Held at 90C for 24 hours in my toaster oven.

Mixed again in KitchedAid:
20g Sodium Carbonate, mixed with 150mL boiled well water. Did that outside! Lots of ammonia released.
Then I mixed in:
6g licorice powder
5g Ammonuim Chloride
1tsp anice extract
10g Gum Arabic, for texture
Held at 90C for another 12 hours.

Now ageing for three weeks in fridge in a Mason jar with the lid on loose.

I have been enjoying daily since I made it, and actually really like the ammonia character. I mean, I even added ammonium chloride! The ammonia is mellowing though. Definitly packs a nicotine kick.

During this storage phase (I will portion, vacuum seal and freeze later) should the snus be compressed tightly into the container, or fluffed up, as it came out of my Kitchenaid? Wondering if compression would affect the rate of off-gassing, or otherwise affect maturation.

 

[wruk53]

During this storage phase (I will portion, vacuum seal and freeze later) should the snus be compressed tightly into the container, or fluffed up, as it came out of my Kitchenaid? Wondering if compression would affect the rate of off-gassing, or otherwise affect maturation.

I've done it both ways and can't tell any difference. I prefer to pack it tightly simply because the more you knead and compress, the easier it is to form a portion, it makes it sticky.

 

[highgrave]

Perfect. Thanks for this information wruk53! I think I will keep it fluffed up for now as I expect it will be easier to extract from the jar when I go to portion it up. I used straight lamina in my first batch and incorporated more stem into the second; I definitly noticed the stem material gave the snus a bit more stickiness and structure, and I found that was further enhanced with the addition of Gum Arabic. I will try kneading it a bit more when I transfer into vacuum seal bags to see what that does to the texture. If I manage to do a decent job curing this dark air I'm growing, I plan to follow your lead in trying my hand at One Sucker and Little Yellow snus. Thanks again for the inspiration.