Trials and tribulations of my first attempt

[leverhead]

For immature leaves, they look pretty good! Even if there's enough Sun to cast a shadow. I'm jealous of tobacco, full Sun doesn't make me look any better.

More leaves will mean more moisture in the same space, things will change slower. More moisture to get rid of will change the height of the shim of your precision venting device. If you don't have to open the lid to check the RH, the smaller changes you make will be less of a roller coaster ride. Now you have to wait for some ripe leaf.

 

[Bex]

. I'm jealous of tobacco, full Sun doesn't make me look any better.

It can often be to my detriment, sadly....I am hoping to be able to practice on the first level of leaves (or something similar) when I get the new thermostat and hygrometer, so that when different conditions prevail - like more leaves - I'm able to handle it rather than running to the forum in the hopes someone will answer my queries (which I appreciate....). My precision venting device - once an empty film canister that has now segued to 1, 2 or 3 pieces of 1/4 inch styrofoam will need to be adapted for conditions 'as they occur'. And yes, opening the lid, trying to squint inside quickly to misread the hygrometer is probably not recommended. The hardest part of all, however, may be having the patience to wait for ripe leaf - the process of curing is kind of fun - the anticipation, the hope of a good product, etc., makes me want to do it again and again.....

Edit: I just see that with this post, I have become a 'senior member' here. What a hoot!! I wonder if you can become a veteran, only by asking 1,000 questions.....

 

[DGBAMA]

Well done Bex.

Sun isnt just good for photos, a day of direct sun will also remove any remaining greenish tint. just handle carefully until they come back into case.

Mine smokes better after it has had a few days rest, out of the chamber.

 

[Bex]

Wow, thanks, that's good to know about the sun removing any greenish tint. I have carefully put the leaves into a plastic bag, and put them away. If' it's sunny tomorrow, I'll put them out. Also good to know that a few day's rest also improves them. Thanks!! I'm hopefully well on my way to actually doing this - I must reiterate, I've been trying to do this for a few years now, really unsuccessfully, with all sorts of techniques as air and sun drying is not really feasible here. That cozy can has opened up a whole new world for me. I'm eternally grateful to the author, and all the rest of you who are giving me really good advice. Pretty darned cool.

 

[Brown Thumb]

I knew you could do it. You ventured into unknown territory by trying to flue cure unripe leaf.
Good Luck on Getting the Rh Squared away. Last year I had a 4 in. hole in my chamber with a plug I would take out to let vent. Worked good for a inspection hole also.
Two Brown Thumbs Up.

 

[Bex]

I knew you could do it. You ventured into unknown territory by trying to flue cure unripe leaf.
Good Luck on Getting the Rh Squared away. Last year I had a 4 in. hole in my chamber with a plug I would take out to let vent. Worked good for a inspection hole also.
Two Brown Thumbs Up.

I spent a lot of time the other day reading your blog from 2013 until now. It gave me great hope, considering what your procedure has become, to see some of the difficulties you had in 2013 (sorry, of course it's not that I don't wish you well!!) I noticed your vent hole for viewing (and taking a photo from it). In a perfect world, I suppose I would love to be able to hang my leaf, turn on my chamber and come back in 5 days - In any event, I'm sure that with better equipment, I'll do better. Actually, as it is, I'm already pretty satisfied - my leaf doesn't taste much different than the stuff I buy, which is incredible. Two thumbs up from Brown Thumb is a good compliment!!

 

[deluxestogie]

Very nice leaf. (But everybody knows that Senior Members are good at flue-curing leaf.)

Bob

 

[Brown Thumb]

I still watch my leaf ever morning before work and have a few beers with it after work and adj. yellowing and wilting times as needed.
Since I work 5 1/2 days a week. It is nice to have it do it automatically.
The down side is sometimes like today it went into leaf drying and I won't be home for another four hrs. To check if it was ready and the rh was not lowered either for leaf drying. That problem should be solved tonight with the new controller.

 

[leverhead]

... I just see that with this post, I have become a 'senior member' here. What a hoot!! ...

Just watch out for the senior moments!

 

[Bex]

I have started another 'practice' run, having received an STC1000 thermostat - somewhat similar to the Ranco, although perhaps not quite as good - but certainly better than my previous one. So, my next question:
Where is the recommended place for the thermostat probe to be??
I also received my new hygrometer, which comes with a thermometer as well. So, just as an experiment, I put the thermostat probe in the middle of the leaves. My usual thermometer probe is about 1 inch above the bowl of the crock pot. The thermometer probe for the hygrometer I have hanging halfway up, in an open space in the freezer. Just to see. And, naturally, they all have different temps!! The probe just above the crock pot is registering 98F. The thermostat probe is dangling among the leaves, about 1/2-3/4 of the way down the length of the leaves, smack in the middle of the freezer - it is sitting at 95F, where I set it. The other probe in the open space is registering about 90F.
With all these different temps, as well as not wanting to be near that 104F, how do you know which area is the best place for the temp reading??

 

[Brown Thumb]

First check to see if the temperature readings are correct.
Fill a glass with Ice then add water to top of ice. Don't float the cubes. Let sit a couple of min. Put sensor in ice water and it should read 32 Degrees.
I have one in the bottom of my chamber and one in the top.
Diff of 5 degrees. Top is cooler. I use the bottom Temp as control.

 

[Bex]

Thanks - I read about the test, but haven't tried it. I guess it does make sense to go by the warmest part of the chamber!

 

[Bex]

Now 24 hours into my 3rd run. I peeked, and the leaves are yellowing nicely. I cannot begin to describe how much better this run is than the last two - the tweaking that I had to do with the original thermostat was really stressful, as you could never really tell what temp it was set at, until the thermometer showed what the stable temp was in the chamber - so I was constantly running up and down, tweaking, checking, etc. A working hygrometer with a probe has made all the difference as well. I pretty much know the basics of the schedule, and as Deluxestogie said, a la Ron Popeil, I just set it and forget it. Excellent.
If everything goes well, then within the next 24-48 hours I will be bumping up the temp for wilting, and watching to see what the humidity does naturally with the higher temp - considering that this will be the first time with somewhat proper - or at least accurate - equipment, this will be a bit of new territory for me. But I've gained a bit of confidence from my last two runs, reading the threads here, and all the feedback I've been getting, so I'm pretty confident that I can handle whatever occurs. I'm looking forward to each run being an improvement on the last, until I can consistently get some good, smokable tobacco.....

 

[DGBAMA]

Thats good news. I will be upgrading my controlls in the off-season too, Digital settings will be nice; I can get along fine without being programmable/automated.

 

[Bex]

Thats good news. I will be upgrading my controlls in the off-season too, Digital settings will be nice; I can get along fine without being programmable/automated.

The difference between having digital and 'analog' settings for the thermostat has been like night and day for me. The STC-1000 that I got is from Elitech - about $15 in the US - the only difficulty - for Americans - being that it reads in celsuis. I am originally from NY, so I'm not too keen on celsius, either, but I pretty much got used to the 'special' temps I would need to know in this process (like 95F, not going over 104F, 120F, etc). Now if someone says to me, gee its 40C out today, I know immediately that it's 104F, without even computing... Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend doing the thermostat digitally!

And now, for something completely different....leaf ripeness. OK, I am getting this. My first two runs consisted of green, unripe leaf. The leaves yellowed at different rates, inconsistently, and it was a difficult process for me to ascertain when to move on, etc. For this run, I took only leaves that were truly beginning to yellow on the plant. What a difference - in 36 hours, there is hardly any green left, the leaves are all pretty much at the same level of color, etc. Far easier!! I know that my 'product' from this run will be low in nicotine, mild, etc., as it was basically the first tier of leaves that I used - not the ones laying on the ground covered in mud - but the ones directly above them. All part of the learning process! I will be able to move on to wilting at 48 hours easily, and I can see how, with properly ripe leaf, whatever tinge of green is left in them will disappear during the process (in the past, much of my greenish tinge stayed there, no matter how long I held at 120F - I'm assuming its just that the leaf really wasn't ready).
My plants are still growing, and so far, no sign of budding. I don't know how long it normally takes for the plant to mature from planting out?? Most have been in the ground (transplanted) since August 4 - so only really about 6 weeks in. I hope that I don't run out of time, and am hoping that the tunnel actually gives me a longer season than I normally would have here - keeping the ground and the air inside the tunnel a bit warmer than outside. I have two plants that I grew outside, that have been out there since the beginning of July. They are flowering (heads bagged), but funnily enough the leaves on them are nowhere near as large as the ones in the tunnel - they are a bit shorter, but nowhere near as wide. And not showing any signs of yellowing, either. Another thing I have noticed is that my plants in the tunnel are different colors. I have one or two that are a fairly pale green - stems, stalk and leaf. Others are a very dark green. And others are in between. All right next to each other. While initially I might have thought that this is a fertilizer issue, as the plants are pretty close together, feeding off the same ground/nutrients, I'm not quite sure of the reason. Has anyone else had similar results??

 

[DGBAMA]

I think you mentioned having two varieties of seed in a previous grow attempt and did not know at the time to cover the seed heads...... Very possible you now have an unstable cross of the two varieties. Or its just conditions and luck. One of my varieties, of 12 plants, the largest and smallest ones were side by side.

 

[Bex]

Yes, I originally bought Burley and Virginia seeds when I first purchased off the internet and planted them side by side. They could very well have cross pollinated - I wasn't too particular about the seeds I was getting, as long as I was getting them! I also had two plants from those original seeds that I brought inside and kept as potted plants on the window for a number of years. I don't know what they were - my intention at the time was to get a few 'generations' down, so that whatever seed I was getting was from plants that had adapted to my 'conditions'. Whether or not that has happened, I don't know. But that is why I posted in another thread, with photos of what I have, to see if anyone could identify what the plants were that I have. I suppose they could be a hodgepodge. I normally smoke a blend of Burley and Virginia when I buy leaf. How cool would it be for my plants to have genetically blended into the actual blend that I like...??? Now THAT would be pretty good!!

 

[DGBAMA]

"Irish BUGS" variety.

B.ex's
U.unknown
G.good
S.tuff

 

[Bex]

"Irish BUGS" variety.

B.ex's
U.unknown
G.good
S.tuff

What a hoot! Funny! Fortunately, at least at the moment, those are the only bugs that have dealt with my tobacco. Actually, strangely, talking about bugs, what I do find is a bunch of little dead flies on the tops of the tobacco leaves. I assume that either the stickiness of them traps them, or else they are suffering from what....nicotine poisoning???

 

[Bex]

This morning, I am venturing into the wilting phase - the raising of the temp (easy), the dropping of the humidity (interesting). The specs were 95F/95%, with the chamber unvented, when I raised the temp this morning, to about 118F. I vented the freezer door slightly. Of course, the temp steadily rises easily. But it appears that the humidity takes longer to change, and lags behind. Perhaps this is why, in a perfect world, this is to be done slowly, to allow the humidity to 'catch up'?? Opening the freezer door (a good excuse to look at what's going on) basically drops the humidity about 3%. The humidity has dropped to about 70% over the course of a couple of hours - of course, the temp is close to 118F already, which then drops slightly when I open the door. This is the first time I have done a run with the ability to accurately see what the humidity is doing - and I am anxious to 'cure' rather than 'cook' my leaves. So, another learning process over the course of this morning - to get to about 55% humidity - and actually be able to stay there, as well. I'm assuming that humidity slightly higher might be better than too low (drying out the leaves). And I do understand that, with the higher temp, the RH will naturally drop - so I am in the process of learning more about how the freezer handles the humidity, what kind of venting is needed, etc. With the temp controller, it is easy to get the temp where you want it. Now, it's the humidity that is part of that learning process!