Cellaring tins vs bulk

[SpookedPiper]

I have been cellaring in the tins and have been wrapping them with biofilm. I am not sure it it's done much as I have only started cellaring over the past several years. My question is would the tobacco age better if the tins were opened and placed in jars or just leave them be?

 

[spartacus]

Bulk and open tins get jarred.
Bags, boxes, and square tins get vacuum sealed.
Round tins are stored as is.

 

[mrenglish]

Spartacus nailed it. I do not have a vacuum sealer so boxes are transferred to ball jars. You can get about eight ounces of flake into a pint size jar.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

There needs to be a way to vote for both. Tins stay in tins and bulk goes into jars.
I'm sorry I just can't find an adequate reason to do anything further to the tins as I have never had one leak, nor rust. And, I have only ever seen a few rare incidents of it ever.

 

[shanez]

Where's the mylar option?

I leave tinned stuff in the tin and put both tins and bulk in mylar bags. Bags go in a plastic tote. Tote goes in closet and gets forgotten about until I'm ready.

I use some plastic baby food storage containers I found on amazon for regular rotation/open stuff. I used to use small mason jars for this but but the plastic containers seem lighter and less breakable which makes them easy to just throw in a bag for a weekend road trips, camping, etc.

 

[luigi]

Wow, a poll! I knew it was possible with this modern forum. ??
Voted for original packaging. If I find a tobacco gone bad I'll cry a bit, reconsider ways to cellar and live on. ?

 

[sablebrush52]

FWIW, one of the foremost evangelists on the benefits of aging, as well as one of the foremost proponents of aging in the tin, as well as being one of the foremost blenders in the field, a fellow by the name of Greg Pease, recently changed his recommendation for long term aging from keeping the tobacco in its tin, to jarring it as soon as possible and then letting it age in the jar. Too many disappointments popping up in his cellar.

The difference in part is that he's an actual long term cellerer, with contents going back decades, while most of us are relatively recent practitioners with few, if any, tins older than, say, 20 years and few tins even 10 to 15 years of age. So if I'm going to be giving suggestions consideration, I'm more inclined to go with someone with actual long term experience.

And I'm ignoring the poll, since it lacks a "both" option, and is therefore useless.

 

[sandollars]

I vacuum seal everything except my bulk which is stored in jars.

 

[SpookedPiper]

Wow..I didn't think about the mylar option! Thanks for the information! I do have some bagged tobacco that I guess has to be sealed in food safe bags? Are those mylar?

Also if tins are BULginG, is it best to open and jar or wait for fire works.. I purchased what I believe was the last tin of eltang mixture from sp.com and it was BULginG when I got it..I believe it's from 2014 and now d/c. I have never tried that tobacco before and kind of want to see if it will burst! Is that bad?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Greg Pease, recently changed his recommendation for long term aging from keeping the tobacco in its tin, to jarring it as soon as possible and then letting it age in the jar. Too many disappointments popping up in his cellar.

If one should suspect that a tin is losing its seal, just try to pry it open. If it pops open easily, then it's lost its seal, if not, it's fine. It's not rocket science.

And, I am not one to follow gurus or lords on matters of my own investments, and frankly, I think Greg would be aghast to know that his name is being thrown down as dogmatically telling us what to do with our cellars. When he comes on and tells me to do this in his own words, I will put more than a grain of sand's stock in name dropping.

Personally, I haven't seen enough evidence that this is a wide spread enough problem, beyond the forum phenomena of a few posts making the problem look larger than it is.

But, if one suspects a leaky tin, it is a simple enough thing to just try to pry it open with bare fingers. It's not that big a deal.

But, Sable may continue telling people what to do, and everyone is welcome to follow. I just want to be the voice of reason in these mad calls for panic. puf

 

[brooklynpiper]

I'm not the smoker for mylar bags - quantities just too big for me, smoking so occasionally, and sometimes difficult with weather and New York City antismoking laws.

While I have too many tins to jar everything up, I'd like to add that what seems to be aging the best are some of the bulk GH&Co. I voice this only because I think for all the worry we have over disturbing the "delicate" microbiome, some of my baggie'd stuff is impressing the most

 

[SpookedPiper]

Ok, I tried fixing the poll to give more options and hopefully it's not messed with by any foreign countries!

 

[kcghost]

I buy tins and store them that way. No problems.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

So Greg Pease was an Authority until time passed and then he changed his mind. Now he's still an authority with a different opinion. Does that sound about right?

I can't see taking tobacco that is aging perfectly in the tin and disrupting that process by removing the tobacco and jarring it. How long can the tobacco have been in the tin before that is a negative? I don't believe anybody knows.

While tins may hold up for an extended time, I can't believe they were designed and built to sustain a vacuum for 10 years plus. While they may very well do so, at least in many cases, that's not what they were designed to do. The easiest and to me, the most sensible thing to do, is to either buy large enough jars to insert the entire tin in (likely not practical if you have hundreds and thousands of tins) or preserve the tins in larger mylar bags. I've chosen the latter approach. While it does make storage less efficient, I'm quite confident now that my losses for 10 year plus storage will be minimal at worst.

 

[logs]

I'm one of the people who prefers to leave it in the tin. Partly because I'm lazy and jars require extra money and work, but also because stacks of tins look cool while jars look really ugly. Nevertheless, I have had the occasional tin fail, even though everything looked fine on the outside.

I've learned if you shake a GLP or C&D tin and if it sounds like maracas, you know something's up (and it's not something good).

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Also, if you can squeeze one of his tins, and it isn't bloated up like a balloon, there is an issue. Every GLP tin I own is like a little tin balloon.

 

[cigrmaster]

I refuse to take out perfectly good tinned tobacco and put it in jars. I have been smoking a lot of aged tobacco recently and every tin has been perfect. I am talking tins from 1997, 2001,2002,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008, 2010,2011,2012. Every bit of tobacco has been perfect. Every seal has been perfect and no tobacco has been dried out. I must be a lucky guy.

 

[mso489]

Jarred bulk that you don't open until you are ready to put the blend in rotation, or unopened tins have worked for me, so far. I've had a disappointment or two, but nothing that has changed my behavior. If I have problems with either approach, I will complain loudly, I'm sure. Keep it simple as possible usually works for me.

 

[sablebrush52]

But, Sable may continue telling people what to do, and everyone is welcome to follow. I just want to be the voice of reason in these mad calls for panic. puf

Oh, bullshit. I'm not telling people what to do. I am relaying information and suggestions based on my experiences and the experiences of others with the hope that it will be helpful. Whether people choose to employ these suggestions or not is up to them. Voice of reason? What are you smoking? Maybe voice of denial.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

We have had this conversation. Early on I took your word that there were massive amounts of tins losing their seals, but after checking into it, I don't believe there is any mass failures of tin seals, except maybe for the years that C&D cranked out faulty tin coatings.

When something goes wrong and someone posts it in the forums it creates a magnifier effect making the "thing" look more significant than it is. It just take three posts to make it look like something is much larger an issue than it is.

I have no idea why or what Greg has said exactly (nor do I care), but I find that years of telling us NOT to open and remove the tobacco from a perfectly good tin, and educating us on two different types of aging, and then an about face..." the sky is falling, move all of your tobaccos" to be humorous, that anyone would take it serious.