Recent Pease/C&D tins too dry?

[disinformatique]

I popped open an 8oz tin of GLP Quiet Nights, and the flakes are well balanced and not on the drier side. You can always moisten the tobacco if its too dry for its taste. Craig Tarlar was known to say that C&D Blends were meant to be smoked on the drier side of the leaf.
YMMV

 

[wyfbane]

It looks like two guys responded and agreed with you, that Pease and C&D tobaccos are shipping dry, at least one person suggests that this is a strategy on the part of the manufacturer (unsubstantiated) and a couple folks have suggested ways to moisten your tobacco.

It is a bit substantiated... Here
Again, bulk is different than tins, but Sealed 1 lb bags aren't the same as getting 3 oz from a 5 lb bag that's been open a month, either.
=D

 

[glpease]

Here are my views on the subject. Right here in this very magazine…
Moisture content has been something we've addressed. I am confident this will be more consistent moving forward. If you have tins that arrived too dry, you can use the technique in the article to add a little moisture. If the tobacco is so dry that it's crumbling, please contact either your retailer or C&D.
Craig and I had many spirited discussions about moisture content. His "We don't sell water" approach may have been amusing, but it never sat well with me. My position has always been that I would rather sell 3% more water than 15% more dust. Tobacco that is too dry neither ages properly, nor does it retain its integrity during packaging and shipping.

 

[jkrug]

Well there you have it...right from the man himself. :clap:
That's a great article on moisture content and will help clear up a few questions that have been asked here recently. Thank you. ::

 

[uncleblackie]

Update -
Just opened a tin of Odyssey dated 3/26/15, a tin of Abingdon dated 7/28/15, and a tin of Westminster dated 8/4/15 and they are all perfect.
Thank you to the dudes at Cornell and Diehl. Keep up the good work.

 

[cfreud]

I live on Pease tobaccos and they're just fine out of the can.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I've never met a recent tin—or a baggie from an online supplier— that was too dry. A number too moist to smoke out of the blocks, but it's easy enough to dry down to taste.

 

[maxx]

Last night I opened my tin of their Private Stock, a crumble cake, and it almost falls apart at the slightest tug. It smokes fine, though.

 

[saltedplug]

Greg Pease said:

My position has always been that I would rather sell 3% more water than 15% more dust. Tobacco that is too dry neither ages properly, nor does it retain its integrity during packaging and shipping.

I read again and again that dry tobacco doesn't age well, and I remember Mr. Pease making the comment somewhere that without sufficient water aging is retarded, that water was integral to life processes, or in this case the reverse, fermentation or aging, if we define life as change.
Tobacco dust or the non-smokeable detritus resulting from the impact on the walls of the tin impacts my budget and irritates me, especially given that a little more moisture would have prevented it, Unless a tobacco is so moist it won't burn or so dry that it burns too fast, moisture content doesn't get my attention. Air drying and the bowl/moist cloth techniques are good solutions if it does.
But there always seems to be a following for the "smoke dry tobacco" position, with the common preface that "before smoking I air dried a bowl's worth for two hours, or two days." To each his own.
Just my thoughts on the matter. As with all of my posts, it may not be the case that I in fact know what I believe I do.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

^^^ I totally agree with that, but I also reiterate that I have yet to get a tin of a GLP tobacco that was "bone dry" or too dry to age. That is not to say that there aren't tins that are too dry, especially if GLP himself is having issues with C&D. But, I just have never popped a tin and not gotten what I am used to or have expected. But, I don't smoke all of his blends either.