Rehydrating tobacco

[pipesolitude]

Hi!
What is your recommendations for how to best rehydrate dry tobacco?
My problem is that I don't have distilled water at home. Is this crucial? Is not the steam from boiling water just the same as distilled water (in condensed form)? And if so, what about rehydrating with heat (see the first method in the link below)? Basically, just putting your tobacco in a strainer over boiling water.
https://www.wikihow.com/Rehydrate-Stale-Tobacco

 

[Chasing Embers]

I just fill a pipe, cap it gently with my palm, and blow through it until I feel the heat of my breath rising from the chamber.

 

[pipesolitude]

That's an interesting trick that I will have to try. But I had bad luck storing tobacco with some jars that where not fully airtight, so I have a lot of dry tobacco now that needs rehydrating.

 

[jpmcwjr]

How dry is it? It may be just right.
As to distilled water, completely unnecessary, unless your tap water has an odor.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Blowing through the stem will hydrate the bottom of the bowl more than the top. Blowing down the chamber puts the moisture on top, where it does the most good. As you burn the tobacco, the bottom gets hydrated by the steam from smoking.

 

[rmpeeps]

Over the decades I’ve had a couple of jars dry out due to bad seals, and numerous open tins dry out that I’d forgotten and left on a shelf or in a drawer.

This is probably contrary to many opinions in the group, but it’s worked just fine for me.

I’ll thoroughly clean and microwave a jar, clean a new lid with alcohol, fill the jar fairly loosely with tobacco, and spoon in some hot distilled water.

For an 8oz jar of really dry tobacco I’ll add 1 teaspoon.

Next I toss it in the microwave for about 17 seconds, secure the lid, let it cool and make sure the lid pops down.

Then I put it away for a few months to allow the moisture to equalize throughout the blend.

Open, test, and smoke with confidence.

YMMV

 

[sablebrush52]

That site was pretty interesting. Some very good fix-it ideas and some howlingly stupid ones.
When it comes to rehydration I pretty much stick with tried and true basics: a thoroughly clean Pyrex baking dish or bowl, paper toweling, and distilled water. And I disagree that distilled water isn't necessary. It's just another way to reduce the possibility for encouraging mold.
Spread the tobacco out in the dish, wet paper toweling with distilled water, cover the dish with the wet paper toweling, check back in a few hours and give the tobacco a stir, if it needs more time, give it more time. Jar the tobacco and let the moisture distribute for a few days.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Heh. Distilled water. I believe Greg Pease used to insist on that. Oddly, a couple of days ago I read two different treatises by The Dark Lord, and he's omitted the distilled water bit.
I don't believe mold is in play unless you over hydrate the batch.

 

[pipesolitude]

jpmcwjr: the tobacco crumbles when you touch it, so it is overly dry.
On the topic of distilled water... Would be interesting to hear if anyone actually had any experience with mold. I will store the tobacco for some time, so I don't want to take any risk.
Has any one tried the method of boiling water and just letting the steam rehydrate the tobacco? If you don't have any distilled water I think that seems like a fairly easy thing to do.

 

[sablebrush52]

On the topic of distilled water... Would be interesting to hear if anyone actually had any experience with mold. I will store the tobacco for some time, so I don't want to take any risk.

Cigars, yes. Since I've used distilled water, no further issues.

 

[carlomarx]

I use tap water thats been passed through a ZeroWater filter. No problems with mold.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Still bumbling about with the new format, not bad at all, a few tweaks could be made.

Here is a random photo, unrelated to pipes or anything else discussed here. It's the only one on my desktop at the moment.

 

[peregrinus]

“My problem is that I don't have distilled water at home. Is this crucial? “
Distilled water can be purchased cheaply as bottled water at any supermarket. Just make sure you get the cheaper distilled water and not “spring water” A single bottle of distilled water should rehydrate many pounds of tobacco.
Distilled is generally preferred due to the lack of trace elements that could flavor or alter the tobacco. Depending on where you live even the best tap water has chlorine and probably fluoride. Again, depending on your location, there could be quite a list of trace minerals and some parts of the US also depend on ground or well water which is sometimes referred to as hard water due to the higher mineral content . Also, if you follow the news, you probably have read of chemical and biological pollutants found in a few city water systems.
Ray

 

[mso489]

There are good reasons to rehydrate tobacco, and some reasonable methods and a few horrible ones like apple slices that often lead to abundant mold. Before you go to the trouble, try a bowl of the dry tobacco. Unless you live in severe low humidity, like on the desert, dry tobacco often smokes well, burns nicely and with good flavor. Try that before you go to the trouble.

 

[hauntedmyst]

I agree with using distilled water. I saw a video a long time ago with Craig Tarler of C&D mixing tobacco. He was spraying the tobacco with a casing lightly by hand and mix it on a stainless steel table. Spreading out the dried out tobacco and spraying it lightly with distilled water and mixing it and then putting back seems like a good way to rehydrate it.

 

[pipesolitude]

Thanks for all good advice!