yesterday my friend gave me a little bit of tobacco smoke, but because of that the pack was opened, tobacco has all dried up. I do not want to upset my friend and say that I am a little unpleased with his generous gesture. I've heard it's not scary and can be corrected. How does it correct?
Moisture Content of Tobacco, Its Restoration
- Thread starter aidampson
- Start date
SmokingPipes.com Updates
Watch for Updates Twice a Week
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
- Status
What I do to re hydrate dry tobacco is this. Put the tobacco in a bowl, wet a paper towel, or washcloth, etc. and place it over the tobacco being careful not to let it touch the tobacco itself, after a while (depends on how dry it is) your tobacco will moisten back up .
This trick works really well, but it should be noted that you should use distilled water for this, not purified water or tap water. Regular water has minerals and other components that can cause discomfort in your mouth when you go to smoke it. I learned this the hard way a long time ago when I first started smoking a pipe.
Pipe Novelist, what am I missing?
When using the bowl and towel approach, towel is wet but not dripping and it is placed in such a way as to not touch the tobacco.
How could any impurities possibly transfer to the tobacco?
When using the bowl and towel approach, towel is wet but not dripping and it is placed in such a way as to not touch the tobacco.
How could any impurities possibly transfer to the tobacco?
You should smoke a bowl as it is to see if you like it that way or not, since most tobacco is much too moist to start with. If you do want to add moisture, what I do is pack a pipe, then cup my hand around the bowl and breathe into the bowl 6-8 times or so, to add moisture to the tobacco on top. Smoking will naturally add some moisture to the rest of the bowl.
Perhaps I can help. The process is like Osmosis, so Pipe Novelist is correct in saying use Distilled water. Any minerals, etc..can transer to the tobacco through Osmosis. It is absorbing the moisture in the water, thus anything in the water as well. This is my belief.
When water evaporates it leaves behind minerals that were in the water. I don't have the background to explain this more elequently, but it seems like we all learned this pre-middle school.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_are_minerals_left_behind_by_evaporation
When a solution evaporates the solids are left behind.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_are_minerals_left_behind_by_evaporation
When a solution evaporates the solids are left behind.
No cigar on that one I think.
Osmosis requires direct contact of the substances involved in one form or another. A solution passes through a permeable membrane as a solution.
In what we are advocating for rehydration here, there is no direct contact between the water and the tobacco.
The water is evaporating from the towel and then condensing back into the tobacco. At the point if evaporation the majority of perceived impurities should remain in the towel.
Or, what spartan said (-;
All of the answers can be found on some website for pipe smokers. I can't remember the name of it. It's billed as the #1 Source for Pipes and Pipe Tobacco Information, I remember that much.
Ooh, ooh, I know! It's PipesMagazine.com!
Yes! And world renowned expert, Gregory L. Pease wrote a professional piece on this topic that we published on September 2, 2012, titled: Dust in the Wind - A Primer on Tobacco Moisture
Ooh, ooh, I know! It's PipesMagazine.com!
Yes! And world renowned expert, Gregory L. Pease wrote a professional piece on this topic that we published on September 2, 2012, titled: Dust in the Wind - A Primer on Tobacco Moisture
Close Kevin, but no cigar. He didn't really address the issue we were discussing.
Mr. Pease said, "Cover the top of the bowl with a damp towel (if your tap water has strong smells, it’s best to use filtered or distilled water), held in place with a plate."
That's the only sentence that came close.
While it is very true that if your tap water or filtered water has a smell to it it's probably not the best idea to be doing the rehydration with it, he did not touch on the issue of solid matter being transfered through water vapors. You absolutely can't go wrong with distilled water, but the argument that tap water should not be used because you will get unwanted minerals in your tobacco is false.
It's really not a tobacco question, but more related to chemistry IMHO.
Mr. Pease said, "Cover the top of the bowl with a damp towel (if your tap water has strong smells, it’s best to use filtered or distilled water), held in place with a plate."
That's the only sentence that came close.
While it is very true that if your tap water or filtered water has a smell to it it's probably not the best idea to be doing the rehydration with it, he did not touch on the issue of solid matter being transfered through water vapors. You absolutely can't go wrong with distilled water, but the argument that tap water should not be used because you will get unwanted minerals in your tobacco is false.
It's really not a tobacco question, but more related to chemistry IMHO.
I can see that my stance sparked some debate. Nice. I am only speaking from personal experience here. I tried to rehydrate some Hearth and Home tobaccos long ago and far away using bottled drinking water, I think it may have been Aquafina. The process itself worked just fine. I smoked two bowls of the rehydrated tobacco and got two very awful sore spots in the corners of my mouth, in the back parts of my gums on the bottom on either side. For about 5 days, smoking a pipe was very unpleasant. It eventually went away. Some time later, I took some other Hearth and Home tobacco and rehydrated it using distilled water, and had no unpleasant experience whatsoever. I chalk it up to the fact that there may have been something in the drinking water that burned too hot when the tobacco was being smoked. Is it a hard fact that the drinking water caused this or is bad for rehydrating tobacco? Not at all. But the evidence seemed more than coincidental to me, so I just chalk it up to superstition. If anyone out there has any experience using tap water to good effect, I would like to know.
Tap water is all I've ever used PN.
Some folks prefer to actually spritz the tobacco to rehydrate. I could see using only distilled water for that type of application.
I s'pose if you've got some really nasty-ass tap water, which granted some municipalities do, distilled may be a good option. I may well be fortunate in that respect as the tap water in my area is fine.
Some folks prefer to actually spritz the tobacco to rehydrate. I could see using only distilled water for that type of application.
I s'pose if you've got some really nasty-ass tap water, which granted some municipalities do, distilled may be a good option. I may well be fortunate in that respect as the tap water in my area is fine.
You sir, are lucky. Where I live, the water is so filthy that I have to filter the stuff before I will even boil it! 8O
I've used tap water rehydrating all the time. Although I use a sponge and place it in airtight jars.
But I'm sticking to my guns Pipe Novelist! :nana:
No solid matter gets transfered if the cloth(spongue, paper towel, droplets of water) does not touch the tobacco. A Humid environment is created with the wet object and only the moisture in the air around the tobacco gets absorbed.
Where's Romeowood when you need him? :crying:
*Edit, ok Pipe Novelist if your tap water is that nasty then I wouldn't use it for anything. Having to filter water BEFORE being able to cook with it? Crazy.*
I don't see how 1 experience qualifies as more than coincidental. It sounds like you may have put too much water back into the tobacco and just had more steam than you realized.
But I'm sticking to my guns Pipe Novelist! :nana:
No solid matter gets transfered if the cloth(spongue, paper towel, droplets of water) does not touch the tobacco. A Humid environment is created with the wet object and only the moisture in the air around the tobacco gets absorbed.
Where's Romeowood when you need him? :crying:
*Edit, ok Pipe Novelist if your tap water is that nasty then I wouldn't use it for anything. Having to filter water BEFORE being able to cook with it? Crazy.*
Had a bit of success with the Pease technique. I came across an old opened tin of Marlin Flake in a moving box at home. It was years old,totally dry, but still in good shape. Many of the remaining slices held together.
After 3-5 hours of treatment,with tap water, it was truly packable and smoked OK.
The perique made its presence known, but I think the VA needed more time, if it would have helped at all.
I think I'll just better care of my tobacco. Glad Press n Seal helps on open tins, too.
After 3-5 hours of treatment,with tap water, it was truly packable and smoked OK.
The perique made its presence known, but I think the VA needed more time, if it would have helped at all.
I think I'll just better care of my tobacco. Glad Press n Seal helps on open tins, too.
@aidampson
See the kind of group we are, we can niggle about over any little thing.
Hope you found some answers here though! (-:
See the kind of group we are, we can niggle about over any little thing.
Hope you found some answers here though! (-:
That was a poor attempt at sarcasm. The tap water here isn't the greatest in the world, and I do filter it before drinking it, but I dont think I would be brave enough to rehydrate my precious baccy with it. In all honesty, it probably wouldnt hurt anything, but I am just picky. :mrgreen:
Pipe Novelist:
The evaporation of water, even at room temperature, actually is a simplified form of distillation. The water vapor that escapes the moist towel and finds its way to the tobacco below will be quite pure. However, there may be, and from your description of your water, there likely are more volatile, smelly chemicals in your tap water that may be getting into your tobacco. Personally, I always use tap water, but the water that flows from our faucets is some of the best water available. (Blessings to our water company!) My rule of thumb is simply this: if yo wouldn't drink it happily, don't use it on your tobacco. If the water is smelly, you can always boil it first, which will drive off the volatiles and give you a cleaner tasting/smelling water, or. Certainly, any dissolved minerals and salts will stay behind, never reaching escape velocity. As an example, if you leave a dish of salt water out to dry, the water will disappear, but the salt will be left behind. If you put a glass plate over a bowl of salt water, and taste the condensate, it'll be pure water. The same thing is true of the minerals in the water; they're not going to find its way into the tobacco unless you apply the water directly, which is one of the reasons I recommended my wet towel method in the first place.
All that notwithstanding, the more probable explanation is that if the tobacco affected you in the way you described, it's far more likely the tobacco itself than the water you used to rehydrate it, and there's just a fundamental disagreement between the tobacco and your own body chemistry. It happens. Since your experiences were with two different tobacco blends, as well as two different water supplies, there's no way to isolate which was the source of your problems. In order to derive any meaningful data, you'd have to repeat the informal experiment in reverse. But, given the unpleasantness of the result, I can certainly understand any reluctance to do so...
It's often tempting to draw conclusions based on incomplete data, but we have to be particularly careful when doing so. This is precisely what the antis do when presenting their "facts" regarding tobacco use.
-glp
The evaporation of water, even at room temperature, actually is a simplified form of distillation. The water vapor that escapes the moist towel and finds its way to the tobacco below will be quite pure. However, there may be, and from your description of your water, there likely are more volatile, smelly chemicals in your tap water that may be getting into your tobacco. Personally, I always use tap water, but the water that flows from our faucets is some of the best water available. (Blessings to our water company!) My rule of thumb is simply this: if yo wouldn't drink it happily, don't use it on your tobacco. If the water is smelly, you can always boil it first, which will drive off the volatiles and give you a cleaner tasting/smelling water, or. Certainly, any dissolved minerals and salts will stay behind, never reaching escape velocity. As an example, if you leave a dish of salt water out to dry, the water will disappear, but the salt will be left behind. If you put a glass plate over a bowl of salt water, and taste the condensate, it'll be pure water. The same thing is true of the minerals in the water; they're not going to find its way into the tobacco unless you apply the water directly, which is one of the reasons I recommended my wet towel method in the first place.
All that notwithstanding, the more probable explanation is that if the tobacco affected you in the way you described, it's far more likely the tobacco itself than the water you used to rehydrate it, and there's just a fundamental disagreement between the tobacco and your own body chemistry. It happens. Since your experiences were with two different tobacco blends, as well as two different water supplies, there's no way to isolate which was the source of your problems. In order to derive any meaningful data, you'd have to repeat the informal experiment in reverse. But, given the unpleasantness of the result, I can certainly understand any reluctance to do so...
It's often tempting to draw conclusions based on incomplete data, but we have to be particularly careful when doing so. This is precisely what the antis do when presenting their "facts" regarding tobacco use.
-glp
- Status