Bone Dry Tobacco

[sardonicus87]

24 years old and still good?

I've avoided stockpiling my menthols because I figured they wouldn't hold up more than a year or two.

Maybe I'll reconsider...

You ain't bullshitin us are you?

I know pipe tobacco holds up, but I figured cigarettes wouldn't.

Send me a pack and let me inspect 'em.

I can say if you stock up on menthol cigarettes, store them in the freezer, they'll keep a lot longer.

I've never had a pack of menthols that were unopened and had any number of years on them, but once I had a pack that was a few months old opened and they were stale as shit. Longest I ever had a pack of menthols in the freezer was a month (unopened) and they were fine.

 

[BingBong]

I found 3 packs of Marlboro Green (Menthol) in the back of my "cellar" recently; they were banned in 2020 under inherited EU regs, so.... all tightly sealed in their cellophane, I'll give 'em a wang ere long.

 

[Epip Oc'Cabot]

Just finished a bowl of bone dry sixpence. Not only dry but also quite a bit of dust. It was an amazing smoke. I was going to dump it because I thought maybe it was bad, but turned out to be perfect.

This tin, if I remember correctly, had something like 7-8 years on it.

It had no bite, and burned to the bottom with a wonderful white ash.

I’m wondering if this is just the way this tobacco smokes, or if there are others who prefer all their tobacco completely dry? I guess I always assumed you needed some moisture for flavor…

I always have liked completely dry pipe tobacco the best, myself. It has always seemed much more of a less “fussy” smoking experience.... less thought is required, less adjusting of cadence. To me, it provides the greatest ease and relaxation with pipe tobacco.

I tried that approach with a cigar one time, but in my (admittedly) limited cigar sampling, the appropriately humidified cigar is the far more enjoyable…. dryness does not work IMO for cigars.

 

[Cigar City Piper]

Just finished a bowl of bone dry sixpence. Not only dry but also quite a bit of dust. It was an amazing smoke. I was going to dump it because I thought maybe it was bad, but turned out to be perfect.

This tin, if I remember correctly, had something like 7-8 years on it.

It had no bite, and burned to the bottom with a wonderful white ash.

I’m wondering if this is just the way this tobacco smokes, or if there are others who prefer all their tobacco completely dry? I guess I always assumed you needed some moisture for flavor…

This confuses me, I used to be driven downright crazy modifying the moisture level of my blends. A blend seemed too wet I'd dry it then too dry I'd re hydrate and on and on it would go. I am on the fence if this is important enough for me to try again but I just might. I personally pretty much smoke everything the way its presented by the manufacturer these days. I do dry things if I think they are crazy wet but no extremes. The few times I tried to smoke crispy dry tobacco I did not find it a good time, it burned fast and harsh and didn't taste like something I guess I was used to. Gawith Hoggarth ropes and flakes are pretty wet and I don't dry them much if at all. they don't bite and taste great and never have I had the problem of keeping that stuff lit. Again Im not knocking what others love to do but i'm just trying to wrap my head around it because for me it just isn't so. I guess Ill try it again with other stuff.

 

[Brad H]

I rehydrated some Ennerdale I neglected for over a year. Did very decent. Wet paper towel in a container. Had a barrier so it wouldn’t touch the tobacco. A few days of it and boom good.
Also reconditioned a few blends in tins. Used a few of those cheap pocket moistures.

 

[coming to_falling too]

I had a bag of Brown Flake Aromatic just sitting out for probably over a year. When I found the bag the tobacco was quite crispy to the touch, but when I rubbed a flake out it still retained just enough moisture to be perfect to smoke. Into a jar it went and it's really quite good.

The thing that surprises me most is that the scents are still very noticable.

 

[sardonicus87]

Thing is, you have to smoke dry tobacco differently than you do wet tobacco. If you try to smoke either one the same as the other, it'll taste bad.

I'm not convinced drying is magic, nor am I convinced that however it was tinned is magic. Plenty smoke their tobacco fresh from tin and wet and swear by that giving them better flavor, others swear the other way.

Me, I haven't noticed a difference when a blend is wet and fresh or forgotten and dry... unless I tried to smoke a dry one like it was wet or a wet one like ot was dry, and I think that's the problem... people get in a habit of smoking a certain way because they always smoke their blends wet or dry, so when they try to smoke one that's opposed to how they normally do, they have a bad time, and it's because they're not adjusting to it.

That's my opinion on the matter.

Drier tobacco will light and burn easier than wetter tobacco (you have to be more gentle when it's dry, lighter pull but pull longer... wet is the opposite pull harder but don't pull long), but otherwise, I don't notice a difference.

 

[BayouGhost]

I discovered this about two years in by leaving a pouch of St. Bruno in my fishing bag for about a year. It had dried to a crinkling consistency. While I always thought it to be a good smoke, the dried-out version was most excellent. I now find myself drying out bowls of blends overnight to a consistency that will barely adhere to itself and form a ball that bounces open with spider like quickness when dropped from a few inches. I never have any issues with bite and relights are minimal. Flavor is always improved as you are not smoking steam, and any overly applied top notes have evaporated to tolerable levels letting the real leaf dominate. Note that to make this really work, you have to have patience and smoke slowly and not freight train the pipe, or it will seem ashy and harsh. If you can do this, the experience is excellent.

 

[Cigar City Piper]

I discovered this about two years in by leaving a pouch of St. Bruno in my fishing bag for about a year. It had dried to a crinkling consistency. While I always thought it to be a good smoke, the dried-out version was most excellent. I now find myself drying out bowls of blends overnight to a consistency that will barely adhere to itself and form a ball that bounces open with spider like quickness when dropped from a few inches. I never have any issues with bite and relights are minimal. Flavor is always improved as you are not smoking steam, and any overly applied top notes have evaporated to tolerable levels letting the real leaf dominate. Note that to make this really work, you have to have patience and smoke slowly and not freight train the pipe, or it will seem ashy and harsh. If you can do this, the experience is excellent.

I will give it another shot with some dried out Stokebbye Evening flake I forgot about in a bag somewhere. I will let you all know how that worked.

 

[BingBong]

Smoked some "last flake in the tin" Aged Burley Flake this morning, it had dried out. Nah. A shadow of its former self.

 

[Cigar City Piper]

Smoked some "last flake in the tin" Aged Burley Flake this morning, it had dried out. Nah. A shadow of its former self.

You see this is why this is blowing my mind.

 

[starrynight]

This confuses me, I used to be driven downright crazy modifying the moisture level of my blends. A blend seemed too wet I'd dry it then too dry I'd re hydrate and on and on it would go. I am on the fence if this is important enough for me to try again but I just might. I personally pretty much smoke everything the way its presented by the manufacturer these days. I do dry things if I think they are crazy wet but no extremes. The few times I tried to smoke crispy dry tobacco I did not find it a good time, it burned fast and harsh and didn't taste like something I guess I was used to. Gawith Hoggarth ropes and flakes are pretty wet and I don't dry them much if at all. they don't bite and taste great and never have I had the problem of keeping that stuff lit. Again Im not knocking what others love to do but i'm just trying to wrap my head around it because for me it just isn't so. I guess Ill try it again with other stuff.

We’ll, I have a suspicion part of this is my packing technique, or lack thereof.

I was basically just packing way way too much into the bowl.

Really interesting. I came here to ask how long a tobacco would last in a mason jar if I keep dipping into it (not aging it). Seems like quite a bit longer than I imagined if dry to crispy is working well for many of you. I don't smoke aromatics, so I can conceivably have more blends opened and jarred than I currently allow myself.

the last couple tins I smoked, I think Peterson Deluxe navy rolls, and one of the birds of a feather tins, I just left in the tin then stored near my desk. Before that, everything went straight to jar.

I think depending on where you live and depending on the blend 3+ months in the tin is fine!

 

[starrynight]

Smoked some "last flake in the tin" Aged Burley Flake this morning, it had dried out. Nah. A shadow of its former self.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Briar Lee]

Just finished a bowl of bone dry sixpence. Not only dry but also quite a bit of dust. It was an amazing smoke. I was going to dump it because I thought maybe it was bad, but turned out to be perfect.

This tin, if I remember correctly, had something like 7-8 years on it.

It had no bite, and burned to the bottom with a wonderful white ash.

I’m wondering if this is just the way this tobacco smokes, or if there are others who prefer all their tobacco completely dry? I guess I always assumed you needed some moisture for flavor…

Since my wife quit smoking and I have to have short smokes, I’ve stuffed several pounds of Buoy Gold into cigarette tubes.

I’m not as close as my old Grandpa who would dry out his tobacco cuspidors (old coffee cans) in the sun and smoke the spent chaws, but I can’t stand to see good tobacco go to waste.

I stuff up about two and a half cartons of tubes using a pound of Buoy Gold, and then put the cigs in cases, and a little falls out, which I save, and in two weeks when I’m about to stuff another pound I have about an ounce or so of pure, ground, dried, “shake” that’s a sort of powder that I’ve dumped in the empty bag.

Fresh Capstan and Virginia Slices can’t compare. It’s beyond delicious when smoked in a pipe.

I know now why, the first pipe tobaccos came dry and ground up in cotton muslin sacks.

 

[BooksBassBriars]

We’ll, I have a suspicion part of this is my packing technique, or lack thereof.

I was basically just packing way way too much into the bowl.

the last couple tins I smoked, I think Peterson Deluxe navy rolls, and one of the birds of a feather tins, I just left in the tin then stored near my desk. Before that, everything went straight to jar.

I think depending on where you live and depending on the blend 3+ months in the tin is fine!

Good data. Thanks!

 

[Choatecav]

I’m not as close as my old Grandpa who would dry out his tobacco cuspidors (old coffee cans) in the sun and smoke the spent chaws, but I can’t stand to see good tobacco go to waste.

I had to back up and read this a couple of times to really absorb it. I hate to see waste myself, but don't think I could smoke a dried out spent chaw.......... But that's just me.

 

[Briar Lee]

I had to back up and read this a couple of times to really absorb it. I hate to see waste myself, but don't think I could smoke a dried out spent chaw.......... But that's just me.

More Grandpa facts:

His wife and two daughters and daughter in law all looked like movie stars and dressed in the latest styles. They just adored him and worshipped the air he breathed and ground he walked on.

He graduated college in 1901, went out West and earned enough money in three years he bought 2,000 acres of prince bottomland and never afterwards broke a sweat for the next nearly 70 years.

We have photos of him waking all around his yard on his hands on his fiftieth wedding anniversary to his second wife (my grandmother 17 years younger) in 1969.

He’d set those coffee cans out in the sun, and when dried crumble them up, and smoke them in a pipe.


Of the four hillbilly characters in the Beverly Hillbilles, Buddy Epsen was the closest to the real life Pa of the Ma and Pa series that my Grandmother wrote that inspired the show.

All he did was smoke, chew, dip, and snort tobacco from waking until he slept, and hunt, fish, sing, dance and tell stories.

The only way he didn’t take tobacco was using a needle.

 

[Brad H]

I did smoke some bone dry marlin flake this week. It was a pain to crumble and stuff into a bowl, but smoked just fine. Had to smoke it slower as it needed no relights. But was still pretty good smoke.
Didn’t feel like relighting it when I had a few unopened tins and there was very little left in the tin.

 

[NookersTheCat]

Everybody always cusses the weather, wherever they are, but Warsaw Missouri is the center of all black walnut gun stocks and Lebanon Missouri is where your oak stave bolts were made for your last bottle of bourbon. We also make most of the country hams in the world, or at least the best ones.

Southwest Missouri gets hot, but not for long, it gets cold here, but also not for long, Southwest Missouri has on a year round average very temperate climate and stable humidity,,,,averaged out.

The Ozarks has it’s own growing zone in the seed catalogs,

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You guys definitely have a great microclimate as far as that's concerned. I'm in the Northeast part of PA (to the west of the beginning part of northern Appalachia) in a valley. Up here we have the benefit in that our hotter summers AND colder winters give us a pretty great growing climate as far as diversity (I'm a gardner as well haha, we can grow 95% of things that aren't tropical) but it's also hell for humidity swings.

That's why my strategy has to be seal everything as tightly as possible and minimize temperature swings. Then when you take it out you can decide how much to dehydrate it from there if necessary.

 

[BingBong]

I had to back up and read this a couple of times to really absorb it. I hate to see waste myself, but don't think I could smoke a dried out spent chaw.......... But that's just me.

This is exactly what I've been doing with the GH sweet black cherry twist. Save it, dry it overnight, smoke it in the morning. It's fine.

It's my first experience of tobacco as chew, thought I'd better go through the whole process. The old timers weren't stinting themselves by doing it, I find.