Could One Sprinkle Brown Sugar Into Tobacco?

[jmatt]

There's two recent tongue-in-check (I hope) threads about putting odd stuff into tobacco. But that got me thinking, what would happen if you added your own sugar crystals to any existing pipe blend? I'm not talking tons, but what about a trace amount of brown sugar mixed into a bowl of tobacco? Would smoking/burning brown sugar be bad for you? Taste bad? Smell bad? Or would the sweetness and flavor carry into the bowl?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

You could ld, but I wouldnt advise it. Have ypu ever smelled burning sugar? Just adding some sugar to the bowl is not exactly the same as having it soaked into the tobacco. YMMV

 

[jmatt]

Cosmic - I agree. But then we have conversations and even close-up pictures of "sugar crystals" on the surface of aged tobacco......

 

[mcitinner1]

By all means try it out and less us know how it tastes.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

In my own estimation of what people are calling sugar crystals, they are not sweet to the tongue like sugar. I believe that I read somewhere, maybe a Greg Pease blog, that they are minerals rising from the tobacco in the same way that crystals do from rocks.

 

[jitterbugdude]

Try it but it probably would not do what you are looking for. I recently did something similar. I had a strong Burley that I wanted to lower the nicotine level on. I decided to add sugar, dissolved in water. This would lower the pH as the leaf burns thus lowering the bio-availability of the nicotine. I added 2%, 5% and 10% white sugar dissolved in water and added it to the Burley. I also did this using brown sugar. The white sugar did not improve the flavor of the leaf but it did lower the nicotine. The brown sugar just tasted plain terrible. I kept the white sugar Burley but threw away the brown sugar stuff.

 

[jmatt]

Thanks jitterbugdude! I won't be doing any experiments myself. Thanks for the info.

 

[kimbiker]

Try Samuel Gawiths brown sugar flake seems the way to go.

 

[stvalentine]

I used a white sugar/water/booze solution as a bonding agent when pressing my own plug.

 

[leacha]

I used to coat new pipes with a thin layer of honey. No adverse tastes. So actually having a small amount in the baccy may give a caramel taste. The only way to know, is to do it. You will not break anything.

 

[papipeguy]

There are natural occurring sugars in tobacco leaf. These are not sucrose but one of the subsets of sugars, more than likely glucose. That being said, as others have pointed out, adding raw sugar would just produce the acrid burnt sugar smell from caramelization of the crystals.

 

[clickklick]

Do it once and let us know. I say once, because you'll never do it a second time LOL!
Also, as has been alluded to. The crystals on aged tobacco are not sugar. Taste them once, are they sweet?
Could be part minerals could be part natural oil byproduct, could be anaerobic and aerobic excrement.

 

[jmill208]

Forge on.

Who knows, you may invent Type 3 Diabetes.

 

[derfargin]

Yeah, might improve the taste, but only if you plan on eating it. Big emphasis on "might"

 

[deathmetal]

I had a strong Burley that I wanted to lower the nicotine level on.

If that's a high-powered Burley I haven't heard of, you'll be so good as to give me a heads-up?

 

[mso489]

Two thoughts, a concentration of sugar that melts might gunk up a pipe. A little honey in a new pipe, or sugar used in blending tobacco introduce very low quantities. Second, as any home candy maker will tell you, nothing short of napalm burns like hot sugar. Since pipes can emit a few live embers from time to time, you really don't want combusting sugar lighting up your lap, so care might be taken.

 

[jpmcwjr]

A point of info: I once wet the chamber of a new pipe that had a coating that wouldn't wash off. Then filled it with white sugar, dumped it out, and let the coating dry. Scraped out the excess in the bottom. Broke it in that way, never tasted the coating, and the pipe came out fine. No taste of burnt sugar while smoking, either.

 

[jitterbugdude]

Who knows, you may invent Type 3 Diabetes.

It already exists, it's called Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Although not common yet it is being used more and more by the medical community. One of the things about AD is that the brain's neurons become insensitive to glucose. Much research is being conducted with this in mind.

If that's a high-powered Burley I haven't heard of, you'll be so good as to give me a heads-up

DeathMeatal, This was something I grew called Yellow Twist Bud. It is a very old heirloom variety and is supposed to be one of the most mildest Burley's out there. I had just fertilized my garden when I grew this, adding among other things some Nitrogen (based on a soil test). Adding Nitrogen will increase the Nicotine level of tobacco. I keep a lot of records so now I know what level of Nitrogen I do NOT want.

Two thoughts, a concentration of sugar that melts might gunk up a pipe.

Cigarette tobacco has 3-6% invert sugar added to it, that's why I used the percentages I did. I know most pipe tobacco also has sugar added to it ( but do not know how much) so I stuck with the cigarette % as a reference.

 

[cigrmaster]

I think you should mix Welch's grape jelly in your tobacco. See how that tastes.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Kool Aid