Cohiba, Cuba's premiere cigar line is known for "barnyard" notes .. that's hay, earth. leather and manure and it's not unusual to hear people comment on the "cow shit", just how it is.
Yeah, I was a bit taken aback by the response of those few posters. With one post of mine, they were able to condemn my intellectual capabilities, maturity level, social mores, and an implication of a low educational level. I’ve read lots of posts that included “shit”, “turd” etc. I will avoid this language in the future to keep things civil on this forum, but there was most certainly an aroma of condescending elitism to the reactions.
Don't change for other people, especially not online.
No need to apologize. Offense is taken not given. Apparently there are people out there that have such an advanced ability to discern nuances in blends that they can not only pick them out in their own pipe but have the ability to discern how you are experiencing it too
I popped a tin of the '21 last night to refill my jar. The vinegar note is is there for sure, but not overpowering in my opinion, with the smell being more pungent than the taste. I'm no expert, but I believe this comes from the fermentation of the melding tobaccos, not from a topping. Grab a tin and try it if you can find it. Use scissors to cut it against the grain into tiny cubes. I find this trick removes drying requirements allowing for more of the flavour while alleviating a lot of the bite and burning issues that I got with other stuffing techniques.
Never tried anything cube cut. I’ll have to give it a shot. Thanks!
The vinegar, so I've been informed, is a byproduct of fermentation that can develop from the use of acids in the processing, not a topping. If you are turned off by it, the simple fix is to open the tin a week before you start smoking, and air out the contents by removing the lid for a couple of minutes, once a day. That's what I do with a tin of McClelland when I decide to smoke one.
Fermentation is the process of microbes eating sugar, resulting in an acid byproduct, not the other way around. I ferment a lot of food like saurkraut, pickles, kimchi etc., and it would be the same thing with tobacco, albeit a different microbe likely. This is why good natural fermented veggies (lacto-fementation) has a vinegary flavour without adding any vinegar to it.
That's good to know. I read a post, which I will try and find, stating that Mississippi River had additional vinegar added as a preservative or something to that effect.
Actually, there is no real fermentation in tobacco, like we know of in other genres. This is enzymatic. Microbes that develop during the curing stages die away, and the enzymes left behind work on it.
Per Jensen of Mac Barens also told us that they used vinegar directly on ODF as a mold inhibitor. this is why their tins were rusting in earlier releases. I think that some companies have used vinegar, and some have been able to have the tobacco form an acetic acid. The difference is between grandma's pickles where she pours hot vinegar salt and sugar over cucumbers to make pickles, and those that make the original pickles by letting them ferment with a bacterial infection. Grandma's pickles are ok, stringent, but ok. Real pickles made the original way are much better... better being, of course a subjective term. YMMV
Yeah. I don't sense any vinegar on current ODF tins (not to say it's not there). If they use it now, it's well done. Perhaps Mississippi River is one of those "Grandma pickle" blends, haha..
I don't know why I feel so compelled to overshare when vinegar in tobacco comes up. I think I am still recovering from some Sutliff 515-RC-1 PTSD, when I opened a 1lb bag and was hit with the pungent cat piss smell a few years ago.
I’m thankful!I don't know why I feel so compelled to overshare when vinegar in tobacco comes up. I think I am still recovering from some Sutliff 515-RC-1 PTSD, when I opened a 1lb bag and was hit with the pungent cat piss smell a few years ago.
I also went through a phase where I was strategically thinking about and experimenting with my homegrown Virginias to get that McClelland bbq flavor in my own blends. So, I've done a lot of thinking about this.
