Finally put my Whole Leaf and Blending Tobacco to Use.

[AppalachianPipe92]

Finally got off my ass.
I used to experiment with home blending a good bit. Then got lazy and just smoked blends off my shelf. Well recently my wife and kids went out of town for a week so while I was home alone I pulled out some whole leaf and bulk blending tobaccos and made some small batches to try. Really excited to try the blends utilizing TS24 Turkish and CTC Virginia. Those are 2 new blending components for me. As is the whole leaf Perique and Red VA.
Letting these sit for a few weeks before digging into any of em. If they're a hit, I plan on blending on a larger scale and pressing into "pucks". All are VA blends. (1 VaOr, 3 VaPer, 1 VaPerOr, and one VaPerBur)

 

[trudger]

Sounds promising and I bet your room smells great. Nothing better than a man left alone with time to fill.

 

[Ahi Ka]

Awesome. Hey do you use the vacuum sealed bags to help meld the flavours or for mould prevention? Or something else entirely?

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Awesome. Hey do you use the vacuum sealed bags to help meld the flavours or for mould prevention? Or something else entirely?

To meld the flavors, but only for samples. I press into pucks for larger quantities of blends I like. But for small batch samples that I don't wanna wait months on to try, I vacuum seal to speed up the process.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Sounds promising and I bet your room smells great. Nothing better than a man left alone with time to fill.

Luckily I have a couple rooms in my house my wife let's me smoke in. Like myself, she enjoys the smell of a smoking pipe. Im quite lucky

 

[Dr. Van Loafer]

Interesting, I had not considered vacuum sealing to meld the components. I use mason jars and let them sit for 6 or more months. It is torture. How do you turn them into pucks?

 

[mso489]

Some of the best smokes I've had are home mixes. I don't get into pressing or oven-ing, or any organized aging, but I'm always surprised by how good some of my mixes are. You sound more organized than me; I'll bet you make some fine blends.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Some of the best smokes I've had are home mixes. I don't get into pressing or oven-ing, or any organized aging, but I'm always surprised by how good some of my mixes are. You sound more organized than me; I'll bet you make some fine blends.

Well thanks. I am very impressed (surprised) by some of my blends. Not long ago I pressed some bricks with whole leaf that will be sliced into flakes and they look and smell fantastic, but it'll be a while before I try them.
But I agree. Some of my best smokes are ones I blended at home. It makes sense - as I add each component in a quantity that corresponds to my taste. Perique is a great example. I like more perique than alot of blends offer.
I do also enjoy stoving my blends - both home made blends and store bought.

Home blending is a ton of fun and you indeed surprise yourself sometimes. You also learn a helluva lot about individual components. This has helped me to appreciate the nuances of each component more in some of my favorite blends. Nuances that went unnoticed before

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Interesting, I had not considered vacuum sealing to meld the components. I use mason jars and let them sit for 6 or more months. It is torture. How do you turn them into pucks?

There's a number of ways to press them to pucks. Lots of info on the forum. Just look up "pressing tobacco" in the threads or search bar.
Some methods of pressing use a noodle press, some use hydraulic press, some use a hand held press. You can get ribbon cut pressed pretty dense just using a vacuum sealer. Some folks use pvc pipe with C clamps. There's alot of methods - some better than others. Pressing does change the flavor. Its definitely fun to experiment with it. Also good for storage in my opinion. My pressed pucks take up far less space than say ribbon cut or flakes. Hope you enjoy the rabbit hole that is pressing tobacco at home haha