Growing Tobacco

[stuart]

Hi pipe smokers,

I have been having a read up on growing tobacco, seems that it is possible with the UK climate. The thing I am a little unsure of is curing it, has anyone experience of this? I was reading your thread @cosmic and seems like you had some success a few years back growing in the US, are you still growing? I am wondering whether the leafs could be cured for a short period and then transferred to a press to continue to ferment if the conditions where not quite right for the curing? Seems it needs heat, humidity, darkness and air flow to cure so it doesn't dry too quick so the starches can convert to sugars, but not go moldy if I got this right? Quite a fine balance to strike. Any info or success stories gratefully received.

Many thanks,

Stuart

 

[karam]

There are quite a few folks here who know their stuff about growing and curing, first who come to mind are @cosmicfolklore @Ahi Ka @F4RM3R @rajangan

I've only done one growth so far, will be posting about it soon enough.

P.S. @cosmicfolklore likes to say "if you can grow tomatoes you can grow tobacco". That's likely true, but having lived in the UK for 12 years I can say with some certainty that you CAN'T grow tomatoes in the UK!! Well, you can grow tomato plants, sure, and they will make something that looks like tomatoes but don't taste of anything

 

[Ahi Ka]

Hi Stuart

definitely check out this forum for tips:

Fair Trade Tobacco - How to grow, cure and process tobacco.

How to grow tobacco, curing tobacco, processing tobacco, RYO tobacco, Cigar tobacco Cigarette tobacco

fairtradetobacco.com

There are quite a few members from UK who share their curing tips. If your environment is not great for curing ( or you don’t want to hang inside) you can always build a small curing chamber or explore other techniques like pile curing. Are able to import whole leaf Unmanufactured tobacco into UK without excise tax?

 

[Ahi Ka]

In regards to your question, I am trying to “age” my leaf in jars - pressed, twists, cut - but I haven’t processed any of the leaf until it has colour cured. My fear would be that by doing so early it would still have that green chlorophyll taste well forever

 

[stuart]

Thank you, that is hugely helpful and encouraging. I'll check out the growers forum for sure. I've got an 8ft x 6f (2.5m x 1.5m roughly) greenhouse and have space in my house and porch to hand the tobacco. Wasn't sure whether this would provide adequate airflow, temperature and humidity for it to cure though? Perhaps enough to do the initial states to dry and loose the chlorophyll. Quite like the idea of pressing into some cake/blocks as an idea at the moment. Good work on the rope, sounds good. Unfortunately not able to import the unprocessed leaf here, have seen others working with this and this was what caught my interest initially.

Haha know what you mean about the tomatoes Karam - the flavour doesn't compare to one which you get abroad in say Italy so good point there. Look forward to reading about how your grow went.

 

[chopper]

Hi pipe smokers,

I have been having a read up on growing tobacco, seems that it is possible with the UK climate. The thing I am a little unsure of is curing it, has anyone experience of this? I was reading your thread @cosmic and seems like you had some success a few years back growing in the US, are you still growing? I am wondering whether the leafs could be cured for a short period and then transferred to a press to continue to ferment if the conditions where not quite right for the curing? Seems it needs heat, humidity, darkness and air flow to cure so it doesn't dry too quick so the starches can convert to sugars, but not go moldy if I got this right? Quite a fine balance to strike. Any info or success stories gratefully received.

Many thanks,

Stuart

I'm a total newbie grower. Growing is easy.
Tobacco starts of very slow so germinate inside under a 100w equivalent lamp to get them to seedling stage which I'd allow six weeks before planting once there's no threat of frost.

Drying and curing is the tricky bit. Lot's of learning to do there.
@Ahi Ka offered a good idea - a curing chamber [Make one from an old fridge]

The leaf needs to be colour cured before you do anything else. Once it dries green it's no good.
There's a big difference between fresh leaf and year old leaf which is much tastier and smoother.
So although I don't know for certain but for the above reason I think you'd end up with a much better smoke if you pressed the leaf after it's been aged for a year.

 

[stuart]

I'm a total newbie grower. Growing is easy.
Tobacco starts of very slow so germinate inside under a 100w equivalent lamp to get them to seedling stage which I'd allow six weeks before planting once there's no threat of frost.

Drying and curing is the tricky bit. Lot's of learning to do there.
@Ahi Ka offered a good idea - a curing chamber [Make one from an old fridge]

The leaf needs to be colour cured before you do anything else. Once it dries green it's no good.
There's a big difference between fresh leaf and year old leaf which is much tastier and smoother.
So although I don't know for certain but for the above reason I think you'd end up with a much better smoke if you pressed the leaf after it's been aged for a year.

Thanks for sharing that's really interesting, glad to hear things are going well with your growing - keep us posted on developments. Sounds like a good idea re the pressed leaf. Would love to have a go at making some plugs, flakes and ropes. Have added it to the to do list!

 

[chopper]

Thanks for sharing that's really interesting, glad to hear things are going well with your growing - keep us posted on developments. Sounds like a good idea re the pressed leaf. Would love to have a go at making some plugs, flakes and ropes. Have added it to the to do list!

This year I've had a bit of a set back with my baccy crop.
My immune system went nuts in response to a Red-back spider bite [a relative of the Black Widow] where my entire inner forearm was really messed up for over 3 months [I'm still bandaging it daily still - ugh]

With my dominant arm out of action I wasn't able to get germination started early so I've just got one Oriental variety started a bit late [they've just popped up] in the hope they'll ripen by the end of Autumn [Southern Hemisphere here]

Tobacco prices are ludicrous here in Nanny State Australia [over $120 for 50g]
Although I've got a reasonable stash it wont last forever so I'm planning ahead.

It takes a bit of patience to grow tobacco.
I've got Burley leaf that's 18mo. It's rather tasty.
It's a bit high in nicotine for my requirements so I'll be turning some of it into Black Cavendish [by steaming] and the rest I'll be using to make Kake with a noodle press.

 

[Lawyer66]

I did some research and apparently they grow tobacco here in Cayman as well. It is for cigars it seems. I would love to try my hand at growing leaf specifically for pipe tobacco. It would be pretty cool to get some opinions as to the taste of tobacco grown and processed here from people around the world.

 

[Cotton1]

I like this thread as I plan to attempt my first crop in 2021. I have my seeds on hand and need to do so much investigation on the "how to".

Best of luck to you OP, maybe we can learn together! As for now I am trying new to me blends almost weekly in hopes of getting a better grasp on the flavors and combinations I prefer as well as discerning which type of leaf and it's curing delivers it.

So much to learn but I am very excited about the project. I get great satisfaction out of growing and harvesting a percentage of our food here on the farm. I am thinking in that manner with the tobacco.

Cotton1

 

[stuart]

I like this thread as I plan to attempt my first crop in 2021. I have my seeds on hand and need to do so much investigation on the "how to".

Best of luck to you OP, maybe we can learn together! As for now I am trying new to me blends almost weekly in hopes of getting a better grasp on the flavors and combinations I prefer as well as discerning which type of leaf and it's curing delivers it.

So much to learn but I am very excited about the project. I get great satisfaction out of growing and harvesting a percentage of our food here on the farm. I am thinking in that manner with the tobacco.

Cotton1

Sounds like this could have some potential Cotton1, keep us posted on your developments.