How do You Break Apart Kake

[nutcracker]

I was reading the thread on the October Crawl with GL Pease and came across this paragraph by him.

When ribbon cut tobacco is pressed into a block, and that block is sliced, the rubbed out slices will produce small particles of tobacco due to the fact that most of the ribbons are not likely to find themselves parallel to the blade when the slices are cut. In order to make a real flake, strips of the lamina, that part of the leaf that is not the midrib, are laid out flat in layers to make up the blend, then pressed into blocks. When these slices are rubbed out, the strands will be as long as the piece of the leaf from which they were cut. In fact, this is exactly how ribbon cut tobacco is made, but the blocks of leaf are not subjected to as much pressure, nor are they held for any length of time. These "cheeses" are cut and tumbled until they fall apart into strands. The larger the leaf pieces, and the more carefully they are layered, the longer the ribbons can be. In days of olde, ribbons tended to be longer because leaf was de-stemmed largely by hand. Today, a process called threshing separates the lamina from the rib, but it tends to leave the lamina in smaller pieces which results in shorter ribbons.

I have a sample of H&H Classic Kake which I have begum smoking. There were several large pieces that needed to be broken apart in order to consume. After I had broken up the medium and large pieces, carefully for the most part, I noticed a fair amount of very fine powder. Is this from my lack of experience, or maybe partially related to its manufacture?
When I was breaking it apart, I was flexing against the layers to break apart the larger pieces. For the smaller pieces I would compress in line with the layers to bulge them out and apart.

 

[anarchisthermit]

With CBK, I just crumble a bunch between thumb and first two fingers. Going forward I am usually able to codger scoop and that helps to crumble the next layer down. This helps to keep the fine powdery stuff mixed in as you go, rather than have it all sift to the bottom of the tin.

 

[deathmetal]

I started putting the whole brick in a piece of thin cardboard and rolling it against a hard surface. This strange powdery, flaky tobacco results. This was Night Train as I recall. Quite delicious stuff.

 

[skraps]

I started putting the whole brick in a piece of thin cardboard and rolling it against a hard surface.

Interesting process. I'll have to give that a try.
I tend to slice a cake up, thin, then cube it. I prefer the ease of loading the cubes, it burns slower and longer and you get more intensity in flavor, IMO. Only downside is, it's pain in the arse to cut it up in any quantity. I have debated trying a meat slicer 8O

 

[tarheel1]

If it is a crumble kake I just break it up with my fingers back into the tin. If it is a plug you need to slice across the grain.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Crumble Cake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lLHMZ2-gU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Plug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWb2AmWvMOU&feature=youtube_gdata_player