MOLD in Jarred Oak Alley??

[cwpiperman]

Hi,
I just opened one of my 8oz mason jars to smoke some C&D Oak Alley(as an aside, I started feeling some serious tounge bite from Solani Aged Burley Flake, and I wanted to see if a Burley blend treated me better...looks like I may have a thing with burleys...but i digress). I had purchased it in an 8oz can from SPC. As I went to extract the crumble cake from the jar, I noted an eliptical white patch on the side of one of the cakes. Closer examination revealed a cottony appearance, white to off white in color, which when touched with a finger flattened like a mold colony would. I've never seen tobacco mold, so I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but I've seen a GREAT deal of mold, of all shades, on other things, and I can't think of anything else this could be. It wasn't crystalline or solid in appearance. Here's a shot of it after I pitched the one cake and retrieved it, so it is a bit flattened (not as much a cotton ball as a cotton patch). The 8oz can was packaged 6/19/18:

What do you think? My inclination is to pitch the lot, as I saw some smaller but similar "colonies" on my other 2 jars from the same can (2 cakes in each). On the other hand, might not be mold? What say you experts? (I did pitch that cake, to avoid any possible cross contamination, and am sterilizing the jar).
Thanks Loads,
CW

 

[sasquatch]

Obviously mold, yes. Very localized, very dense. That ain't sugar crystals.

 

[woodsroad]

Looks like mold to me. Pitch it.

 

[cwpiperman]

Pitchingggggggggg............Pitched. And the jars are going thru the sanitizer.
Now. Is there any way this could have been avoided? The tins were decanted into brand new canning jars from a freshly opened 12 pack.
So far as I can see, none of my other jars appear to contain moldy toby.
CW

 

[sasquatch]

Honestly? Strikes me that I have seen about 2 pictures of moldy tobacco from anyone other than C/D in ten years in this hobby. So I'm prepared to say that this is at least as likely a product thing as a handling thing (eg it's them not you). Watch the other jars closely, keep them cool and dark.

 

[cwpiperman]

All other jars of other blends look fine. All Oak Alley has been purged.
Thanks for the advice. Jars are kept in the dark in a room that is, in general, approximately 75-80deg (best we can do)in summer, and cooler in Winter. Once we get our basement back (tenents), all of my cellared tobacco goes there. Cool, Dry, Dark.
CW

 

[highwaycobbery]

C&D has been notorious for mold problems in the past. They were supposed to have fixed the issue, If it was from smokingpipes.com you shouldn’t have pitched it. Email them and they are very good about replacing items, especially moldy C&D

 

[cwpiperman]

If it was from smokingpipes.com you shouldn’t have pitched it. Email them and they are very good about replacing items, especially moldy C&D

I did contact SPC (via Chat on a SUNDAY)after I pitched 2oz and 8oz tins worth of the blend, and Nick IMMEDIATELY offered me an account credit or refund: my choice. I chose the credit. I continue to receive nothing but exemplary service from SPC.
CW

 

[prairiedruid]

SPC is a stand up company. Mold issues happen, had a jar of Dunhill Elizabethan develop mold. The internet sometimes amplifies an issue beyond its true impact. C&D had some issues; they took care of their customers and made things right. But when you consider how many tins of tobacco are made each year it is surprising mold issues aren't more common than a 100 tins or so a year. Organic materials are exposed to mold spores just with a breeze blowing by.

 

[sasquatch]

I guess that's why I am so disgruntled and unforgiving about C/D - you're right, prairiedruid, the internet can amplify things, but your other statement is also an indictment - "how many tins of tobacco are made each year" - a lot. A lot lot. And the brand that keeps coming up, year after year, is C/D with mold issues. I got a funky tin of 3 nuns a few years ago... smelled like socks. It was bad. Really gross actually. New tin totally different. That's my one and only off tin in 20 years of doing this. It's.... not a thing... really. Except with C/D. Ten years back, as I started to build a cellar, I made the decision not to cellar any C/D product, because I am in Canada, and I can't just "get a new tin" if one is bad. costs me 50 bucks maybe. So I need reliable stuff. This isn't a one-off situation, it's an ongoing thing that they MAYBE have control over now with Laudisi at the helm. Maybe. I don't know a damned thing about tobacco production, treatment, storage, all of it. What I do know is that I am not concerened at all about my Mac Baren, McConnell, Dunhill, Fribourg, Rattray's, etc in my cellar. And I'd feel (possibly incorrectly) it was a craps-shoot with C/D in that drawer.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

I assume you don't know what year this was made?

 

[cwpiperman]

I assume you don't know what year this was made?

Hi, if you're referring to me, as I noted in my OP, 06/19/18 was the date on the tin.
CW

 

[pruss]

I’m with Sasquatch. The only thing I cellar that C&D blends is Haddo’s. That’s just a risk I take, and I’m not going deep on it. I’d rather load up on Escudo and OGS and not fear the fluffy whiteness. Having had to cash in the Canadian cellar and move to a place where taxation on tobacco makes Canadian pricing look like the US in the sixties, I just can’t take the chance.
So, yes, that’s mold and you’ve handled it appropriately.
— Pat

 

[krizzose]

June 2018? That’s not good. C&D’s mold issue was in 2016. I ended up exchanging 4 tins of their small batch red Virginia that I bought then. The tins I exchanged them for haven’t been opened yet; fingers crossed.

 

[sasquatch]

The idea that "C&D's mold issue was in 2016" is totally erroneous. The Carolina Red Flake was moldy, all of it, in 2016, but that's just the most glaring instance. This is something they've fought for years and years. I get that they wanted to offer additive-free stuff, but sending out entire batches of fungus riddled leaf in 2016 after years of repeated problems just shows how either they don't know what they're doing or don't care. You can't do this as a professional operation. McDonald's can't poison people, I can't build houses that fall down, and a tobacco blender can't ship out tins of leaf that all mold over. They handle it with dignity, but it shouldn't be a thing imho.

 

[cwpiperman]

I'm curious. I love Greg Pease's blends, and I do love some of the C&D, obviously. Since C&D manufactures GL Pease blends, is there a risk there? Has any issue been noted in the Pease blends vis a vis the C&D issue you're describing, @Sasquatch?
CW

 

[sparroa]

Definitely mold. I would have discarded the affected tobacco and jar lids just to be safe.
While I have enjoyed some GLP blends in the past, I have not cellared much of it and I do not have much C&D product either. None since the Laudisi takeover. Was there any talk of mold back in the Tarler era in North Carolina? All of my tins were produced prior to 2013 with the exception of some Triple Play plug from this year.

 

[sasquatch]

Yes there was mold in the Tarler era, yes there's been mold in GLP stuff, Jacknife and Triple Play come to mind. Like I say, this was a thing literally 10 years ago, and it's been a thing since.
I keep pics when people post them, not as "evidence" but as good examples for the "is this mold or sugar crystals" questions.
Mold.

Mold.

 

[sasquatch]

And again, I want to be fair - I'm not saying every tin of C/D will mold or anything like that. It's not the case. They make a gajillion tins and obviously most of them by far are totally fine. I order the occassional C/D tin or GLP tin and I've never had a moldy one, but then, I open them right away too, I'm not willing to sit on this stuff at all.
Maybe one of the Laudisi guys that are on the board can speak more to what measures are now in place, I understand they have started using industry-common anti-fungals that maybe were not being used before...

 

[cwpiperman]

I would have discarded the affected tobacco and jar lids just to be safe.

I did. Was going to sterilize them, decided to just pitch the lot of them......there's more at the store.
CW