Mould Problem: HELP Please.

[madox07]

I'm with philobeddoe

 

[toobfreak]

Unless you are willing to clean the jar (and treat the tobacco) with the likes of (in decreasing effectiveness) liquid chlorine (about 8 oz. / gal. water), borax solution (1 cup / gal.), straight vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide 3%, you are not killing anything. Throw it away.

 

[buroak]

I have seen a lot of sugar crystals on even fresh Sam Gawith and Gawith Hoggarth tobaccos, but what you are describing certainly sounds like mold. Others' advice to pitch the tobacco AND jar is the advice I would take. You have a mold that will survive the presumably excellent anti-mold treatment SG uses, and I would not want that around my other tobaccos.

 

[buroak]

Funny how tobacco lays and hangs around for months in factories, in piles on old wooden carts, handled by all kinds of people, deveined, treated and processed, squashed, pressed, cooked, sprayed, then we get it at our homes and need to treat it with kid gloves under sterile conditions!

Toobfreak, I often think the same thing as I go through my procedures for jarring tobacco. I figure any outbreak of mold in our cellared tobacco is most likely down to bad luck. There are those rare bad batches, but mostly tobacco endures its long, dirty journey to our pipes without ever growing a sweater.

 

[yaddy306]

I've never heard of a mold infestation that smelled "delightful".

 

[sablebrush52]

I remember the C&D Carolina Red disaster from last year. Bottom line is ditch the whole thing. Do not smoke, nor hope that any portion of the tobacco is viable for smoking. It isn't.

 

[theloniousmonkfish]

Don't smoke that stuff! The whole thing is contaminated, bag and toss it. Mold spores and other harmful things are everywhere but if it's fuzzy it's fruiting and those concentrations are the harmful ones. Don't mess with your lungs, you already smoke, it was a loss. Crap happens. Please don't smoke mold, it's bad, mmm'kay?

 

[pipeman7]

don't want to upset anybody, but from its description Brown Sugar Flake sounds like an ideal medium for culturing mold. I have ordered two 250g packages of G & H in recent months, Balkan Flake and St.James Flake. Sopping wet on arrival.

Neither of those blends are made by Gawith Hoggarth.
manmansniff, throw away the whole jar.

 

[tennsmoker]

I'm with Sablebrush and Thelonious: Take your losses and toss jar and all.
Too risky to smoke. Besides, if I recall my biology, you may get all the spores you see, but miss the ones that are in the baccy, but you can't see!

 

[theloniousmonkfish]

"Besides, if I recall my biology, you may get all the spores you see, but miss the ones that are in the baccy, but you can't see!"
Exactly, the human eye is not a microscope. When you pull the "bad" part off a piece of bread all you do is rip off the fruit of the mold, which is just the tip. It's not dirt, you can't scrape it off or wash it.

 

[cortezattic]

I contend that we're smoking tobacco that is infected with spores all the time. Occasionally, poor storage conditions cause the spores to "sprout" -- or whatever the technical term is germinate. Go ahead and smoke the stuff -- but let us know if your pee-pee falls off. 8O

 

[theloniousmonkfish]

"I contend that we're smoking tobacco that is infected with spores all the time."
Absolutely, the air is full of crap we don't want to breath at high concentrations, it's everywhere but minute. It's when the conditions are right and the unnoticeable crap that's always there becomes dominant that health is a concern. Mold is a clear indicator that the level of crap is too high in something, it may have always been there but now it's a problem.

 

[woodsroad]

Also, nearly all of the tobacco we smoke has been treated with something to retard spore growth. So if you see mold, something went wrong, somewhere, and chances are good that you are now dealing with an exponentially higher number of spores than you would find in your average tin of Prince Granger Deluxe Marine Rolls.

Scanning electron microscope image showing spores of Aspergillus. Aspergillus species are common contaminants of starchy foods (such as bread and potatoes), and grow in or on many plants and trees.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

SG, G&H, same factory, same wet as hell product,per another thread on Cabbies Mixture seems like they can't keep things straight themselves. Sorry that I can't either.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Looks a bit like a cross between artichokes and leaf lettuce. Yummm!
My macro lens doesn't quite get down that far....

 

[wyfbane]

Agree with the toss it out crowd.
Condolences on the loss of a jar of tobacco. =(

 

[mawnansmiff]

"I've never heard of a mold infestation that smelled "delightful"."
Yaddy, with all due respect the silage (fermented grass) we used to feed the cattle in winter with was absolutely caked in mould spores but the only way to know a good bale from a bad bale was by smell...and the best silage smelled glorious. Again, very winey, stewed fruit smell.
I looked at some samples tonight under the microscope and saw large mats of white with a scattering of white dust about. Absolutely no question it is mould.
I shall take pictures in the morning. To attach my camera to the third ocular of my microscope takes quite a while to set up so shall use my super macro set up in stead.
Thanks ever so much chaps for your thoughts and suggestions, much appreciated :clap:
Regards,
Jay.

 

[woodsroad]

You have a third eye?

 

[aldecaker]

That one's blind.

 

[woodsroad]

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.