Naive Question about Drying Tobacco

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Lifer
Nov 26, 2018
8,932
37,916
RTP, NC. USA
Wet tobacco is simply harsh to me. Charing light doesn't dry tobacco. With heat on now days, drying tobacco is much quicker. I pinch the tobacco to feel how dry it is. For me, no feel of moisture to touch to very little crispness is optimal. Been packing lighter and lighter recently. I used to enjoy tight packed pipe with plenty of air space on the bottom, but that's harsh for me now. Lightly packed bowl with free air flow seems to give better flavor at the moment, and well dried tobacco.
 

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
15,678
29,400
45
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
another way to think of it. Is pipe tobacco comes at storage moisture not smoking moisture.
Here is what I suggest. Buy a tin open it smoke it right away one bowl. Let it sit then for a week and smoke a bowl every other day. You'll find the sweet spot for that blend and be able to see what drying does and what's good and what's too much and too little. Worked for me.
 

Road To Pines

Might Stick Around
Sep 2, 2020
89
162
Ontario, Canada
I'm interested in where you heard that the charring light is for the purpose of removing moisture.

I suspect this is just the assumption of someone who couldn't think of another explanation. Maybe it got passed around by others who were ready to jump to the same conclusion.

The purpose of charring is to char -- to create a blackened but not burned area of organic substance, which then receives a spark or flame much more readily. Thereby an ember is created over a broad area rather than haphazardly.

Maybe with moist tobacco this is more critical, whereas many pipers find that certain cuts and types of (dry) tobacco will light well right from the get-go, without a charring light.

Before mass marketed matches and lighters became available, carrying charred material was crucial to the popular flint-and-stone method of firemaking. Old-time backwoodsmen, and nowadays bushcraft enthusiasts, would have as part of their kit an almost airtight metal container in which to char cotton or other tinder material. The container would have only a large enough hole to release smoke and keep it from exploding when tossed into a fire with a stack of fabric in it. The seal kept oxygen out and prevented the contents from burning; they only blackened.

This blackened material has the special property of catching a light very easily. Even a single spark can be coaxed into a usable ember. Sailors may also be familiar with the type of lighter that uses only a flint and a length of cotton rope: the end of the rope is charred, and quickly holds an ember when struck with sparks from the flint; even in winds that would extinguish flames from other lighters, the red ember just gets stoked all the more. When extinguished, the end of the rope remains charred and ready for the next spark. That easy-lighting quality is also the same property counted on when forming black powder from the wood board of a firemaking bow drill set.

When we pre-blacken the top layer of a bowlful of tobacco, we are preparing a similarly receptive char material. Maybe some moisture will be released as a side effect, but it will exit as vapor and steam, and the smoker will have to contend with any effect on the pipe and the tobacco it's packed with... and ultimately on the flavor and bite of the smoke. So part of the skill set of each pipe enthusiast is pre-drying tobacco to the level they find workable.
 
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