Prepping Sam Gawith's Full Virginia Flake

[fatbob]

I crack a tin and let it sit. Sometimes due to ambient humidity it takes a few days, sometimes I get caught up in some other blend and it sits longer than I intended. Either way it's like waiting for anything, the anticipation enhances the experience. I usually have a cracked tin sitting around when I'm in the mood and I've never had it get crispy. It's always worth the wait, and if I'm in a hurry and I want something right now, there's always CH.

 

[jpmcwjr]

An ill-framed insult to be sure:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lunker

Though the original meaning is "Big fish", "Lunker" has been used in many circles when refering to "big Women", specifically those you may meet in a bar or night club. "Did you hear that Joe banged that "lunker" from the bar last night....Ewww

So, in plain English WTF are you on about? Microwaving tobacco is fine, and the only recourse some have to getting their tobacco right and ready.
It looks like Bob is in a climate where he doesn't have to do so, as are many others. But see Cosmic's note- he knows his tobaccos, though not always with the right terminology.

 

[ukbob]

I've used a microwave before no problems at all.

 

[kimbiker]

Just bought a tin because it's on offer at the moment in the UK (along with Cabbies & Squadron). Maybe I should remove the lid now to smoke in 2 weeks!

 

[saltedplug]

Barbarous! Simply barbarous, I say!
I've been saying this to myself about the practice for some time and finally decided to say it aloud. I used the term "lunker" half in jest as it sounded appropriately disparaging and funny. I know that many of you get what you feel are desirable results and in future I will do my best to say nothing.
I use the term barbarous as I never do anything but air dry or spritz tobacco either too dry or wet; to me it is a holy substance that we could in no way duplicate and that we aught not invasively manipulate. Thus to rearrange polarities to activate kinetic energy, producing heat, is entirely invasive and disrespects Nature's or Heaven's bounty. I also come at the phenomena of taste rooted in the palate. If a taste is present it will be not be diminished or amplified by the taste buds, working in conjunction with semantic memory that stores previous allied taste experiences. Instead, these structures will faithfully sense that physical phenomena. It is the infinitely variable mind that can cooperate, amplify or diminish taste. To me all the discussion of pipe/tobacco pairings, a pipe that "loves a certain tobacco, etc., microwaves improving tobacco are merely the mind creating reality.
Further, if microwaves produce tastier tobacco, why aren't blenders doing this and talking about it? Don't they do everything to bring it to its peak of taste before its release? Do Mac Baren and Orlik have rows of microwaves or giant microwaves and are they doing this? If not, why not?
I regard this as a practice peculiar to the forums, but if it's yours and you feel that it works, it works, and in any case is no more than a difference of opinion.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

not always with the right terminology.

Ha ha, great quip, John. That's why I like you. :wink:

 

[bigpond]

Saltedplug-thank you for illustrating so eloquently the dangers of the tobacco suppository.

 

[deathmetal]

FVF, in my view, is best enjoyed by tossing a handful of flakes in a pocket and throughout the day loading them into a pipe with the "fold and twist" method. You will have to give them extra fire, like most UK tobaccos, but then if you draw consistently, you will have a couple hours of delicious smoke.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I regard this as a practice peculiar to the forums

Actually, before anyone ever mentioned doing this on the forum (that I know of) my local tobacconist since 1972 suggested this. I was wanting to load my pipe from a freshly bought and popped tin, and was woebegone ($5 word) to have to load the tobacco wet out of the tin. He suggested that I use the microwave in the store's kitchen, and explained that 8 seconds was about perfect.

We are in 90-99% humidity Alabama. If I popped a tin of SG FVF, it would never dry in the open ambient air. In fact, I have never heard of tobacco drying out, or anything for that matter. I am guessing that you live in a more dry climate, so we live on totally different planets. So what. I have to use a microwave, and I can leave my tins out for months and never, ever, ever have to worry about anything drying out too much. I have no idea what drying tobacco is like on your planet.
BTW, I don't mind being a lunker. I knew that you were kidding. I was thinking that a lunker must be someone wearing really heavy shoes, causing one to lunk about, a lunking lunter, so to speak. ::

 

[deathmetal]

We are in 90-99% humidity Alabama.

Ah, the South. It's a swamp, but no Progress, so it's amiable.

 

[mawnansmiff]

"duplicate and that we aught not invasively manipulate"
Now that is barbarous!
Regards,
Jay.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I believe that microwaving does not rearrange molecules on any permanent basis, but merely heats the molecules of H20 (moisture) inside of whatever's being zapped. Thus, coffee and tea are the main things that go into my little box.
Mr. Plug- Are you anti-microwaving for all things?

 

[saltedplug]

It's one thing to disagree and another to act as if what is really control is only disagreement. Though I think tobacco and microwave should never meet, they apparently do for a number of members on the forum. Who am I to say this should be any different? I find controlling what I say on forums a good bit more difficult than IRL.
Sorry.
I use the microwave for frozen food and popcorn only. I think microwave energy does change molecules by reversing polarities within the atoms, which I guess would mean redistributing electrons?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Egads! microwaving tobacco might make it carcinogenic? ::

 

[saltedplug]

Actually I think the reverse is true. In today's anti environment smokers have been targeted for elimination by the state, and thus microwaves were introduced in the 70s in stealthy fashion so as to be the eventual mechanism of our demise, knowing that owners of B&Ms in conjunction with the forums would promulgate the unfathomable practice of destroying tobacco by microwave. which exponentiates its carcinogenic properties by rabidly increasing its carcinogens. They have done so to eliminate smokers as it is through us the most tenacious opposition to a tobacco free society manifests.

 

[saltedplug]

Of course this means that if you microwave tobacco you will die!