When combining tobacco to create your own tasty blend do I need to press the tobaccos together or will they marry just by being mixed around in the jar?
Press to marry flavors?
- Thread starter mmmpeace
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They will marry in the jar over time just from being mixed together. Pressing does speed up the process.
How do you mean marrying flavours? I am asking because it's an interesting question. I've experimented in the past with pressing tobaccos myself but didn't notice any success, even after thorough mixing, spraying with water/liquor to bind them better etc. I say there was no success because when smoking it'd always taste the distinct tobaccos, so it was not a real blend.
What made a difference was pressing and baking: I'd taken a section of square steel tubing, lined it with baking paper inside, then put square steel caps on each side and use woodworker C clamps to press it. Then put that whole contraption in the oven and heat it to below 100C (so it doesn't blow up...!) for a few hours. That'd create a puck/plug which held for some days but soon after would expand again and delaminate. All that convinced me to leave blending to real blenders with real equipment - but it was fun!
What made a difference was pressing and baking: I'd taken a section of square steel tubing, lined it with baking paper inside, then put square steel caps on each side and use woodworker C clamps to press it. Then put that whole contraption in the oven and heat it to below 100C (so it doesn't blow up...!) for a few hours. That'd create a puck/plug which held for some days but soon after would expand again and delaminate. All that convinced me to leave blending to real blenders with real equipment - but it was fun!
Read product descriptions from actual blends. The pressing is almost always done with heat. Some best blends are pressed with heat, left for a week to month. Taken out, sliced and rubbed into ribbons. And many then get ready pressed and heated for set time.
Hearth and homes blends, John cotton double pressed, a few Cornell blends get the second pressing but without heat.
Hearth and homes blends, John cotton double pressed, a few Cornell blends get the second pressing but without heat.