Your right about the flag and cap. I think if we can use a leaf that has a certain stretch to it, a decent tucking at the start it can be had without the flag. and I like the in tact cap trimming but, a half moon flag also works well too for a cap. I edited this video in an a temp to highlight this practice. It's nice that youtube has speed controls now too.
Adventures in home rolling
- Thread starter BrewinHooligan
- Start date
The good folks over at Fairtradetobacco.com have all kinds of info on the growing and fermenting process.
I bought my mold on E-prey for $34 including shipping.
Keep your eye peeled and have patience. They're out there.
Beautiful mold, these perfectos are a pain to wrap. Wrapping some right now with some Sumatra and it is thin and not very forgiving. I feel like I'm a noob all over again, lolI bought my mold on E-prey for $34 including shipping.
Keep your eye peeled and have patience. They're out there.
It turns out the country doesn't mean much. You can grow yellow, white, or red roses in Nicaragua. You can grow yellow, white, or red roses in Dominican Republic. What color are Costa Rican roses? Prolly yellow, red, or white. You have some very good California wines and some very bad ones. But that's not what I ask for at the restaurant. I ask for pinot; the wife asks for reisling. It's the seed, number one.
You really want to know about four things about a leaf: what seed, how high on the stalk, how cured, and maybe the fourth item would be the country. You're lucky if you can get the company that makes them to tell you one out of the four. Always leave you wanting to know what's really in it.
Gotta have a chair where you can test your sticks out.Heres a few pictures
My rolling station
fairtradetobacco.com has a seed bank
@bigbonner there sells seedlings.
I get between 40 and 50 perfectos per pound. The key is to keep waste down to a bare minimum. For example, I can get a binder and a wrapper out of the same half leaf of habano 2000. So I bind and wrap two sticks per leaf, with two and a half to three leaves filler per stick, depending on leaf size. Nearly no waste in a perfecto if done right. I figure sixty or seventy cents per stick.
My theory is if you don't roll quick how can you learn how to roll quick. Just get er done. Like anything else physical you do, you don't want to over think the deal.
I'm working my way thru this long thread systematically, trying to throw in my two cents.
Glad you scored a perfecto mold. The leaf itself comes in a perfecto type of shape anyways. Way easier to control wastage with a fecto.
Eggs Ackley
I heartily disagree. You can easily cut your cap out of what's left of your wrapper. Binder, wrapper, and both caps can all come out of half a wrapper leaf. That's a poor excuse for giving up. If your cap is ugly, wet your leaf good and cut the cap smaller. It's so easy. No. I disagree. Details are so important to art. Caps are important and also easy. Keep trying.
Don't know what BH is bitching about. This one looked better than some of the sticks I've paid for. Talk about transitions between thirds. Burn through the closed foot and it was toasted marshmallow. Into the first third and it was heavy coco powder. Second third was black licorice and the final third was earthy goodness and some mild spice. A sleeper on strength too.
Now look at that. That is one righteous baccer stick.
I'll quit on this note, and get back to this fine thread tomorrow.
My first blend using @USHOG leaf. The Sumatra wrapper was a real bitch compared to the PA broadleaf I've grown used to since it is very thin and fragile, but damn as they are drying they have a nice sheen and kinda purdy. Not really sure how strong these will be, I'm guessing pretty mild compared to the rest of what I have rolled. Waiting on these is gonna be hard
This cat's a natural.Home rolled numbers 3 through 6, from left to right. The little one was rolled by my 6 year old son, with a little help from DadHe was pretty excited to roll it and wanted me to smoke it right away!
Unfortunately, I made the filler a little too moist I think. I think it may be rolled *too* tight! We'll see what happens when it dries out.
The next one, the giant, was rolled with all dry filler. I got it tighter than yesterday's cigars, but it still felt a little loose.
The final two, I used a mix of wet and dry filler. They're definately tighter, and maybe too tight again. I'm going to give these at least a week, I think, to see what happens. I'll let them sit out overnight and put them in a small humidor tomorrow so I can monitor them. I'll probably hold off on making anymore until I can smoke a couple of these and see what's going on with my roll.
So without further ado, here they are! I hope they smoke half way decent because I'm very happy with how they look!
A plain old ulu knife actually works as well or better than a chaveta. I don't think they use the chaveta because it's an essential idea. I think they use it cause it's home made from an old piece of steel. You can roll your fresh rolled to flatten them smooth with anything flat. A book, a board... I use a piece of flexible plastic about 3" x 9"... I think it started life as a divider in a shipping box.
Cameroon blew up politically. I'd be surprised if you found any such leaf around.
FX Smith's Sons die cut their wrappers from PA broadleaf... six or eight per leaf. They overlap a mere 1/4".Three times round wraps the whole cigar. Been doing it that way for a century and a half. Burns great. Took apart a Perdomo Lot 23 nub once, to see how they make something that burns so well in rainy Dull-Aware weather. Same deal: PA broadleaf with almost no overlap.
Tried pectin. It has a bitter citrus flavor that detracted from the wrapper experience. Taste some, and you'll see what I mean. Tried that Xanthan that came with a kit. OK, but didn't find stick much. Tried Bermacol... same thing as wallpaper paste. XLNT. settled on cellulose, cause it's safe (made from trees), cheap (just a couple bucks at a craft site), flavor neutral, and works great. Teachers use the stuff for kindergarten crafts. Just a touch of the powder mixed in water lasts forever.