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YvanheTerrible

Yvan The Terrible
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blisscigarco said:
..... such a fashion as maximizes the angle of the vein thingies closer to 45 degrees and further from 90. Also, because of the requirements of pre-cutting a single leaf to include the cap, the way that the "flag and cap," if there were such, are at a......

Click to expand...
I wonder if the angle of the veins is used like that since they use short fillers?


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webmost

webmost

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YvanheTerrible said:
Well, I am totally impressed by the taste of this baby and it is only one day old. I’m not sure if it is my new leaves preparation process or my blending but the ammonia taste is way lower on young smokes. I bough 3 Coleman coolers on sales and prep my leaves two weeks ahead of time at about 88% humidity for wrappers/binder and 75% for fillers. I open and rotate each cooler every day and have not seen any trace of mold.




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TWO WEEKS!

Jeez. If I pop my wrapper & binder in the conditioning tub third thing in the morning, then the binder is ready to use before lunch, and the wrapper is ready well before dinner. Here's my daily habit:

Roll out of the rack, schidt & shower, then knock out the morning's cigar store work, then prepare breakfast & look at forums while I eat. While I'm doing that (like right now), I'll pop two FX CT shade leaf halves and one Criollo 98 wrapper leaf into the same conditioner cooler. Next I'll find a project outside to work on before it gets too frikkin thick & hot out there to breathe. On my return from garage or yard, I bind up two plumpfectos using the Criollo 98 wrapper as binder. Into the mold they go. At this time, I stretch out wrinkles from the CT shade so it will lay flatter on the conditioner grate. An hour or two later, I rotate the dolls in in the mold. At this time, the shade in the conditioner gets stretched again. Ideally, no more than four hours pass from bunching before I'm wrapping. If they set too long in the mold, the dolls might lose their ability to plump up properly.

I know this method works, cause I have done two gars a day, day by day, ever since the first of the year, just this way. Yes, I have had occasions where I got tied up w/ something else & couldn't wrap until next morning. By then, the shade is sopping wet & getting splotchy, and the dolls are fixed hard and straight in the mold. I might toss them and start again.

I have zero comprehension why you would leave your wrappers at 88% for TWO WEEKS, nor how they don't wind up stinking like diaper pail when you do. Done properly, you should never make ammonia. Never. Not a smidge. Binder should be flexible, but not limp, when ready. Wrapper should be limp & even stretchy but not sopping. Filler should crinkle.

Have you seen my vid for beginners? Somewhere about the 21st or 22nd minute I demonstrate what I think is a good test how damp leaf should be.


I may be all wet but I think your method is all wet.
 
webmost

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YvanheTerrible said:
I wonder if the angle of the veins is used like that since they use short fillers?


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Click to expand...

I'm guessing the angle of the vein is cause they want to get the most wraps they can out of each leaf half.
But I hope to go up to the old factory tomorrow for a meeting with Smith. I'll try and remember to ask.
 
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YvanheTerrible

Yvan The Terrible
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webmost said:
TWO WEEKS!
.....Have you seen my vid for beginners? Somewhere about the 21st or 22nd minute I demonstrate what I think is a good test how damp leaf should be.


I may be all wet but I think your method is all wet.
Click to expand...
Perhaps it is that I got a few bags of leaves that were not properly fermented but when I first opened the bags the smell of ammonia was overwhelming. In one bag, the CT wrappers were so crinkled and dried that just looking at them made them crack. My method seems to work well on those for me anyways. I do let the filler dry up before rolling after they come out of the tub. Maybe counterintuitive to have them go from a dried stage to a wet stage and return to a drier stage but the ammonia seems to disappear and I’m able to stretch the wrappers over several days to a very smooth shape. I may be overdoing it perhaps, still learning and adapting my rolling process.


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blisscigarco

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YvanheTerrible said:
Perhaps it is that I got a few bags of leaves that were not properly fermented but when I first opened the bags the smell of ammonia was overwhelming. In one bag, the CT wrappers were so crinkled and dried that just looking at them made them crack. My method seems to work well on those for me anyways. I do let the filler dry up before rolling after they come out of the tub. Maybe counterintuitive to have them go from a dried stage to a wet stage and return to a drier stage but the ammonia seems to disappear and I’m able to stretch the wrappers over several days to a very smooth shape. I may be overdoing it perhaps, still learning and adapting my rolling process.


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Click to expand...
I think rehydrating and drying filler is normal: it's called re-fermenting, which is what the pros often have to do. Then you pay the big bucks for their "triple fermented" cigars. Going out on a limb I'd say much of our retail leaf can profit from it.

OTOH, you can de-ammonia just by taking the leaves out of the bag, unsticking them from each other so they get circulation, leave them overnight in an off-kiltered stack (like a deck of cards that's sliding apart) in a windless area outside or by a window, flip them, do it again for an hour or two. Usually if you take a deep sniff now the "stuck" ammonia is gone. Doesn't mean the leaf is properly fermented or not, just clears out the stuck fumes. If you roll as dry as possible you won't restart anything and the sick period won't be too long/dramatic, if anything at all.
 
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blisscigarco said:
I think rehydrating and drying filler is normal: it's called re-fermenting, which is what the pros often have to do. Then you pay the big bucks for their "triple fermented" cigars. Going out on a limb I'd say much of our retail leaf can profit from it.

OTOH, you can de-ammonia just by taking the leaves out of the bag, unsticking them from each other so they get circulation, leave them overnight in an off-kiltered stack (like a deck of cards that's sliding apart) in a windless area outside or by a window, flip them, do it again for an hour or two. Usually if you take a deep sniff now the "stuck" ammonia is gone. Doesn't mean the leaf is properly fermented or not, just clears out the stuck fumes. If you roll as dry as possible you won't restart anything and the sick period won't be too long/dramatic, if anything at all.
Click to expand...
I accidentally refermented some leaf a while back and since then I’ve started to referment new leaf when I get it in all the time. Even if it smells great there’s always some ammonia left in there. I think it definitely makes a difference
 
Jim D

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BrewinHooligan said:
Dammit man, I was hoping you forgot... Much appreciated and don’t think you are in the clear. Send me leaf, I’ll return fire
Click to expand...
Its not much, and @Dran shared it first!
The wrapper is great to work with and looks nice but wasn't in my wheelhouse. I couldn't figure out a favorite blend with it so thought I'd send it to you, the Great Enabler, @BrewinHooligan !
 
BrewinHooligan

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Jim D said:
Its not much, and @Dran shared it first!
The wrapper is great to work with and looks nice but wasn't in my wheelhouse. I couldn't figure out a favorite blend with it so thought I'd send it to you, the Great Enabler, @BrewinHooligan !
Click to expand...
I’m trying lots of new things lately and getting some pretty great results. I’ll make sure to share the love
 
webmost

webmost

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webmost said:
I'm guessing the angle of the vein is cause they want to get the most wraps they can out of each leaf half.
But I hope to go up to the old factory tomorrow for a meeting with Smith. I'll try and remember to ask.
Click to expand...

Smith tells me they attempt to lay wrapper leaf onto the machine die close to 45 degrees as much as possible, because the machine lays on the wrapper precisely at 45 degrees, resulting in veins going the length of the stick. One machine rolls left side leaves, while another rolls right side leaves the other way round. So you have to use two mirror matched machines in every instance. These machines overlap the wrap a mere quarter inch, BTW.

One remark he made stuck in my head: He says they stack leaves in right and left hand piles as they come off the stripper; but they also sort them according to thickness: thick, medium, and thin. That's an important sort, says he, cause the hair trigger that releases filler on its way to get bound & wrapped has to be adjusted for as small an item as the diff in weight of wrapper thickness.

I prefer a thin wrap, myself. My current fave is a CT shade wrap laid over over a Criollo 98 wrapper which I use for binder. That makes a very smooth feel between the lips.
 
blisscigarco

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webmost said:
Smith tells me they attempt to lay wrapper leaf onto the machine die close to 45 degrees as much as possible, because the machine lays on the wrapper precisely at 45 degrees, resulting in veins going the length of the stick. One machine rolls left side leaves, while another rolls right side leaves the other way round. So you have to use two mirror matched machines in every instance. These machines overlap the wrap a mere quarter inch, BTW.

One remark he made stuck in my head: He says they stack leaves in right and left hand piles as they come off the stripper; but they also sort them according to thickness: thick, medium, and thin. That's an important sort, says he, cause the hair trigger that releases filler on its way to get bound & wrapped has to be adjusted for as small an item as the diff in weight of wrapper thickness.

I prefer a thin wrap, myself. My current fave is a CT shade wrap laid over over a Criollo 98 wrapper which I use for binder. That makes a very smooth feel between the lips.
Click to expand...
That's very interesting about the 1/4" overlap for a 45" angle on a 2-inch wrapper. For some reason I thought it was a 1" overlap. So once I pre-thought that, that's what I then measured. I made my measurement fit my preconception, your garden variety human cognitive bias. When I remeasure it now I see that it really is 1/4". I think. So from 90 to 45 not only doesn't give you half the overlap, but not even 1/4 of it. I need to go back to 6th grade geometry. But I won't.
 
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