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- Thread starter TheFlask
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That's the answer I was hoping for. I rolled 10 yesterday. Took more time than I thought. Pushed through and wrapped them. I know I won't have that kind of time again. But if I could break it up into 2 day it would be nice.
I like to trim back the binder at the head to allow a smallest amount to be clipped just once to smoke it.
Sometime you'll want to pull the binder through that small cavity at the head if you want one of those fancy nipple things.
The thing about just a straight tuck cut jammed into the head, when I do it, I have to cut passed all that to get the draw I want.
On the molding times, I want to be able to get it into shape so, it needs to be in higher case to do so and, it needs to dry some to hold the shape to some degree. 20 minute rotate times. .. when the case is right, the creasing disappears faster. a wood mold is faster then plastic. what I don't want is a mold that is to packed and, too wet. and then put a wrapper on it. so it depends. maybe what I mean is that better drier then wetter when the wrapper goes on. It is important to be able to communicate with the leaf like that.
Sometime you'll want to pull the binder through that small cavity at the head if you want one of those fancy nipple things.
The thing about just a straight tuck cut jammed into the head, when I do it, I have to cut passed all that to get the draw I want.
On the molding times, I want to be able to get it into shape so, it needs to be in higher case to do so and, it needs to dry some to hold the shape to some degree. 20 minute rotate times. .. when the case is right, the creasing disappears faster. a wood mold is faster then plastic. what I don't want is a mold that is to packed and, too wet. and then put a wrapper on it. so it depends. maybe what I mean is that better drier then wetter when the wrapper goes on. It is important to be able to communicate with the leaf like that.
Just make sure you like the blend enough to roll that many at one time. I found that if there was a discovery of an improved blend then were regrets of rolling so many prior. I really like playing with different flavors and blends so just a couple of trial cigars is plenty to roll at one time.
Much more of my time is spent processing the leaf and preparing it for rolling than the actual rolling part.
Very true. Prep is time consuming. Also didn't think about so many of one blend? Main reason was I was with a few friends and we got carried away with it. Can't say for if we will like the blend. Haven't been at it long enough to know what we like.
I'll stick to a few at a time for now
Sounds like the plot line of a funny movie
Best advice I ever got came from deluxestogie: You learn more faster by rolling one or two a day every day than by rolling big old honkin batches ever once in a long while. It's like learning an instrument -- 30 minutes practice every evening teaches your hands what all day long every other Saturday cannot.
So with the talk of mojo brought this question to my attention. When rehydrating your filler, binder, and wrapper. How much water should you use. @BrewinHooligan said just a light spritz for mojo. I've been pretty liberal with my water. Trying to get the leaves not to crunch and fall apart when I bunch them together. And the wrapper not to tear when I pull it tight. Should I be using as little water as possible? Or should I rehydrate my leave a different way? Or is it all a preference of the roller?
I think it's all preference of the roller, but the filler really should be just hydrated enough not to crumble and crack when working. I work with my binder and wrapper at an almost identical high case and will only use water for those. Mojo is only for filler and I would also suggest only really using on the harshest of your leaf. Seco really won't benefit but strong viso and ligero are worth using a small amount on.
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Lots of it's down to the RH on-scene. If I'm here in coastal California in 67F fog, 100%RH, I'm gonna need different methods than BH in 118F and 6% RH in The Devil's Armpit.
One way or the other you want to get filler that's dry to the touch and folds into a tube without cracking (even if you don't do entubado, you should be able to fold the stuff into a big tube in your hand with resistance but without crackage). How you get there is greatly influenced by your rolling environment's RH.
Average situation might be, you grab a leaf and fold it and it cracks, so you hit it with a spritz or two and check back in half an hour. Or if it's low RH, you check back in 5-10 mins....
One way or the other you want to get filler that's dry to the touch and folds into a tube without cracking (even if you don't do entubado, you should be able to fold the stuff into a big tube in your hand with resistance but without crackage). How you get there is greatly influenced by your rolling environment's RH.
Average situation might be, you grab a leaf and fold it and it cracks, so you hit it with a spritz or two and check back in half an hour. Or if it's low RH, you check back in 5-10 mins....
I use zero water on my filler. It's perfect just the way it comes from WLT. LO, I dunno. Jorge's stuff is fine the way it comes. My filler coolidor is kept around 60 or 65% humidity. Filler should be just dry enough to crackle a bit when you bunch.
I use zero water on my binder. It's perfect just the way it comes from WLT. LO, I dunno. Jorge's stuff I dunno. The binder / wrapper coolidor is kept around 75% humidity. Binder should be damp enough to wrap round the bunch without crackling.
Wrapper is another story. When I wrap a perfecto, I lay that wrap on a wet board. It takes a whole lot of extra wet to make it conform to the fecto shape and shrink down tight. When I wrap a parejo, on the other hand, none of that is necessary. I may have to mist it a few before use. I may not. A wrap has to be completely pliable; but on the other hand, the less wet the better shine. I just now re-wrapped four of Willie's parejos using WLT capa clara... only waved one of the four thru a mist. The other three, as is.
Stop watering your filler. That makes your draw tight and your flavor stanky.
I use zero water on my binder. It's perfect just the way it comes from WLT. LO, I dunno. Jorge's stuff I dunno. The binder / wrapper coolidor is kept around 75% humidity. Binder should be damp enough to wrap round the bunch without crackling.
Wrapper is another story. When I wrap a perfecto, I lay that wrap on a wet board. It takes a whole lot of extra wet to make it conform to the fecto shape and shrink down tight. When I wrap a parejo, on the other hand, none of that is necessary. I may have to mist it a few before use. I may not. A wrap has to be completely pliable; but on the other hand, the less wet the better shine. I just now re-wrapped four of Willie's parejos using WLT capa clara... only waved one of the four thru a mist. The other three, as is.
Stop watering your filler. That makes your draw tight and your flavor stanky.
I will preface that I have only used the seco and the ligero. The flavors are pretty much identical with the ligero being a little more "full". The ligero is also a thicker leaf that is more durable and can really be stretched a bunch when at high case and has a nice glossy shine when it dries. Even with the thickness of the ligero it burns very well. If it wasn't obvious yet, I do prefer the ligero both for how nice it is to work with as well as the flavor and strength it has. You're tastes may not agree with mine though.
Is your wrapper sorted by stalk position? Or are you sorting thru your stalk position looking for wrapper grade leaf?
Mebbe it's just me. I just use wrapper by leaf type. Never saw indication saying where in the plant it was plucked.
Mebbe it's just me. I just use wrapper by leaf type. Never saw indication saying where in the plant it was plucked.
Leaf only has their Ecuadorian Habano wrapper sorted by seco, viso, and ligero.
How bout that. Tempts me to try some.
So while I enjoyed my Hooligan I had a friend light up one of mine. Moisture wasn't an issue with this one. This time draw was the problem. First I'll say that my cigar was a little more firm that the Hooligan. But I'm only using 3.5 leaves in my 48 like I was told. After smoking the first inch or so we cut the cigar again. This time cutting the entire cap off. Draw seemed to be a little better. That's when I noticed that my filler was packed in several spots. I guess I'm not bunching everything right. Could it be my tubes are too big before rolling in my binder? Not real sure. Anyway once it started smoking better the taste was pretty good. So just need to fix my draw. Pointers please.
Less leaf, don't follow "rules" follow how it feels in your hand as you bunch it. Each leaf is a different size, so there is no one size fits all
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