This all red Virginia de-stemmed and cased with tonka/blackberry and stoved for 10 hours.
Red Virginia prior to destemming
Tonka casing
- 200g Molasses
- 100g Water
- Handful of cacao nibs
- 1 whole tonka bean
- 1 cap full of white vinegar
Blackberry casing
- 100g water by weight
- 100g suger by weight
- 1 tablespoon of Brewer’s Best Blackberry
- 1 cap full of white vinegar
Both casings are brought to a boil and kept there 5-10 minutes and then let cool. I put half tonka and half blackberry in a 1 ounce atomizer and cased the 1 lb of red Virginia after it was de-stemmed.
I put as much as I could in the stainless steel tube and shredded the rest and put in a mason jar.
Pressed with the A-frame with a 12-ton bottle jack and held for 24 hours. Switched to a C-Clamp and kept in a the cab of a pickup truck under a blanket.
After 2 weeks I wrapped the steel tube and C-Clamp with aluminum foil and stoved in an oven for 10 hours at 200 F. I also replaced the lid with aluminum foil on the shredded tobacco and also stoved that for the same amount of time.
Sneak peak after stoving and then put the C-Clamp back on
Before
After
I then let it rest for 3 more days before pulling the plug from the stainless steel tube.
280g plug
Extremely enjoyable smoke. Welcome to my poor man’s Dark Star. Slicing was easy as it was not overly dry. Something I have had an issue with before. This slices off with ease nice thin flakes that hold together. I attribute this with keeping the plug in my truck out of sunlight and good ol’ NC humidity probably helped.
Sliced up!
The ribbon