Messing about with different types of tobacco for snus.

[squeezyjohn]

Hi there,

I just thought I'd share what I've been doing to try and get to the bottom of snus making. I currently have a stash of 3 different types of tobacco (apart from what I've grown) - flue cured virginia bright leaf, fire cured burley and a cigar filler type - ligero dark air cured (the top leaves of the plant only) ... I really need to get some air-cure burley and an oriental variety to complete the experiment.

Anyway - I've been messing around with making a standard recipe without any flavouring and then using 100% one type of tobacco to see what characteristics it makes in a snus.

The standard recipe is:

100g tobacco flour
10g salt
140ml water
*EDIT* This recipe contains a little too much water and especially with lamina-only recipes it makes a prilla that is too soft - recommend 80-100ml and add more later if needed.

Kept at a constant 85ºC for 24 hours using the crockpot method

Thouroughly mix in 4 teaspoons of lye water (which is pre-prepared potassium carbonate solution for food use)

*EDIT* for this recipe 4 tsps of lye water makes a snus which is in all cases far too strong even for my elephantine constitution! Recommend 2tsps for a regular and 3 for an extra stark.

And leave to cool and age

The results ...

Dark Air Cured - very strong in nicotine, very bitter taste along with a pungent strong aroma of cigar butt. Can't really be used on it's own

Virginia Flue cured bright leaf - Normal 8mg type snus levels of nicotine, snus made from this stays a lighter brown than usual although it darkens a lot in the cooking process. It is naturally sweet but not too sweet at all. Has a kind of cake-like taste with an aroma that reminds me of unlit cigarettes - which I call a real tobacco taste. Using fine-ground tobacco flour you can really believe this snus at 100% is something like Goteborgs Prima Fint ... and mixed with the right flavouring it could become like Roda Lacket.

*EDIT* as it ages and the ammonia stops being given off this becomes a much darker brown and the flavours darken too adding notes of vanilla and chocolate

Fire cured burley - forget it at 100%! It's so smokey that it can only be used as a spice to add a smokiness - I mixed a batch of 30% fire cured and 70% virginia - and it was still way too smokey! Recommended only around 5% of the blend.

Rustica - Using the standard recipe it was just far too strong to use. Instant nausea. Dangerous! But if you reduce the amount of lye water to 1tsp then it becomes useable as an extra stark los. Flavour profile is odd, quite aromatic and a bit sour - the commercially available snus it tastes most like is Oden's Extreme but with less aroma.

So - I need to buy a couple of pounds each of burley and turkish tobacco in order to complete this experiment with varieties. From what I've heard - a good burley will end up tasting like Grov or Ettan with chocolatey and nutty notes and will be more robust in flavour, nicotine and darker in colour than the virginia.

It's been a great experiment and it is teaching me a lot about the possible flavours I can get from home-made plain snus.

Cheers

Squeezy

[Skell18]

Excellent and very interesting thread squeezy, looking forward to the results of the other tests.

[whalen]

What is the Turkish for.....flavor...filler? Very little nicotine.....but better than stems for filler. The lower third of the dark air cured is very mild.
That fire cured is an amazing beast for sure! But is the base for all American snuff and most original dips. The smoke is simply over the top and impossible to deal with. On the other site, Bigbonner has fantastic burley. He knows his tobacco and can select a range for you to try. I make snuff from the red tip burley, but it is the strongest tips and a bit too pronounced for snus.

[squeezyjohn]

What is the Turkish for.....flavor...filler? Very little nicotine.....but better than stems for filler. The lower third of the dark air cured is very mild.

For completeness sake! And yes with flavour in mind.

That fire cured is an amazing beast for sure! But is the base for all American snuff and most original dips. The smoke is simply over the top and impossible to deal with. On the other site, Bigbonner has fantastic burley. He knows his tobacco and can select a range for you to try. I make snuff from the red tip burley, but it is the strongest tips and a bit too pronounced for snus.

Fire cured is going to be great as a bona fide flavouring agent (miles better than liquid smoke) but no more than that - possibly in the case of trying to recreate a Copenhagen flavoured genuine snus which seems to be the holy grail it may be needed.

I'm hoping that I will get several pounds of nice Burley from my Yellow Twist Bud plants on the allotment and will probably experiment with those.

[whalen]

Yes, I am hoping for your crop to be "the One", nothing would be better than that. As far as the Fire cured, as you know, you may only have to point a couple of leaves in the general direction of the snus mix to flavor it! What an intense smoky critter that one! A little dab will do......

Hope you like the Virginia as much as I did. I have some Izmir and several Balkans that are lovely!

[squeezyjohn]

Thanks whalen - I do love the virginia - almost beyond knowing a physical use for it! It looks, smells and tastes gorgeous - like the scent of a particularly aromatic virginia cigarette packet just as you take the foil out (some of the older british cigarettes are mainly virginia) And the size and quality of the leaves is seriously impressive!

Thing is - now I don't smoke - I need to find a use for this "investment" so that explains what I am doing - and my "tobacco porn" response to owning a massive barrel packed with these leaves.



^^ a little bit of tobacco porn

[whalen]

Well I understand, I have my own extensive whole leaf porn collection too. I would think a nice base of Virginia would work in all the snus recipe's, and a bit of the Dark air, then a touch of Burley and why not a bit of Rustica. I could see...........

40% Virginia
40 % Burley
10% Dark air
10% Rustica

The red tip Burley I have will have a kick to it, but the flavor is nice. What Nic levels are you looking for?

[whalen]

My recipe for RYO tobacco for my wife's rollies are......

35% Virginia (Bright Leaf)
15% Dark air
35% Home grown Burley (very light actually, if it was heavier then more VBL would be added)
5 % Red tip Burley
10% Izmir
That is the go to around here although I have never once smoked it, I have mouthed a fwe hits for taste, and rely on feedback for throat feel and acidity. Virginia can burn hot so that helps the Izmir along. I have my wife always use a 25mm filter in Silver Tip tubes, great filter and it is critical for scrubbing the smoke of tars.

[Faylool]

Sounds like Rustica would be good for lower salt too. You didn't mention bitterness. Low salt and low bitter are good things to my taste. Why I use Makla Platinum, I don't need a very large amount and it has bitter but not too much but flavor, if you can call it that, is boring.

[squeezyjohn]

My homegrown rustica was not bitter at all - I don't know if that's due to my growing conditions here or just normal for rustica. If anything it had a completely raw taste that was a little sweet. I'm pretty sure that the bitterness in some tobaccos is not directly linked to the nicotine content.

[whalen]

I have had properly cured Rustica (Mapacho) and a quick chew found it to be pretty neutral, just no deep flavor, more grassy than anything. The use of Rustica would be necessary for Starks. And have you tried toasting any of the tobacco prior to making snus? I find it greatly enhances the flavor and when toasted, it powders instantly.I always toast Burley prior to snuff making. Medium heat for several hours. Not quite a Mailard level of heat. Tends to remove the sweet and bitter tastes.

[squeezyjohn]

Yes - I have been toasting it before turning in to tobacco flour as it both improves the flavours and makes grinding easier. I agree totally about rustica - in itself it has a little aroma and is quite grass-like but when used in snus it develops a kind of funk that is unique as far as I can tell.

There's definitely two different approaches to making a stark - 1) add more alkali which gives more lip-burn and a quick hit of nicotine that fades fast or 2) blend with stronger tobacco that gives a smoother, more long-lasting hit of nicotine.

I am just going to edit the initial post because as usual I seem to have jumped the gun and given flavour indications before waiting for the snus to age and de-gas sufficiently and many have changed.

[Faylool]

I'll take style two! It kind of goes without saying IMO. Who wants more additives? But if it's a flavor or bitter question then I see where both worlds at needed. Have a general original portion in and I'll take flavor challenged Makla any day. General, except the White portios, has been disappointing. Wonder what tobacco they use. I wonder what they all use! Snuff too. It would make it so much more interesting and ynamic to hop with more info like that. Too bad they don't list. It would take snuffing and snussing to a whole new level

[squeezyjohn]

I'll take style two! It kind of goes without saying IMO. Who wants more additives? But if it's a flavor or bitter question then I see where both worlds at needed. Have a general original portion in and I'll take flavor challenged Makla any day. General, except the White portios, has been disappointing. Wonder what tobacco they use. I wonder what they all use! Snuff too. It would make it so much more interesting and ynamic to hop with more info like that. Too bad they don't list. It would take snuffing and snussing to a whole new level

It would indeed be really interesting to know the provenence of all the tobaccos used in the main brands - but alas I don't think they see it that way!

In cigar making circles they refer to a single variety cigar as a "puro" - and by evaluating how they smoke it's easier to understand how to use different tobaccos to make a particular kind of cigar.

This is what I'm doing with snus - trying a variety of different puro snuses to learn the individual flavour profiles associated with each variety will help get an idea of what would make a nice blend for different types of snus. Once I have that kind of information I can try more informed experiments about the other variables like cooking temperature and times and ultimately flavouring ingredients too.

[Faylool]

I'm glad your posting about it. So we can realize all the work that went in to getting snus to where it's at. I didn't know diddly squat really. I thought the moisture component was oil from the tobacco for example. It's highly appropriate forum material of the upper class of tobacco