Smoke Curing?

Once you've grown and harvested your tobacco, what do you do with it? Talk about it here.
Post Reply
nepenthes
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:09 am

Smoke Curing?

Post by nepenthes »

How do I smoke Cure tobacco? I haven't been able to find any thing online.
User avatar
kbadkar
Site Supporter
Posts: 786
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:48 pm
Location: Los Angeles

Post by kbadkar »

There seems to be a lot of regional methods for fire-curing. But it comes down to letting the cured leaves bask in smoke, but not so much the heat of the fire. Smitty has experimented with fire-curing some Samsun at 100 and 175 deg F. Check out his post in this section called Latakia Experiment. The variables on fire-curing are:

1) wood/fuel- what kind of smoke flavors do you want to impart? Latakia uses oak, pine, and herbs. I've heard of dung smoke curing as well.
2) how long in the smoke
3) curing structure, smoke exposure
4) temp, humidity, and ventilation

There is no hard and fast rule, only "recipes" that have worked well and have been repeated.

Although Smitty experimented with fresh leaves, the little info I've found talks about fire-curing after the leaf has already color cured or completely cured (dried), so fire-"curing" is more like smoke "flavoring".

Here's a great article on how they do it in Kentucky: http://www.leffingwell.com/agr152.pdf
User avatar
Smitty
Posts: 117
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:00 pm
Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida

Re: Smoke Curing?

Post by Smitty »

I have been away for awhile but I wanted to bring you up to speed on my recent smoking experiment. I wanted to try it with cured leaf this time. I had Samsun from last years crop in the shed. I had it hanging inside during the summer and quite a few days it got around 130* inside. The final product smelled VERY sweet. Almost a cola flavor. I boxed it up and left it in the shed until a couple days ago. I fired up the BBQ smoker with Oak and got a steady 125* smolder going I was able to maintain it for close to 24 hours. I misted the leaves with water, laid out flat on a sheet of aluminum foil, every 1/2 hour and wound up with nice dark brown, almost black, leaves. Not near Latakia but I think I could have if I had left it in for another 2 or 3 days. That is what it takes to make the real deal. A whole lot of time and attention.
What I got is a real nice smokey sweet flavoring out of it. I will use it in some blending as time goes by. I have a lot of cured Virginia that is begging for some spice. I think this batch worked out better than using fresh leaf. It may have been that the leaf I used was sweeter to start with once it was cured.
Recipie.......
Aged sweet smelling leaf ( I used an Oriental Samsun) to be authentic...any should work for mild smoke flavor though.
A good smoldering fire in a BBQ smoker (low temp a must) Oak worked fine as I had a bunch anyway. To be authentic use pine.....not in my smoker though...ever....it does not mix with food.
Add a lot of moisture to the leaf as you go
Enjoy!
Post Reply