Smoking is... good?

[Cosmos]

Update on the tobacco growing project. I've got 99% of the 2013 crop harvested and hanging. 100 plants, about 18 varieties. This year I bagged flower heads on most varieties for seed saving. I also built an inexpensive flue curing chamber out of a galvanized steel garbage can and a crockpot to flue cure the Virginia varieties. I also got a hand me down refrigerator kiln for regular quick aging.

As always the curing is the hardest part. Last year I had no kiln so I had to wait a year for the tobacco to age naturally, but now I can smoke my 2012 crop. I like it.

Also, for those who are thinking of growing tobacco, this year I found three varieties that don't need much aging, they taste good right away. One real interesting one is Silver River which some old farmer in Ohio had in a drawer or something. It has an intruiging minty flavor and tastes good right after drying. It seems a to be a Burley variety but it doesn't taste like Burley at all.

Then, for a flue cured Virginia style variety that doesn't need aging I grew a couple of African Red plants. They grow huge, almost 8ft tall and have a nice mild flavor and are fairly high in nicotine.

And for a tasty, quick curing Turkish variety, I would recommend Bursa.

Thank you Mr. Premise for the update :)

After I planted my first tobacco plants last year, I figured that I will concentrate this year on tobacco plants that don't need to be fermented and can be cured and smoked rather quickly. Last year I planted 7 different varieties to see what fits best in the future. I build a fermentation oven with a temperature switch in it, to ferment some of those varieties. It worked and tasted fairly good until mold came into the way . While this certainly can be an interesting and a rather complex, time insensitive work, I think I will stick to those varieties that don't need to be fermented and can be smoked quickly in the future. that also means that i don't need electricity (or a long time of hanging the leaves (at least a year)) before I can use them and try the results.

So this year I planted and concentrate only on Samsoun Orient and Rustica Texana (Rustica Texana for the first time).
last years Samsoun Orient harvest tasted pretty good after about to months of sun drying outside and another two months of laying the leaves on top of each other in a dark and humidity rich room... (I don't use any pesticides).

As I noticed last year as well, a lot of plants get sick that are outside, exposed to nature (although there is a roof above them).
In contrast to that I noticed again that in my fairly secure balcony, there were again almost no sick plants. Further I noticed again, the more the plant is exposed to normal winds outside the bigger the leaves get. The leaves of the plants outside were again almost double the size this year. Unfortunately the huge hail storm we got recently, completely destroyed all the tobacco plants that were outside this year

Thank you for bringing me to the attention of Silver River and especially the African Red tobacco plants that seem to be pretty interesting. I guess I will try the African Red tobacco plants next year (If the weather will allow it )...

 

[mada85]

I wanted to post about my personal experience with smoking, and the desire to smoke, over the past few months.

First, let me say that I considered myself a non-smoker for many years; 35 to be precise. At the same time I was eating a low fat, high carb, mostly vegetarian diet. I changed to Paleo eating nearly two years ago in response to a health crisis. The Paleo diet fixed the health crisis. Since then I've eaten Paleo with a few minor relapses, one of which occurred earlier this year. However, starting about three months ago I increased my fat consumption significantly and carbs dropped away effortlessly. I'm now eating zero carbs at breakfast, and maybe a couple of grams with lunch.

So, that's the dietary and health background.

Simultaneously with the above, I have been feeling over the past months a slowly increasing urge to smoke. I had to work on my mental programs to undo the association between health and not smoking, and my self-image as a non-smoker. This process culminated last weekend at the UK meet-up with my first cigarette (hand rolled) for 35 years. I loved it! It had profound, immediate and very noticeable effects on my body and my thinking. More clarity and effortlessness in thought. As I said to the others at the meet-up: I'm a reformed non-smoker

Anyway, my thoughts about this are that the type of diet I ate for years - low fat, high carb, largely vegetarian - may in fact mask from awareness the need to smoke. As the paleo diet, over time, undoes the damage caused by carbs, gluten and all the other evil foods, something like the need to smoke is slowly revealed to conscious awareness.

I say 'the need to smoke' because I began to feel that even though high fat consumption was satisfying on a the physical level, and gave me a stable and positive mood, I still felt that something was missing, an impression that only grew over time. That 'something' seems to be smoking. I also feel that smoking was a kind of missing link in my life path. That may sound overly dramatic but at the moment (I've just had a smoke!) that is my impression.

 

[Voyageur]

Update on the tobacco growing project. I've got 99% of the 2013 crop harvested and hanging. 100 plants, about 18 varieties. This year I bagged flower heads on most varieties for seed saving. I also built an inexpensive flue curing chamber out of a galvanized steel garbage can and a crockpot to flue cure the Virginia varieties. I also got a hand me down refrigerator kiln for regular quick aging.

As always the curing is the hardest part. Last year I had no kiln so I had to wait a year for the tobacco to age naturally, but now I can smoke my 2012 crop. I like it.

Also, for those who are thinking of growing tobacco, this year I found three varieties that don't need much aging, they taste good right away. One real interesting one is Silver River which some old farmer in Ohio had in a drawer or something. It has an intruiging minty flavor and tastes good right after drying. It seems a to be a Burley variety but it doesn't taste like Burley at all.

Then, for a flue cured Virginia style variety that doesn't need aging I grew a couple of African Red plants. They grow huge, almost 8ft tall and have a nice mild flavor and are fairly high in nicotine.

And for a tasty, quick curing Turkish variety, I would recommend Bursa.

Thanks for the update. Good going on the seed saving, too. I've also been collecting seeds, and in a norther climate, this was accelerated by what i did last year (2012 crop) with this years planting. The photo below is of a plant that did not grow well last year and was the only one not taken out by a late August unexpected frost. This plant was brought into the house and it went dormant over the winter and sprouted to life this spring. This plant grew short this year with a tree-like stock and small thick leaves (unlike a normal plant grown from seed).



You can see the seed production, and this was soon after transplanting this spring; this same plant is now back in the house to winter (full of seed pods).

The rest of the plants (Hopi seed variety), now harvested and hanging, were like this; not exceptionally tall, yet vibrant. These also produced, just prior to harvesting, very nice seed pods and i've collected probable a few thousand seed so far (they produce a lot of seeds in just one pod).

 

[Mr. Premise]

Voyageur, are you growing more than one variety? If so, you need to bag the flower heads before the flowers open, otherwise you will have cross-pollinated seeds. The bags need to be large. Some people make their own out of Agribon fabric, I bought mine online, the ones I got are called Organza bags-- they are the ones used for wedding favors.

 

[Voyageur]

Voyageur, are you growing more than one variety? If so, you need to bag the flower heads before the flowers open, otherwise you will have cross-pollinated seeds. The bags need to be large. Some people make their own out of Agribon fabric, I bought mine online, the ones I got are called Organza bags-- they are the ones used for wedding favors.

No cross-pollination, just one variety (one seed source). If i can create more growing space and try other varieties (which would be great), have definitely taken note of what you said here.

 

[SeekinTruth]

I wanted to post about my personal experience with smoking, and the desire to smoke, over the past few months.

First, let me say that I considered myself a non-smoker for many years; 35 to be precise. At the same time I was eating a low fat, high carb, mostly vegetarian diet. I changed to Paleo eating nearly two years ago in response to a health crisis. The Paleo diet fixed the health crisis. Since then I've eaten Paleo with a few minor relapses, one of which occurred earlier this year. However, starting about three months ago I increased my fat consumption significantly and carbs dropped away effortlessly. I'm now eating zero carbs at breakfast, and maybe a couple of grams with lunch.

So, that's the dietary and health background.

Simultaneously with the above, I have been feeling over the past months a slowly increasing urge to smoke. I had to work on my mental programs to undo the association between health and not smoking, and my self-image as a non-smoker. This process culminated last weekend at the UK meet-up with my first cigarette (hand rolled) for 35 years. I loved it! It had profound, immediate and very noticeable effects on my body and my thinking. More clarity and effortlessness in thought. As I said to the others at the meet-up: I'm a reformed non-smoker

Anyway, my thoughts about this are that the type of diet I ate for years - low fat, high carb, largely vegetarian - may in fact mask from awareness the need to smoke. As the paleo diet, over time, undoes the damage caused by carbs, gluten and all the other evil foods, something like the need to smoke is slowly revealed to conscious awareness.

I say 'the need to smoke' because I began to feel that even though high fat consumption was satisfying on a the physical level, and gave me a stable and positive mood, I still felt that something was missing, an impression that only grew over time. That 'something' seems to be smoking. I also feel that smoking was a kind of missing link in my life path. That may sound overly dramatic but at the moment (I've just had a smoke!) that is my impression.

Well, I've been smoking for decades and have been in ketosis since February 2011. In the last several months, I've had the "need" to smoke more than I've done over the years - some days double what I used to smoke. I smoke cigarettes and pipe which I inhale like cigarettes and get much more nicotine than cigarettes this way. Don't know exactly what it is, but seems similar to your own experience.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Voyageur, your Hopi is a Nicotiana Rustica variety. I've never tried it but I did grow two plants of another Rustica variety, Isleta Pueblo. It has a unique taste and a lot of nicotine, but honestly I would rather have grown two Nicotiana Tabacum plants in their place. The yield on Rusticas is very low. The leaves are extremely small and it flowers like crazy. I've hear that if you pull the suckers and flowers every day you can get decent sized leaves but I can't tend to them that often.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Also, I had the hardest time keeping my Rustica leaves from drying green. I ended up just letting them turn brown on the plant.

 

[Voyageur]

Also, I had the hardest time keeping my Rustica leaves from drying green. I ended up just letting them turn brown on the plant.

This is exactly true and problematical here because of frost ending the season - there is no option for them to brown other than a few casual leaves during its growth.

Voyageur, your Hopi is a Nicotiana Rustica variety. I've never tried it but I did grow two plants of another Rustica variety, Isleta Pueblo. It has a unique taste and a lot of nicotine, but honestly I would rather have grown two Nicotiana Tabacum plants in their place. The yield on Rusticas is very low. The leaves are extremely small and it flowers like crazy. I've hear that if you pull the suckers and flowers every day you can get decent sized leaves but I can't tend to them that often.

Yes, it does flower like crazy. These seeds, Nicotiana Rustica (other than options to order online) were sold semi-locally and that was all i could get. The biggest leaves were approximately 16 - 18 inches by a good 10 inches, so in comparison, not large from what i've seen. The 2011 harvest i've blended here and there with ordered leaf and it seems to tone down the harshness; kind of a sweet taste. The 2012 harvest was a non event other than the one now transplanted back into the house (kind of a long term experiment).

Thanks for the information you provided, i certainly would like to expand on varsities. Some of the blends i've ordered included Red Leaf, Maryland, Burly, Turkish, Virginian, Lemon (Canadian blend) and i do a lot of mixing to obtain something that both myself and my partner can equally share. Once in a while (for convenience when traveling) i'll buy a pack of Northfields or preferably Yuma's, yet even now with these they pale to what you can blend on your own. My biggest regret is that i never did this years ago and am very glade for the opportunity to actually, as strange as it sounds, build a relationship; tending, de-stemming, mixing, shredding etc. with the leaf or plants that you ultimately smoke.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Those leaves are actually pretty large for a Rustica. My Rustica leaves are more like 4 by 3 inches. Let us know how it tastes when you get it cured.

 

[Mr. Premise]

I just looked up Hopi and it looks like a nice variety. It says the flowers have a jasmine-like scent. That is great for a Rustica since most Rustica flowers have a cat urine scent!

 

[Voyageur]

I just looked up Hopi and it looks like a nice variety. It says the flowers have a jasmine-like scent. That is great for a Rustica since most Rustica flowers have a cat urine scent!

Oh, definitely not cat urine scented. :)

Those leaves are actually pretty large for a Rustica. My Rustica leaves are more like 4 by 3 inches. Let us know how it tastes when you get it cured.

From our local source, here is likely where the seed originated (they had a link) http://www.localharvest.org/hopi-ceremonial-tobacco-seeds-C15668

I'm not sure the variety you have, yet this one speaks to "Foliage: Very large leaves similar to a mammoth sunflower."

The plants that never really grew (transplanted back and forth), which have been the seed producers, do have leaves as you describe "4 by 3 inches" +/-. However, the one's that did grow had some nice leaves such as this one (not mammoth sunflower types), and this is small in comparison to when it was cut (best photo i had showing size).

 

[Keit]

I am reposting the link to the excellent new SOTT focus piece about smoking and pregnancy, just in case someone will miss it.
www.sott.net/article/268159-The-myth-of-smoking-during-pregnancy-being-harmful

Also, this article goes hand in hand with another article posted on SOTT that talks about many clinical trials and their results that are never shared with the public.

http://www.sott.net/article/268191-Corruption-of-science-Results-from-many-large-clinical-trials-are-never-published

Non-publication of clinical trials has been a controversial issue in recent years. In particular, industry-funded clinical trials - such as those paid for by pharmaceutical companies - have come under fire on allegations that such trials are often not published when the results are not favorable to the drug or other product being tested.

 

[MakeEmTalk]

Just a couple of bits:

I finally found an outlet for American Spirit cigarettes, and about halfway through the pack, (quite an effort to tolerate), it dawned on me that all US made cigarettes are required to have flame retardant added to cause them to go out if not toked on for a while. Defeats the whole purpose of buying American Spirit. Not sure if export versions are made elsewhere, or if the same tubes are used for export versions.

Also, for those of you using bulk tobacco, if your tobacco gets too dry, throw two chunks of citrus peel about 2" x 2" into your bag. Don't just throw them in & leave them, as they may very well over moisturize if not removed in time. Generally, it takes about two days to moisten a full pound of tobacco. Also, watch for mold on the peel itself, and remove it right away if mold is seen.

 

[mada85]

Just a couple of bits:

I finally found an outlet for American Spirit cigarettes, and about halfway through the pack, (quite an effort to tolerate), it dawned on me that all US made cigarettes are required to have flame retardant added to cause them to go out if not toked on for a while. Defeats the whole purpose of buying American Spirit. Not sure if export versions are made elsewhere, or if the same tubes are used for export versions.

Also, for those of you using bulk tobacco, if your tobacco gets too dry, throw two chunks of citrus peel about 2" x 2" into your bag. Don't just throw them in & leave them, as they may very well over moisturize if not removed in time. Generally, it takes about two days to moisten a full pound of tobacco. Also, watch for mold on the peel itself, and remove it right away if mold is seen.

I've been using these for the past few days: http://www.mysmokingshop.co.uk/index2.php?mod=catviewind&idPrd=4210

It takes about 48 hours for the tobacco in a 2oz tin to be fully moisturized using one of these blocks. I've not seen any mould developing yet.