Cold maceration of tobacco

[johni]

After trying a couple of different methods, a room temperature soak in 100% PG has yielded the best results.

I buy 1 ounce packages of pipe or RYO tobacco, empty it into half pint mason jars, cover with PG (usually 100 to 130 ml, depending on the cut of the tobacco), screw on the lids and let it soak 3 or 4 weeks. I gently roll the jars occasionally but don't shake vigorously to avoid creating small particulates. Takes a while but very easy process. I draw off small samples to test after a couple of weeks.

Filtration of the extract to a less than gunky state has been the most challenging part but I have arrived at a process that works for me. First I remove the bulk tobacco by running through a stainless mesh strainer (Walmart). Next through unbleached coffee filters, then 11 micron lab filter paper, and lastly through 6 micron lab filter paper. Straining this much extract through a syringe is a pain and I like the results from the lab filters (Amazon) better. I use the 15 cm round filters and fold them to fit into a small funnel. I haven't tried any VG extract through the 6 micron filters but 50/50 PG/VG went through the 11 micron very slowly, so for me PG filters much more easily and cleanly.

Extract from this method is lighter in color and filters easier than extract from any heat method I have tried. I like the flavor better and it is cleaner on the coils. 20 to 25% extract in the finished juice gives bold tobacco flavor, 10 to 15% for very mild flavor. Some steeping improves the final product.

 

[molimelight]

Thanks for this! I was curious if you've ever done a nicotine level test on it and if so what the results were.

M-I-Z

 

[johni]

Thanks for this! I was curious if you've ever done a nicotine level test on it and if so what the results were.

M-I-Z

Z-O-U!

I have not done a nic test on the finished extract. Others have and it is generally accepted that NET extracts contain relatively small amounts of nicotine. I mix my juice at 12 mg so an extra point or so is of no consequence.

Have you been to any of the vape meets in Columbia?

 

[Burnie]

After trying a couple of different methods, a room temperature soak in 100% PG has yielded the best results.

I buy 1 ounce packages of pipe or RYO tobacco, empty it into half pint mason jars, cover with PG (usually 100 to 130 ml, depending on the cut of the tobacco), screw on the lids and let it soak 3 or 4 weeks. I gently roll the jars occasionally but don't shake vigorously to avoid creating small particulates. Takes a while but very easy process. I draw off small samples to test after a couple of weeks.

Filtration of the extract to a less than gunky state has been the most challenging part but I have arrived at a process that works for me. First I remove the bulk tobacco by running through a stainless mesh strainer (Walmart). Next through unbleached coffee filters, then 11 micron lab filter paper, and lastly through 6 micron lab filter paper. Straining this much extract through a syringe is a pain and I like the results from the lab filters (Amazon) better. I use the 15 cm round filters and fold them to fit into a small funnel. I haven't tried any VG extract through the 6 micron filters but 50/50 PG/VG went through the 11 micron very slowly, so for me PG filters much more easily and cleanly.

Extract from this method is lighter in color and filters easier than extract from any heat method I have tried. I like the flavor better and it is cleaner on the coils. 20 to 25% extract in the finished juice gives bold tobacco flavor, 10 to 15% for very mild flavor. Some steeping improves the final product.

I do about the same thing but use "USA Virginia Flue Cured Tobacco" from Tobacco Leaf Samples - leafonly.com (just click add to cart, if you click the name it takes you to 1lb packages). I have made over 250ml of extract and have not used 1/8 lb of leaf. With freight it was under $10 to me here in Florida. Nice tobacco'ish flavor. I add just a touch of coffee extract to my mix, really improves the flavor and you don't really taste coffee, which I make the same way as the tobacco extract. I figure it cost me pennies per ml to make my own juice, and it taste better than any I have ordered. Keep on DIY....

Vape On

 

[Chinook]

Thanks for sharing. So far I've only tasted various heat extracted batches I made. I'm looking forward to sampling my first cold extracted soon.

My last heat extracted liquid smelled pretty good but the ongoing cold maceration seems to have more interesting aromas in it.

Have you had the GeJ Natural Perique? If you had, how does yours compare to that?

 

[johni]

Thanks for sharing. So far I've only tasted various heat extracted batches I made. I'm looking forward to sampling my first cold extracted soon.

My last heat extracted liquid smelled pretty good but the ongoing cold maceration seems to have more interesting aromas in it.

Have you had the GeJ Natural Perique? If you had, how does yours compare to that?

My heat extractions are OK but feel like I've gotten a cleaner taste with the cold soak. I think my crock pot may get a bit too hot for optimal heat extraction.

I have tried and like GeJ Natural Perique. The sample batch of Perique that I mixed up has more flavor. One of the nice things about making your own extract is you can bump the flavor intensity up or down by varying the percentage of extract used in your juice.

 

[molimelight]

Z-O-U!

I have not done a nic test on the finished extract. Others have and it is generally accepted that NET extracts contain relatively small amounts of nicotine. I mix my juice at 12 mg so an extra point or so is of no consequence.

Have you been to any of the vape meets in Columbia?

I haven't yet, but I plan to go, later in the winter when things slow down for me. I just have a lot going on right now. During the winter I tend to be a home body anyway, so it will take an effort, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I'm just glad some establishments are sponsoring them considering how "regulated" this town is about everything.

I'm going to have to try some of the extractions like you have, down the line when I start DIY. Right now I'm lurking different threads and blogging some of them to save for the future. I've still got a lot to learn before I sink the money into the supplies, etc.

 

[johni]

I haven't yet, but I plan to go, later in the winter when things slow down for me. I just have a lot going on right now. During the winter I tend to be a home body anyway, so it will take an effort, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I'm just glad some establishments are sponsoring them considering how "regulated" this town is about everything.

I'm going to have to try some of the extractions like you have, down the line when I start DIY. Right now I'm lurking different threads and blogging some of them to save for the future. I've still got a lot to learn before I sink the money into the supplies, etc.

I'd be glad to share some of my juice and give you my two cents on supplies if you'd like to meet up sometime. I'm pretty much a homebody this time of year also.

 

[billherbst]

My heat extractions are OK but feel like I've gotten a cleaner taste with the cold soak. I think my crock pot may get a bit too hot for optimal heat extraction.

johni,

I use heat in making my natural tobacco extracts, but I don't "cook" them. My heat-assisted extractions are done using a big pasta pot filled with water into which I place the sealed jars containing macerated suspensions (1 oz. tobacco in 150mls of 60/40 PG/VG). I do four at a time and don't cover the jars entirely with water---they're only about 2/3 submerged. I keep the heat on the burner at the lowest setting, so that the water is slightly steamy, but less hot than a simmer and with no bubbling, so that the water is very still. I haven't checked with a thermometer, but I'd guess the temperature of the water to be somewhere around 180°. If the jars begin to "jiggle" a bit, I take that as a sign that the heat is too high and turn off the burner for 20 minutes or so.

I do six hours with heat on, then six off, and repeat that cycle four times over two days, then filter.

I don't stir or shake the macerations, because---as you wrote---I don't want to inadvertently increase the amount of tiny particulates. All in all, my process is very gentle.

I've read elsewhere that 100% PG is best for cold maceration, and that makes sense to me.

Maybe sometime I'll do a cold-process and a heat-assisted maceration of the same tobacco to see what the differences are in the taste of the finished extract and subsequent DIY NET juice. So far, I haven't had the patience to do any cold macerations. I started two of them, but they never made it to the two-week mark, much less the one month I'd originally intended. I kept opening the cupboard and looking at them every couple days, but after two weeks, the liquid had hardly darkened at all, so I bagged it and finished the extractions by adding some VG and using my heat-assisted method.

 

[Chinook]

I haven't yet, but I plan to go, later in the winter when things slow down for me. I just have a lot going on right now. During the winter I tend to be a home body anyway, so it will take an effort, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I'm just glad some establishments are sponsoring them considering how "regulated" this town is about everything.

I'm going to have to try some of the extractions like you have, down the line when I start DIY. Right now I'm lurking different threads and blogging some of them to save for the future. I've still got a lot to learn before I sink the money into the supplies, etc.

I started with minimal supplies from vaporshots:

Flavorless Nicotine Liquid & Supplies for Wholesale & DIY e Liquid

I spent about $30, enough stuff to do about $400 mL of juice:



I also use 2 regular shot glasses and a tall one to rest the syringes in. That way the syringe can be used as a measuring cylinder. You'll also need some glass jars with lids. I use 8 ounce glass jars leftover from these:

Superior Touch

The jars have straight wall and tight fitting metal lids. By the way, these make pretty good chicken broth too. At least as good if not better then the organic/natural boxed ones

 

[Rickajho]

johni,

I use heat in making my natural tobacco extracts, but I don't "cook" them. My heat-assisted extractions are done using a big pasta pot filled with water into which I place the sealed jars containing macerated suspensions (1 oz. tobacco in 150mls of 60/40 PG/VG). I do four at a time and don't cover the jars entirely with water---they're only about 2/3 submerged. I keep the heat on the burner at the lowest setting, so that the water is slightly steamy, but less hot than a simmer and with no bubbling, so that the water is very still. I haven't checked with a thermometer, but I'd guess the temperature of the water to be somewhere around 180°. If the jars begin to "jiggle" a bit, I take that as a sign that the heat is too high and turn off the burner for 20 minutes or so.

I do six hours with heat on, then six off, and repeat that cycle four times over two days, then filter.

I don't stir or shake the macerations, because---as you wrote---I don't want to inadvertently increase the amount of tiny particulates. All in all, my process is very gentle.

I've read elsewhere that 100% PG is best for cold maceration, and that makes sense to me.

Maybe sometime I'll do a cold-process and a heat-assisted maceration of the same tobacco to see what the differences are in the taste of the finished extract and subsequent DIY NET juice. So far, I haven't had the patience to do any cold macerations. I started two of them, but they never made it to the two-week mark, much less the one month I'd originally intended. I kept opening the cupboard and looking at them every couple days, but after two weeks, the liquid had hardly darkened at all, so I bagged it and finished the extractions by adding some VG and using my heat-assisted method.

I don't know if this helps any, but as someone who cooks just getting into DIY a couple things occur to me:

I read some of the crock pot thread but that starts with a couple not-so-great techniques and wanders right into extracting from just about anything you could think of. Things like using open containers in the crock pot - not great technique there.

If you do want to use a method to apply low levels of controlled heat for any time period you choose, a crock put is still a great idea. But it should be in closed glass containers put into water as you are using with the stock pot on the stove. If the jars are short enough your maximum high temperature of water in the pot with the lid on will be about 200 degrees - but won't go near the boiling point. If you can't put the lid in place the max temperature will be significantly lower than that. On low setting with lid on you will get to 165-175 degrees. Lid off - much lower. You could test the water temp on a Crock Pot with a Warm setting position and that might only get the water up to 140 degrees.

If the jars are too tall to fit with the lid on the maximum temps you will achieve will be significantly lower - for better or for worse. You would need to check the temp of the water bath to see if you will get anything helpful. I know you don't want to aggressively heat these macerations but this would be the extreme opposite of that with the cover off, just short of not heating at all.

The point I'm getting at is you can have a very controlled warm water bath for the jars if you think the warming is beneficial - for as long or short a period of time as you like. Without needing to be concerned about overheating.

Anyway it's an option - but please don't use open coffee mugs to do it.

The other thing that occurs to me is why aren't y'all tying up the tobbacco in cheesecloth - a la bouquet garni - in order to help minimize particulates getting into the liquid. And to just make separating the tobacco from the liquid and filtering a lot simpler/easier.

Just thinking out loud here.

 

[johni]

johni,

I use heat in making my natural tobacco extracts, but I don't "cook" them. My heat-assisted extractions are done using a big pasta pot filled with water into which I place the sealed jars containing macerated suspensions (1 oz. tobacco in 150mls of 60/40 PG/VG). I do four at a time and don't cover the jars entirely with water---they're only about 2/3 submerged. I keep the heat on the burner at the lowest setting, so that the water is slightly steamy, but less hot than a simmer and with no bubbling, so that the water is very still. I haven't checked with a thermometer, but I'd guess the temperature of the water to be somewhere around 180°. If the jars begin to "jiggle" a bit, I take that as a sign that the heat is too high and turn off the burner for 20 minutes or so.

I do six hours with heat on, then six off, and repeat that cycle four times over two days, then filter.

I don't stir or shake the macerations, because---as you wrote---I don't want to inadvertently increase the amount of tiny particulates. All in all, my process is very gentle.

I've read elsewhere that 100% PG is best for cold maceration, and that makes sense to me.

Maybe sometime I'll do a cold-process and a heat-assisted maceration of the same tobacco to see what the differences are in the taste of the finished extract and subsequent DIY NET juice. So far, I haven't had the patience to do any cold macerations. I started two of them, but they never made it to the two-week mark, much less the one month I'd originally intended. I kept opening the cupboard and looking at them every couple days, but after two weeks, the liquid had hardly darkened at all, so I bagged it and finished the extractions by adding some VG and using my heat-assisted method.

Bill, I have read with great interest everything you have written about extracting tobaccos. I am happily approaching your level of satisfaction with home made juice and if I order juice from a vendor, it's out of curiosity or for variety. If you would like to try any of my cold extracts, let me know. One of them is the Sultans Blend you heat extracted and it is very good. Scratches the same itch as MOV Southern Gentleman which is one of my favorites. Thank you for shining the light for so many of us.

 

[Chinook]

johni, in your first post you mentioned that you put 1 ounce of tobacco in 100-130 mL of PG. If we take the 130mL case that gives us (using 28.4 gr. of tobacco) :

tobacco per volume of PG = 0.22 gr/mL

In my cold extraction case, I have an extract from 2 ASO cigarettes in 30 mL of PG. I estimate the tobacco weight as 2 x 0.9 gr = 1.8 gr. I have:

tobacco per volume of PG = 0.06 gr/mL

If these numbers are correct, your macerations are about 4x more potent than mine. My maceration had some tobacco almost peaking out of the top of the mixture and looked pretty full with tobacco. I assume your jars are very packed with tobacco, almost with no free PG floating around, right?

My extract by itself smelled pretty good just about right. I made a 25% juice out of it. I'll let that steep for a while. I think that juice might be too diluted though.

You mentioned that you liked the 25% extract juices for their bold tobacco flavor. For my case, that strength corresponds to about 100% extract for similar amount of [grams tobacco / PG Volume]. I should mix up different % NET extract juices and find the "sweet ratio".

Cheers.

 

[Veritas Obscurum]

You guys are just making me want to dive into the literature and get this whole nicotine extraction down to a T. I've got some predictions, mainly that a hot extraction would increase solubility, stirbar is okay and actually encouraged since you use those nano filters to remove the fine particulates, and 100% PG is a superior solvent.

 

[Chinook]

You guys are just making me want to dive into the literature and get this whole nicotine extraction down to a T. I've got some predictions, mainly that a hot extraction would increase solubility, stirbar is okay and actually encouraged since you use those nano filters to remove the fine particulates, and 100% PG is a superior solvent.

Do you mean tobacco extraction or nicotine? Nicotine extraction is a completely different process from what I know.

One will get "more" from hot extraction but the question is if overall tobacco taste be better and more nuanced. Perhaps the hot extract also brings out more vegetable/bitter etc. qualities from the leaves and mask some of the tobacco nuances. Or maybe hot extract is better in terms of a satisfying tobacco vape. Anyways, that's why the OP and also myself is experimenting with cold extraction.

 

[johni]

johni, in your first post you mentioned that you put 1 ounce of tobacco in 100-130 mL of PG. If we take the 130mL case that gives us (using 28.4 gr. of tobacco) :

tobacco per volume of PG = 0.22 gr/mL

In my cold extraction case, I have an extract from 2 ASO cigarettes in 30 mL of PG. I estimate the tobacco weight as 2 x 0.9 gr = 1.8 gr. I have:

tobacco per volume of PG = 0.06 gr/mL

If these numbers are correct, your macerations are about 4x more potent than mine. My maceration had some tobacco almost peaking out of the top of the mixture and looked pretty full with tobacco. I assume your jars are very packed with tobacco, almost with no free PG floating around, right?

My extract by itself smelled pretty good just about right. I made a 25% juice out of it. I'll let that steep for a while. I think that juice might be too diluted though.

You mentioned that you liked the 25% extract juices for their bold tobacco flavor. For my case, that strength corresponds to about 100% extract for similar amount of [grams tobacco / PG Volume]. I should mix up different % NET extract juices and find the "sweet ratio".

Cheers.

I quit measuring the PG but think the numbers are right. I just add until the tobacco is covered. One of the tobaccos I did last time seemed to soak up more PG so I added a little til submerged again. You just have to play with inclusion rates to get the flavor intensity where you want it. If you vaped straight extract, it's still cheaper so whatever tastes good works!

Veritas, this method extracts lots of flavor from tobacco but very little nicotine.

 

[Chinook]

Thanks johni.

 

[johni]

After steeping the first juices I made with this method, I am very happy with the results. Three out of three are winners! How clean they are on coils remains to be determined but so far they seem pretty clean.

 

[Chinook]

After steeping the first juices I made with this method, I am very happy with the results. Three out of three are winners! How clean they are on coils remains to be determined but so far they seem pretty clean.

Congratulations! How long have you steeped them for? I have a juice steeping 4-5 days so far.

 

[johni]

Congratulations! How long have you steeped them for? I have a juice steeping 4-5 days so far.

Only a week so far so I expect them to to get even better!