Cold maceration of tobacco
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I have not seen this before, maybe I never looked. Today I can see tiny bubbles rising through the liquid, consistently. Anyone seen that before?
Can't say I've ever noticed a macerated tobacco outgassing beyond the initial immersion but my eyesight is certainly not what it used to be. Perhaps it's just air trapped in the tobacco being slowly displaced by the solvent?
Its bizarre, fine little bubbles here and there rising. All 3 jars are doing it. The lids aren't bulging, so it appears there is no pressure building up. Must be what you said, trapped air being displaced by solvent.
I thought that was "normal" for PGA soaks.... the batches I do at Room Temp do that, but the crockpot method doesnt.
kewl... learned something new today
kewl... learned something new today
Hullo people, I am a former pipe enthusiast and have been vaping about a year now. From time to time I have considered extracting my own liquid. There was a tobacco that I was fond of, it is called Frog Morton About Town. I loved how it smelled but never really cared for the taste, I never really cared for the taste of ANY burying foliage and that's why I vape. I have noticed that the tobacco liquids that I'm fond of now have that real "package smell". It's a good thing, the open the lid and just enjoy the aroma sort of experience. That was my favourite part of that tobacco and I'm curious if I can get the flavors I'm looking for myself. Do you think it's worth a go?
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
I used to be an avid pipe smoker as well and smoked/burned tobacco in one form or another for 40 years. In my experience the pipe blends I enjoyed "smoking" didn't impress me when it came to vaping the flavor extracted from them. For vaping, I seem to prefer the flavor extracted from stout/intense/robust pipe blends that I would never have "smoked" back in the day. It's easy and inexpensive to macerate tobacco and I have found doing so interesting, enjoyable and quite rewarding. Give it a try, what have you got to lose?
Today I began my next experiment. I'm using two Rocky Patel cigars: an Autumn Collection 2008 Churchill Connecticutt, and a Renaissance Reserve Churchill Maduro.
I cut both cigars in half, then chopped them up. The two chopped halves of each cigar went into separate maceration jars---two pairs of different style macerations, essentially. All four of the macerations will go for five days before filtering.
One pair is a room-temp maceration on my kitchen windowsill (sun-tea style). These use all-PGA (180-proof Everclear) for the solvent, about 70ml per jar, which will be 80% evaporated after steeping, and then 40ml of PG added to the concentrate to reconstitute into 54ml of finished extract. The other pair uses 120ml of 50/50 PG/VG as solvent and gets a heat-assisted 160° water bath---12 hours on, 12 off, over the entire five-day cook. The yield on those should be about 100ml.
I'll check back in five days to describe the filtering (it's a little complicated for the PGA macerations) and report on my initial comparative results for DIY NET liquids made from each of the four extracts.
I cut both cigars in half, then chopped them up. The two chopped halves of each cigar went into separate maceration jars---two pairs of different style macerations, essentially. All four of the macerations will go for five days before filtering.
One pair is a room-temp maceration on my kitchen windowsill (sun-tea style). These use all-PGA (180-proof Everclear) for the solvent, about 70ml per jar, which will be 80% evaporated after steeping, and then 40ml of PG added to the concentrate to reconstitute into 54ml of finished extract. The other pair uses 120ml of 50/50 PG/VG as solvent and gets a heat-assisted 160° water bath---12 hours on, 12 off, over the entire five-day cook. The yield on those should be about 100ml.
I'll check back in five days to describe the filtering (it's a little complicated for the PGA macerations) and report on my initial comparative results for DIY NET liquids made from each of the four extracts.
So would I! I was just talking to my dad about CT tobacco, that's where from. He says they sure are unique. I'm excited about giving this a try. The wife is onboard as well, she always enjoyed the aroma and is interested in diy of a different variety so she probably thinks this is a good way to get her supply of ingredients. What type of tobacco would you all suggest to start with?
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
Pipe Tobacco. Already blended, easy to extract, very flavorful, and a zillion choices (aromatic, non-aromatic, english).
Here are the two online vendors from which I buy all my retail pipe tobacco for extraction (in one-ounce bulk samplers):
Milan Tobacconists, Pipe Tobacco
Pipes and Cigars, Bulk Pipe Tobacco
If a certain pipe tobacco catches your fancy, google it and read user reviews. Even though the reviews are based on smoking the tobacco, not vaping it, reading reviews has been a great help to me in selecting tobaccos to extract.
The guys here are good at recommending things. I started with a pouch of roll your own cig tobacco bought locally then got the bulk samplers from pipes and cigars. Half pint jars for one ounce and 4 ounce baby food jars for a half ounce. Half ounce makes plenty of extract without wasting too much liquid if you don't like the end result. Wizard labs has good prices and free shipping over $65. I got nic in pg 500ml, pg 500 and vg 500 were around $10 each. Cheap hobby.
IIRC myfreedomsmokes has 1L VG for about 15$ and it get less expensive as the volume increases
Excellent! I'm gunna have a busy weekend
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
Bill,
Are you measuring your ml of carrier (PG, VG, PGA) to grams of Tobacco, or are you shooting from the hip? (for instance, I've just been putting enough PG in to cover the tobacco and it varies a lot- but maybe not over a 30-45 day cold maceration steep) Second question is are you seeing any loss of flavor with the 5 micron filters vs the coffee filters?
Thanks.
Thanks.
Are you measuring your ml of carrier (PG, VG, PGA) to grams of Tobacco, or are you shooting from the hip? (for instance, I've just been putting enough PG in to cover the tobacco and it varies a lot- but maybe not over a 30-45 day cold maceration steep) Second question is are you seeing any loss of flavor with the 5 micron filters vs the coffee filters?
Thanks.
Thanks.
papa,
When I started extracting 16 months ago, I measured carefully at first---half an ounce of tobacco, 120ml of PG/VG. Now I just wing it. With PG/VG as my solvent, I just pour in enough to cover the tobacco. With PGA (which is considerably more expensive, about a buck per extraction), I pour in "about" 50ml---which doesn't cover the tobacco completely---and then stir the slurry each day.
No perceived loss of flavor with my 5-micron poly felt French Press method. Doesn't mean for sure that there's isn't some sacrifice, but I haven't experienced any reduced flavor, just cleaner performance.
Dunhill's Nightcap processed for 5 days at room temperature using 90% PGA/10% PG produced a powerful full bodied flavor. Definitely the strongest, boldest most intense tobacco extract I have produced to date stripping that title from Cornell & Diehl's Billy Budd although it lacks the "cigar leaf" note I have come to like. Will process a larger batch of this one, it's a keeper.
Ok I'm trying to get the idea of things. I'd like to try out each method, the cold and hot methods are pretty straight forward. I'm very interested in the PGA method as well, in the last post it was mentioned that they used 90% PGA and 10% PG. First, just to be clear, PGA is everclear right? Second, how long do you let the tobacco sit in the mixture? Thirdly, do you have to do anything to the mixture (other that filtering it) before mixing it with VG? And lastly, what's a good ratio to start with?
I realized I'm asking a lot but I'm sure I could have asked more. I figure that knowing as much as I can about this method will fill any holes that I have with the others. If anyone wants to lay it all out step by step that would be great to. Thanks.
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
I realized I'm asking a lot but I'm sure I could have asked more. I figure that knowing as much as I can about this method will fill any holes that I have with the others. If anyone wants to lay it all out step by step that would be great to. Thanks.
This post was found in an ancient ruin, probably left by aliens.
PGA is everclear. I use that to make the first extraction. I cover the tobacco with the PGA and let soak cold for a week or 2, In hot mode, I use a crockpot on the warm seting at 120-130F for 18-36 hours. I also found that gently swirling the mixture keeps the tobacco from releasing cellular debris ( the PGA stays "clear" but darkens). Once the time decided passes, I then reduce (in a jar in a crockpot on med-hi setting140-150F) the volume of the filtered PGA to approx 10-20% of original volume. I let it cool and filter again thru coffie filters. This second filtering removes some of the oils that are condensed during the reduction process. The oils are non soluable in VG, dont know if they are in PG. The final reduced extract is added to VG ( my preference) at about 10-25% for my taste preferences along with nic base to about 20mg/ml strength.
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