Natural Tobaccos - Part Deux

[Jerms]

Have you noticed any difference with the spring coil you built?

I can't really compare the gunking because the Veritas it's on is just so different, plus I have the extra wick going over the top. I'd have to set up one of my regular drippers with a spring to see if I notice a difference. So I can't say anything definitive, just that this set-up has been gunking at normal speed.

I reported good results with my current Veritas build, but it hasn't turned out to be consistent in performance or flavor. I plan on rebuilding it soon with the same compact, horizontal, micro coil I use in everything else to see if I can get consistant results.

One thing I don't like about the large spring is I notice the battery drop much sooner. Compact micros have the benefit of heating up quicker at lower power. With micros, when I decide change the batt it usually tests about 3.75-3.8 volts. With the large spring, I've been changing at 3.9-4 volts, so much less vape time.

I don't plan on doing any more testing with larger diameter coils or spaced wraps; they're just not for me.

 

[Jerms]

I am with you. Yes, in sweet flavors (like I have experienced recently with 5P's Queenside) you can have darkening of a wick and coil -- but that's not quite gunk. I'd be willing to bet if I let the coil go indefinitely that it would eventually turn to enough build-up that it would be legitimately gunk, but for the amount of time we are talking about where we would experience the dreaded gunk, it, IMO, is a matter of tobacco matter, not necessarily flavorings added.

I've heard it repeatedly said how Boba's Bounty is a notorious gunker. I found that odd, because I've vaped a lot of that stuff and never had gunking issues with it. Then I see them complain because they can only get like 15-20ml or 4-6 tankfuls and I realize, they just have a different definition of gunker than I do lol. If I can get 5ml out of a NET I consider it clean.

 

[MFToms59]

You picked up a liter of MFS on sale, eh? Good for you. I was sorely tempted... That ought to be enough for awhile, right? So, I haven't pulled the trigger and remain hopeful that common sense will continue to prevail.

I feel like a light-weight, a frozen liter of Nude Nicotine, a fresh liter of MFS, and slightly more than ~.5 liter of Heartland, refrigerated. I can't believe I've been mixing and vaping ~98% of my own for the last 11 months @14-18mg/ml and still have that much Heartland left. On top of that I've been mixing for three other Vapers for the last 6 months, anywhere from 6mg to 18 mg juices, 50ml at a time... this stuff goes a looooonnng waaaayy!

Oh... don't do it

 

[Mr.Mann]

I've heard it repeatedly said how Boba's Bounty is a notorious gunker. I found that odd, because I've vaped a lot of that stuff and never had gunking issues with it. Then I see them complain because they can only get like 15-20ml or 4-6 tankfuls and I realize, they just have a different definition of gunker than I do lol. If I can get 5ml out of a NET I consider it clean.

That almost reminds me of a time when I went to a, uh, "meeting." I realized afterward, oh snap, there is a difference! We're talkin' two different things. My problem was more like vaping Boba's Bounty in an Evod, but I was trying to connect with those that vaped Walker Tobacco Alternatives in a carto! Yeah, I drank my coffee and went on my way. No judgement, but I went on my way.

 

[MikeNice81]

I spent the day vaping MVJ's Cohiba Red Dot on an Evod 2 wicked with cotton/hemp hybrid wicks. At 2 ohms on an Evod battery, it was good stuff. Dark earth, dark tobacco, some pepper and just a smooth creamy delivery made up the flavor. However, with the Covina the sum is greater than the parts. It is definitely a repurchase. It was a very satisfying vape flavor. I wish I had some four month old Cohiba sitting around because this won't make it

 

[sir_puffs_alot]

where is hurricane vapor on here they have the best tobacs i have ever tried....i especially like the sunset Cavendish. Honey, oak chips, and Cavendish tobac. The20 year old scotch of eliquid

 

[Jerms]

where is hurricane vapor on here they have the best tobacs i have ever tried....i especially like the sunset Cavendish. Honey, oak chips, and Cavendish tobac. The20 year old scotch of eliquid

They aren't listed here because this is a thread for natural tobaccos, and as far as I know Hurricane uses synthetic flavors for their tobaccos.

 

[papabogart]

They aren't listed here because this is a thread for natural tobaccos, and as far as I know Hurricane uses synthetic flavors for their tobaccos.

What is

"tobacco flavor ... which is mild-strong in delivery"?

 

[boomerdude]

Mixed it fresh when I sent it to you Dusty. That one is fairly good isn't it. Sometimes it's the ones you don't expect much from that turn out to be a diamond in the rough.

You gotta try Boomer's Ramon Bueso. Not sure how old the extract is for that, but it's an amazing cigar vape.

 

[Mr.Mann]

Not poking fun at anyone, but I don't think this thread will ever see a day when someone doesn't make a post like that! Man, some things will never change.

 

[Jerms]

What is

"tobacco flavor ... which is mild-strong in delivery"?

Who cares, as long as it has a harsh-smooth hit.

 

[billherbst]

The last time I tried the coffee press there was liquid seeping from the sides of the plunger. The other factor may be how hot the maceration was.

sandman,

If you're using the McMaster-Carr 5-micron poly felt, did you cut your circular disk 1/4" larger than the inner diameter of the carafe? That way, when you put the plunger into the carafe, the extra 1/8" "ring" of felt that's outside the wire mesh folds upwards and hugs the sides of the carafe. That's what I do, and---after filtering 14 macerations with the French Press---I've not had any liquid come through at or around the edge of the filter pad along the inner wall of the carafe.

For whatever it's worth, I always let my heat-assisted macerations cool completely back to room temperature before filtering. Can't tell you exactly why, but somehow hot or warm solvent and filtering never felt right to me. That might be completely bogus, though. Maybe filtering warm liquid suspensions has a long and honorable tradition.

 

[boomerdude]

With that monicker I pictured a guy running uphill on a long flight of stairs with a bottle of Scotch as a baton, passing it off to the downhill runner.

No offence intended. Just mildly-hard hitting humor to me..

Not poking fun at anyone, but I don't think this thread will ever see a day when someone doesn't make a post like that! Man, some things will never change.

 

[clnire]

Being the newby in the home extractors group, I let my heat assisted macerations cool overnight +. The first filter I cut to the size of the press filter but when I tried it in the press (empty carafe) I realized the maceration would leak through the sides. Next cut was about 1/8 or more larger and the filter folded up the sides over the press filter. Tried it and it worked so cut a few more using that one as a pattern and had no leakage on any of my filterings no matter how hard I pressed to get every last drop I could.

 

[billherbst]

I disagree, I think it is indeed the tobacco particulates that cause gunk build-up NETs, moreso than sugars in my experience. There are of course gunky non-tobaccos, but even the very sweet ones like Bounty Hunter are much cleaner than NETs for me. The steam-distilled ones from HHV and Ahlusion are very clean, almost as clean as synthetics, even with Ahlusion's Caramel Wild Wood's sweet and rich caramel it's still a clean juice.

Oh boy, here's my chance to play devil's advocate, and a completely-uninformed devil's advocate, as well! You know, all theory and speculation, no fact.

You're assuming that all sweeteners are equal in their propensity to burn against a hot coil and leave carbon residue. Are you sure? The natural sugars in tobacco could be significantly different molecules than the artificial sweeteners contained in lab-based flavorings. Natural sugars might burn, while alcohol-based sweeteners, such as ethyl maltol, might not even caramelize. How many synthetic flavorings use natural sugars as sweeteners? I'll bet not many. Also, does steam-distillation extract the natural sugars from the tobacco along with the flavor elements?

I've always assumed that particulates in macerated extracts were the main culprit in coil-crusting/wick-gunking. I still believe that's probably true. Recently, however, in a post about the limits of finer filtering to produce macerated extracts with squeaky-clean performance, Johni referred to sugars in the tobacco that are too small to filter, but will nonetheless caramelize on coils/wicks with nasty results. So, this discussion is really his fault. LOL.

 

[sandman97289]

sandman,

If you're using the McMaster-Carr 5-micron poly felt, did you cut your circular disk 1/4" larger than the inner diameter of the carafe? That way, when you put the plunger into the carafe, the extra 1/8" "ring" of felt that's outside the wire mesh folds upwards and hugs the sides of the carafe. That's what I do, and---after filtering 14 macerations with the French Press---I've not had any liquid come through at or around the edge of the filter pad along the inner wall of the carafe.

For whatever it's worth, I always let my heat-assisted macerations cool completely back to room temperature before filtering. Can't tell you exactly why, but somehow hot or warm solvent and filtering never felt right to me. That might be completely bogus, though. Maybe filtering warm liquid suspensions has a long and honorable tradition.

Hey man I'm willing to give anything a try. I'm experimenting with macerations just as everyone else is

Yes I do have the McMaster-Carr 5-micron poly felt, thank you for that tip! What I did was first take the maceration through just a coffee filter that I put in the french press. I let that steep for 1 week thinking that it would provide a more flavorful extract. I then loaded the extract into a 12ml syringe and squirted it through the 5 micron filter.

The thing is that after my 48 hour initial maceration all of the extracts were very dark in color even after the first filter. That's what made me think that I may have just turned up the temperatures too high. Higher temperatures make it easier for sugars to dissolve and also higher rate of convection could mean that finer particulates may get released. I don't know, I may just be thinking out of my right now

Will definitely give the 5 micron filter in the french press a shot on this next batch though

 

[Jerms]

Tonight I've been dripping RBFS's Petner's Pipe in a Delasco rayon wicked Atomic.

I was fairly surprised by this. I was guessing it would be more heavely cased like Pirate's and Caven Feven, but it's not. The flavoring it's been topped or cased with is playing a pretty minor role. It's more like Fab&Burley than Pirates, but the tobacco's added flavors are more subtle than the vanilla in F&B. After a couple hours I detect what I think is raisin, but no rum yet.

The tobaccos are Virginia and Burley. It's stronger than the tobacco in F&B, about a medium in tobacco impact. It's leafy, a touch nutty, and overall a pretty dry sweetness level. The raisin and rum seem to modify the tobacco instead of having their own presence. That may change during future sessions and as it steeps, but I have no idea.

I was underwhelmed at first, a big reason being I was expecting stronger rum and raisin flavors with a sweetness instead of this drier pipe tobacco, but it grew on me fairly quick because it's a very solid tobacco flavor. Petner's Pipe doesn't have the unique flavor I was preparing myself for, but there is something different going on under the surface. It'll be an easy one to grab for, and will be fun to see what layers and subtleties may be revealed in time.

 

[Jerms]

Oh boy, here's my chance to play devil's advocate, and a completely-uninformed devil's advocate, as well! You know, all theory and speculation, no fact.

You're assuming that all sweeteners are equal in their propensity to burn against a hot coil and leave carbon residue. Are you sure? The natural sugars in tobacco could be significantly different molecules than the artificial sweeteners contained in lab-based flavorings. Natural sugars might burn, while alcohol-based sweeteners, such as ethyl maltol, might not even caramelize. How many synthetic flavorings use natural sugars as sweeteners? I'll bet not many. Also, does steam-distillation extract the natural sugars from the tobacco along with the flavor elements?

I've always assumed that particulates in macerated extracts were the main culprit in coil-crusting/wick-gunking. I still believe that's probably true. Recently, however, in a post about the limits of finer filtering to produce macerated extracts with squeaky-clean performance, Johni referred to sugars in the tobacco that are too small to filter, but will nonetheless caramelize on coils/wicks with nasty results. So, this discussion is really his fault. LOL.

I thought about that too, the sugars in tobacco possibly reacting quite different to our coils than sweetners in off the shelf flavorings. But... I still speculate that non-sugary particulates are by far the main offender of our gunked coils.

Maybe others have noticed that sweeter tobaccos gunk quicker than drier ones, but I haven't on any difinitive level. Some of the driest vapes have been the gunkiest (as in W2V's London, Paris, Louisville, etc.). Another example being how MOV's Apache gunks quicker than the much sweeter Hey Jack. Also, the home brews I've received seem to gunk the same depending on the extracter and not the sweetness of the NET.

I'm also just speculating based on limited knowledge of the area and my own personal experience with my own personal equipment and vaping style. The sugars in the tobaccos could very well have a bigger impact on coils than I'm theorizing. As Billy Joel says, you may be wrong for all I know but you may be right.

 

[billherbst]

I thought about that too, the sugars in tobacco possibly reacting quite different to our coils than sweetners in off the shelf flavorings. But... I still speculate that non-sugary particulates are by far the main offender of our gunked coils.

Maybe others have noticed that sweeter tobaccos gunk quicker than drier ones, but I haven't on any difinitive level. Some of the driest vapes have been the gunkiest (as in W2V's London, Paris, Louisville, etc.). Another example being how MOV's Apache gunks quicker than the much sweeter Hey Jack. Also, the home brews I've received seem to gunk the same depending on the extracter and not the sweetness of the NET.

I'm also just speculating based on limited knowledge of the area and my own personal experience with my own personal equipment and vaping style. The sugars in the tobaccos could very well have a bigger impact on coils than I'm theorizing. As Billy Joel says, you may be wrong for all I know but you may be right.

Jerms,

My experience parallels yours, with the possible exception that I'm even less certain of the validity of my conclusions than you seem to be.

When I read Johni's post---I can't remember what thread he posted it in, one of the home extractor threads probably---it was literally the first time I'd been exposed to the idea that sugars might cause gunking. Now, I trust that Johni has his head screwed on straight, so I took in what he wrote in one bite, and with less than my usual skepticism. What you and I have been tossing around in this exchange is a sort of backtracking to run the presumption through various reality checks, with the caveat that both of us acknowledge uncertainty about what's "real."

At this point, I'm inclined to go with your point of view. If sugars do cause gunking and carbon build-up, I'm guessing that they contribute to those effects in only a very minor way. Particulates and other organic compounds that leech into the maceration solvent from the tobacco still seem to me the most likely suspect on which to pin the crime.

In that vein, I just re-coiled/wicked the heads of five Evod-style clearos that I've been using on Vision Spinner clones and iTaste V3 batteries for my best homemade cigar NETs. I didn't bother dry-burning the coils, since they were all heavily crusted, and anyway I had 50 pre-made coil/wick assemblies (NR-R-NR 32ga wire, 1.5 ohms) from Fasttech all ready to go. Rebuilding the Evod heads by swapping out the coils and flavor wicks was almost as fast as dry-burning, with much better results. The restoration of flavor and uptick in vapor production were instantaneous and quite dramatic. The old coils and flavor wicks lasted for about a month of moderate daily vaping (maybe 10 minutes per day on average), but probably should have been changed a week or two ago.

Thing is, my cigar extracts are really fairly clean performers, relatively speaking. Just goes to show that macerated NETs require at least periodic and often frequent coil/wick maintenance. But so what? Changing coils and wicks is a small price to pay for the delicious experience that good macerated NETs offer.

 

[PaulBHC]

FWIW my wife's dark chocolate peanut butter cup crusts up coils faster than my home NETs. The dry burn gives a glowing red glob that takes a while to go out. Takes a couple of cycles before it ashes.