Time to report about my most recent batch of cigar extractions. This batch of macerations spent five days in a warm water bath, with the water temperature strictly monitored to 130° F, then were filtered using my single-pass, dual-stage wire-mesh/5-micron poly felt French Press method:
Carlos Torano Casa Torano
Toranos private house blend cigar; Dominican and Nicaraguan long-fillers wrapped in a golden-brown Ecuadorian-grown Connecticut shade wrapper; extremely complex flavors: subtle spice, creamy sweetness, a peppery earthiness; bold yet soft.
La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero
Dominican longfiller and binder leaves finished in silky Ecuadorian wrappers that shimmer with a dark and oily patina; flavors of wood and coffee bean dominate with sweet notes on a long, spicy finish.
Alec Bradley Tempus
The Habano-seed wrapper hails from a small tobacco field located on the border of Nicaragua and Honduras, capturing the rich, hearty flavors of Honduras. This leaf is dark and leathery, and conceals a complex mixture of Cuban-seed long-fillers grown in both Nicaragua and Honduras. The cigar explodes with rich, but smooth flavors noting toasted wood and nuts. The finish is long and peppery with an enjoyable sweetness.
Brick House Robusto Natural
Specially aged Nicaraguan tobaccos with hearty Havana Subido wrapper leaves, with flavors of White pepper, wood (oak), grass, and spice.
PDR 1878 Cubano Especial Capa Maduro
Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper, Dominincan Criollo binder and a carefully crafted mix of Nicaraguan and Dominican criollo fillers. This medium-bodied selection opens with a hearty, dark maduro wrapper that will warm you to the core. Earthy flavors with just a hint of sweetness.
When I finished the five extracts on June 4th and made up small-bottle samples of DIY liquid from each extract, I was initially a bit disappointed. Compared to my first batch of five cigars, which had spent three days in a warm water bath, but at higher water temps (140°-170°), this second batch seemed sort of tame at first vape. The new juices had nice flavor, but it was milder, and the juices didn't provide nearly as much cigar whomp as the first batch.
Now, ten days later, those juices have had a little steeping time, and---man, oh man---what a difference! Real cigar impact has showed up in spades---now the five new juices proudly announce their heritage as
CIGARS. In addition, the flavors are deepening wonderfully, with the individual character of each cigar becoming stronger and more distinct. Looks like the longer steep duration at a lower temperature worked very well for these macerations. And the 5-micron French Press filtering has insured nearly squeaky-clean performance.
Since we're all so new at tobacco extractions, relatively speaking---I've been at this for 15 months now, with 36 extractions under my belt so far---conclusions we draw about all the various aspects of maceration and filtering are still tentative and largely anecdotal at best. That doesn't stop us from coming up with generalizations based on our experience, of course. LOL. So far, it seems to me that cigar macerations, at least the way I do them, tend to produce extracts that provide cleaner performance. Pipe tobaccos appear to be inherently gunkier in their effects on coils/wicks.
I've read some posts on this or the other home-extraction threads suggesting that "casings"---flavorings that are sprayed onto the tobacco leaves or otherwise added in liquid form before or during curing---are responsible for some of the gunking, since the sugars in the infused flavorings may burn or caramelize during atomization. That makes sense, but in my tobacco research I've also read that, with precious few exceptions (such as specialty organic tobacco sold by the leaf), almost
all tobacco is cased, and that it's not a question of
whether a given tobacco is cased, but rather
with what and
how much. So, I'd speculate that most pipe tobaccos may be more heavily-cased than cigars.
Also, I imagine that how the cured tobacco is processed contributes to gunking proclivity. Cigars tend to use whole leaves compared to pipe and RYO tobaccos, which are usually cut into various styles---flake or broken flake, curly, plug, ribbon, rope, and shag. Seems to me that chopping the leaves during processing would naturally increase the disintegration of particulates into the solvent during maceration, since cells in the leaf that that are on a cut edge seem more likely to lose their integrity and "break off" into the suspension.
For instance, Boomer's careful dissection/unwrapping of cigars may or may not make a difference in terms of flavor absorption---I'm a bit dubious about the effects of "layering" in the maceration---but I think his process could very well lend itself to a cleaner extract liquid. I chop up my cigars, but even so, I still end up with "half-inch leaf squares," which still have more integrity than any pipe blend or RYO tobacco.
But then, I'm still learning about tobacco, with a long way to go, so take my assumptions with a grain of salt.