SnusX Bucket - bulk snus, add your own flavours (formerly 'Make your own snus')

[TWISTED VICTOR]

I'm actually leaning harder towards just using leaf. The buckets are fermented and I was looking for long term storage right off the bat. Thats why I would buy a large amount. If I cant assure TSNA not increasing over a yr, I'll probably pass the bucket for just trying my own. Someone using fairly regularly and right away buckets could be a big cost saver.

It'll be good when we have a response from V2, but I wouldn't think the bucket snus would be fermented. Swedish food regulators would frown on it and would also probably hurt sales. I'm assuming Denmark snus makers would want to follow Swedish standards, though. Another thing that leads me to believe SnusX is pasteurized is the 2 year "best by" date. I guess we'll see. Hope they hurry, I'm ready to hit the "Submit" button, but it'll change my order if SnusX really is fermented.

exo, where'd ya dig up that piece of toilet paper? Give ya a nickel for it.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

exo,
I just got my Toque order!
The leaves are not nearly as dry as I'd expected.
They came double bagged, size is 6"(152mm) long, 4"(100mm) wide and 1"(25mm) thick.
Very tightly packed, very hard to dent!. A 1/4"(7mm) thick piece bends 60* very easy with no cracking or breaking. All "through the bag" observations.
I like the fine dry toast type snuffs and the moisture content I am seeing, I could not nearly get that fine of a grind. A coarser grind for snus seems likely as is.
Its a beautiful brown color and has very little stem material from what is visible.

From my readings, I've seen where some tobacco hangs for up to 5 yrs curing. This indicates to me moisture present and some decomosition/fermenting is going on since the flavor changes with age.

I'm sure that 8mm strip is coming out for drying and pulverizing. lol
In the mean time I'll need to do some reading on how I wan to prceed with the rest/
The rustica I got from DG(dgreigo), she had ground some and some is still leaf. All of ot was considerably dryer than this. It has made wonderful snuff.

I'm on the verge of a Rustica order too. Not sure how to deal with the drying, especially if there's a considerable amount of moisture. How would you feel about making snus with it as is? The addition of salt may help. I wonder if this is part of the reason all snus seems to have at least a small amount of salt. They say it's for flavoring, but.....

 

[exogenesis]

...
Its my understanding that even frozen some fermentation can occur from lon term storage if the moisture content is high enough.

One could vacuum seal 20 portions per bag, toss them in pressure cooker and kill any action for long term. More than I want to do right off and may not be needed if they'd answer a few questions.
If you cant cancel the order, I'll buy some off you just to do some flavoring trials and tests. Let me know.

exo, yes, when I snuff pure rustica, even with menthol, I get a nice nic hit and dont use mearly of it what I would of 90% of my other snuffs. A few I have carry a big nic hit.

Interesting about cold fermentation, seems it's actually a wine brewing technique,
guess it's relatively slow though.

Good thinking killing the bacteria/yeast by pressure cooking,
great for long-term storage of large orders, particularly the rustica leaves.

Thinking that's a big bonus, not having to use much rustica at a time cos its so strong,
less neti-potting I'd hope.

Still pretty sure the SnusX bucket is pasteurised, not fermented.

 

[Vaporer]

I've read a few references when people are using it, discussing the odor and SnusX discussions in general the word fermented gets tossed around frequently. I believe TB used it in his latest video too.
That doesnt give the product a death sentence to me. If it were pasturized before shipping, it has met Swedens low standards on TSNA's.

I just hate to assume. I've asked the questions and don't get an answer. I cant find an answer. They won't reply on if the unopened bucket needs to be kept cool, can I freeze it? These arent tough questions, but let me know what to expect from long term storage and how I would prep it. I can put 20 portions in vacuum sealed bags, pressure cook it and then freeze it. This should render it abt as inert to change as it can be. But do I have to? If I purchased 2-4 buckets will they be good if unopened in my basement @ 58-60*. Maybe one of you can ask and they'll answer.
Once I pop the seal, all bets are off due to exposure but are they naturally dry enough I dont have to flavor all them and chill in a months time? There are no english instructions included.

Exo, I know with the rustica my usage is less.

TV as far as making snus from it, I see only one problem. It may be to strong in large portions on nic content. Might have to blend it with some virginia or such. The moisture of what I received from Toque is such it could be ran through a blender, flavored and put into portions. I've had moist snus with more moisture. It wasnt dry to the poing of being able to break or crack it like what I received from DG. One might make minis or sub minis if needed for nic regulation.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Ok V, impatiently I hit "Submit" . SnusX is being shipped from the US warehouse, so I'll have it by Wed or Thur. If you're interested I'll send some your way to see what you think.

exo, I can't help the feeling of being watched.......and that color change thingy is ....uh, strange......

 

[exogenesis]

It's only watching you TV

Did you get any of their flavourings ?

...
exo, I have a digital grams scale I use for my micro models. I can weigh a small cutoff portion today, dry it and reweigh. No problem. I'm gonna oven dry at abt 180*F. A coffee, spice or pepper grinder works well but if a fine toast is wanted a mortal and pestle is the way to go. I prefer the toasts for snuff and the coarser grind should be fine for snus.
...
We have other sources for leaf of diff strains too.
...

Did you get anywhere with that weighing thing ?

Does 'toast' snuff not always imply an extra stage, like caramelisation for sugar ?

What other sources ?

Any other questions ?



PS: note the correct spellingz TV

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Did you get any of their flavourings ?

No, in the US warehouse they only have the plain bucket and the flavors have to be added in extra. Not sure why, since the combo from Sweden is the same identical thing .

PS: note the correct spellingz

First thing I noticed......just doesn't seem like you now. Let's go back to the way it was. You're more colourful that way.

 

[exogenesis]

And cheaper when bought together I think.

I like colourful things, they add a little colour to my life,
could watch those animated attractor/mandelbrot/chaos/fractal images all day.

I've just gone 'invisible' too, stealth browsing.

 

[Vaporer]

Ok, kinda surprized. In a good way.
When I took the Toque rustica "block" out of both bags, it wasn't nearly as moist as it looked in the bag. It didn't have a damp look or such, but it bent so far without breaking.
Anyway, I cut off a 1.50gm section from the block. Tightly packed/pressed for sure.
Reminded me of cutting leather.
Weighed it in and placed it in the toaster oven at 180*F for 8hrs.
Weight right out of the oven.....drum roll......1.34gm! Not a lot of water at all.
I'm impressed. It could store a long time as it is. Odd why it appeared the way it did.
Very little moisture makes its pretty flexible.

exo, I read where toast snuff was prety much what I just did to the portion. Heated till dry, kinda like making toast, then ground. When surfing the net, I've seen places that sold tobacco leaf that wasn't Rustica. So, it could be blended down with a different tobacco for bulk, flavor and lower nic content overall if needed. Rather than use a non tobacco filler.

TV, whats wrong with exo's avatar? It's always looking at you.
If you have more in the bucket that you want to deal with right off, I'll buy some of it.
Just let me know. Be nice to have some to do some testing on. I could do the drying weight on them too and see how much water is in them. Just make sure to have karate wife mail them so she can see you don't always buy!

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

TV, whats wrong with exo's avatar? It's always looking at you.

I've started wearing sunglasses while on the 'puter to avoid his gaze. ........strange........

If you have more in the bucket that you want to deal with right off, I'll buy some of it.
Just let me know. Be nice to have some to do some testing on. I could do the drying weight on them too and see how much water is in them. Just make sure to have karate wife mail them so she can see you don't always buy!

Wouldn't consider selling V. When they arrive I'll pull a cans worth out and send it to you before the stink has a chance to dissipate. I'll tell Momma they're the ones smellin' the place up . PM your address when you have a chance .

 

[Vaporer]

OK TV, cant take it for free...............if your are getting wore out on the Berry bombs toss in one of those to if ya want.
If you wont take cash, I'll send something back.

exo, I had a thought. Since so much water is needed to rehydrate and flavor a portion,
how much PG would be needed per portion to keep it bacteria proof? PG has abt no flavor, maybe a touch of sweet, but is a wonderful anti-bacterial agent and totally safe for human consumption. If we had an idea, thse things could store almost forever.
Am I wrong ?

I decided to get a larger mortar and pestle. Found a good deal on ebay and got a 4", new for $11.51 including shipping.
Also went looking for a decent grinder. LMAO.....as usual people are paying more for a used cheapo than it can be bought new at WalMarts. Amazing........
All I can figure on that is they live in big cities where they dont have discount stores close. People will do it all the time every day though.

 

[exogenesis]

Good news about rustica being only 10% water, was worried for a bit there.

Literally toasted - lol, guess the snuff manufacturers have a controlled process though.


TV, I can still see you - even when you're wearing shades



PG,
looking around I reckon you'd need at least 10% PG for any true effect, probaby more like 30%.

I think it's really effective as an air mist for airborne microbes, but as a diluted liquid it's relatively mild.

More likely the essential oils are a heck of a lot more powerful (even more so as gases),
but the more antimicrobial they are, generally the more human 'toxic' as well I'd guess.

BioMed Central | Full text | In vitroantibacterial activity of some plant essential oils
gives the 'min. inhibitory conc.' (MIC) for diluted oils, against various bacteria :
staphylococcus, bacillus, pseudomonas, escherichia, klebsiella.

Averaging the numbers across the species gives :

Cinnamon 2 mg/ml
Clove 4 mg/ml
Lime 7 mg/ml
Rosemary 8.5 mg/ml
Geranium, Lemon 11 mg/ml
Orange 12 mg/ml

which are pretty low concentrations, e.g. clove at 4 mg/ml = 0.4 %,

Looking at the active ingredients of cinnamon oil:
Benzaldehyde 12%, Benzyl alcohol 2%, Cinnamaldehyde 52%, Benzoic acid 8%, Others 25%

The Benz' compounds are all know antiseptics, don't know about Cinnamaldehyde,
but one MSDS for it says 'Very hazardous in case of ingestion' & 'toxic to mucous membranes',
but Wikipedia puts Cinnamaldehyde as 90% of the bark oil & 'is used in agriculture because of its low toxicity'.

Suspect there's a lot of those types of compounds in various ess.oils.

Mint & spearmint oils, are 'extremely bacteriocidal at 1/100 dilution', MIC right down at 4 to 8 mg/ml.

Don't know how much ess.oils are added to snus usually,
but there must be a fair bit of spearmint in Thunder Frosted.

 

[sunset]

Hi All,

I heard from Northerner today about the SnusX: "The SnusX is made like traditional Swedish process, pasteurized." and nothing from V2....now trying to figure out if they released my order or not.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Good stuff exo . I'll be saving a copy of that. Good to know, indeed. Gee, if the spearmint puts a burn in our lip, think what it's doin' to those little buggy's..... Oooow, cinnamon's good too...I love cinnamon. PG at 30% is what we have to use in our equipment to keep it food safe according to USDA.

Hi All,

I heard from Northerner today about the SnusX: "The SnusX is made like traditional Swedish process, pasteurized." and nothing from V2....now trying to figure out if they released my order or not.

Woohoo, thanks sunset. I feel much better with a conformation over speculation. Is your bucket coming from the US warehouse?? Seems they're finally doing more serious stocking, now. Mine did ship today, so I figure it'll be arriving at my house about 2 1/2 hours after I leave for work on Wednesday. Hope I don't have any last minute calls at work to keep me late .

 

[Vaporer]

exo, just those 1000 thoughts a sec passing by in my head and that one locked.
Question, with what you said on the PG diluted......
Why dilute since its basically tasteless? Other things force you to have a certain flavor but if straight PG was used as rehydrating liquid and only flavor added, the worst case guess I can see is 70% PG & 30% max flavor of any flavor you want.

I'll have to try that to see what the portion is like. I've flavored heavily with PG based flavor on "regular" portions and they seem no diff than any other portion except for the flavor shift and sometimes a bit of sweetness. I could live easily with that in most cases for a long term storage portion.

Your post is deff a copy and paste into my snus snuff making reference file.

 

[Vaporer]

Just got back to this. Sons track season started yesterday.

Sunset, nice job on getting a response. I figured they had to pasteurize, doesnt mean they didnt ferment, which caused the odor, then pasteurized sterilizes it but wouldn't remove the odor. Most ferment for flavor, but if not pasteurized, the TSNA's are higher and will increase.
As I said, that wasnt a death sentence for it to me. I'm mostly interested in its storage capabilities. TV said 2 yrs from what he read. Ok, is that at room temp, cooled.....
Do they feel its ok to take some out since it s not exposed tobacco due to the portion material and still use for 2 yrs?
I understand their processes are more secret than designing a nuclear weapon, but their sales would be better I'd think if people were told it capabilities. I can deal with abt anything they reccomend. I dont want useless extra steps if I dont need to and I dont want to assume and have a spoiled product either. You'd never know it from odor! lol
Many, including myself may not want to make 400+ portions at once and then cool them.
I might want 20 at a time, trying diff flavors over a 6 month period. If I got 4 buckets, cool, freeze, will freeze go longer than the date? Questions questions...not tough ones either.

TV...PM sent.

 

[exogenesis]

Not sure I agree with logic Vaporer,
it's fermentation which can cause the TNSAs, after all it's those microbial
metabolic pathways that're converting nicotine (& other N compounds) to nitrosamines.
Seems a bit 'after the horse has bolted' to pasteurise after fermentation.

btw
don't you find that added glycols slow the nicotine adsorption process down massively
(like they do with e-cigs), pretty sure I felt this while flavouring snus with PG based
flavour concentrates.

Will be interested to know if all SnusX buckets smell as bad as TB's one.

edit:
forgot to say got my toque chocolate & cherry-menthol & mint snuffs today,
along with the rustica leaves.
Have to snort quite a lot of the toque to get a mellow effect - a bit surprised, hopefully the rustica will be better.

My small herb blade grinder reduced 10g of the leaves to powder as fine as the toque in about a minute,
still need to sieve out some 'wetter' stalk bits, what do you use ?

 

[TropicalBob]

I'll try confirm that virtually ALL tobacco is fermented. For cigs, cigars, pipes, chew, snus, snuff. It all starts out that way. Leaves are stacked and pressed and allowed to ferment. Then tobacco for Swedish snus is pasteurized post-fermentation.

Whatever, the stuff stunk for weeks. It's pretty much okay now and I've tried four new soaks today -- three mouth rinses and hydrogen peroxide. All did not produce any ugly taste, and were quite good, in fact. (Whiten teeth and kill bacteria at the same time as getting 8mg of nicotine!)

If I open a 14-ounce can of Carter Hall, or Prince Albert, or Half & Half, or Kentucky Club, or Captain Black, it will not stink. Quite the contrary, it will smell aromatic in a pleasant way. What is causing Make Your Own Snus to stink? Why the unpleasant aroma?

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

If I open a 14-ounce can of Carter Hall, or Prince Albert, or Half & Half, or Kentucky Club, or Captain Black, it will not stink. Quite the contrary, it will smell aromatic in a pleasant way. What is causing Make Your Own Snus to stink? Why the unpleasant aroma?

Apparently, folks in Scandinavia don't notice it?? In regard to finished snus, loose and white portions have fine aroma's too, the sprayed wet ones are the ones that stink. It does seem odd that a basically dried portion of tobacco would have anything but a smell of .....dried tobacco.

I've read just enough to not be clear on the fermentation in the Swedish process. The word "ferment" seems to come across often, though. I just haven't read anything that I felt absolutely verified it. TB, what you say makes a lot of sense.

V, I'm with you on the questions about storage. The "best by" date is normally for product in a factory sealed container. By the same token, if it's dry and can occasionally be opened for portion removal, but stored in a humidity-free area, it should keep for years you'd think.

 

[exogenesis]

Um, need to be sure about this one way or the other, & not meaning to be confrontational but :

Swedish snus

The American variety is fermented before sold and used, whereas in the case of the Swedish snus, the preparation does not include fermentation

Northerner. Buy Swedish Snus & Snuff Online. The Healthy Smokeless Tobacco Alternative

Like snus, moist snuff is made from grinding tobacco with water and flavourings. Unlike snus, it is fermented. The fermentation process leads to higher levels of cancer-causing nitrosamines.
...
nasal snuff is made from fermented and powdered tobacco, and then inhaled up the nostril

Snus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Snus is also unique in that it is steam-cured rather than fire-cured, is not fermented
...
Unlike dipping tobacco, snus has not gone through a fermentation process.

Swedish Snus - Snus articles - Snus

Snus ... Also it is not fermented

Camel Snus - Tobacco Products

Snus is a different kind of smokeless tobacco because it's pasteurized, whereas moist snuff is fermented.

Experts Fear Swedish Snus Sales in the U.S. Could Thwart Anti-Tobacco Measures -- Savage 99 (18): 1358 -- JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute

The tobacco in snus is steam pasteurized, not fermented like other spit tobacco products, including chewing tobacco. This process, developed in Sweden, kills the microbes that create some of the cancer-causing toxins found in other smokeless tobacco products

but strangely
The history of Swedish snus - SnusDirect.com

At the end of the production The Swedish Snus is fermented in high temperature before being packed.

I wonder if V2 actually know the chemistry of the aroma,
guess they wouldn't be likely to braodcast details like that though.