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Mixing blends
Jetmech_63
Posts: 3,451 ✭✭✭
in Pipes
Anyone mix blends and pack a pipe with it? I had a little maple street and taste master left so I combined the two and smoked it, Fantastic! Anyone have success or failure doing the same?
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I've been experimenting a little and have stumbled upon a good mixture:
2 thirds Ashton Artisan's Blend to 1 third Samuel Gawith fire Dance flake. some times 1:1
Aj
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
I agreed.
Almost two months ago I mixed up a batch of "Chocolate Manhood" a blend of two parts Lane BCA (Black Cavendish) and one part Sutliff Latakia to try out and stored it away in a Mylar bag to allow the flavors to marry.
I tried it out last night in my meer, it had notes of smoky chocolate, but overall was pretty mild without much complexity.
I went back to the drawing board this morning and mixed together 5 grams of Chocolate Manhood with 5 grams of 2008 Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake and about half a gram of Sutliff perique to add some spice to the mix. I took my electrician scissors and sort of cube cut and rubbed out the flake and mixed it up, but didn't let the flavors marry in this case, I was looking to smoke this today. I'm calling this mixture Full Virginia Manhood and smoking it now. It is more interesting, I like the addition of the Virginia and perique, but I think it needs more Virginia in the mix, but I may smoke another bowl before I try a new mixture.
A good holiday recipe is half P&C Snowdrift and half Candycane Cocoa. Candy and Cocoa is delicious but it doesn't age at all. Buy it for the season but don't get too much because the flavor is gone in a month or two. Snowdrift seems to hold the triple chocolate flavors. Mix them equally and its a delicious chocolate peppermint Christmas wonderland in your mouth. You could sub out the candycane cocoa with Sutliff's Christmas Spice which is delicious without the minty flavor.
Ernie from Watch City Cigar posted a blog entry on blending here: https://watchcitycigar.com/blog/tobacco-blending-part-6-basic-blending/
Mixed up some 1012 Blend which I've tried and enjoyed before and is:
1 part Sutliff 515 RC-1 (tangy Matured Red Virginia)
1 part Sutliff 507-S (Stoved Virginia)
I then mixed up another permutation I found on another forum that's supposed to scratch the itch of McClelland 2020 (not that I've had that) by adding Balkan Supreme to the mix. We'll see, I may have to press this one at some point. For this one I chopped up the large pieces of 507-S with my ulu to make it a better match to the shag cut of the other components.
1 part Sutliff 515 RC-1
1 part Sutliff 507-S
2 parts Arango Balkan Supreme
This morning I took as much of the second tobacco blend as would easily fit in my tobacco puck press (30 of the 80 grams I'd mixed up yesterday) using my 54 mm espresso tamper to pack it down, then microwaved it for 30 seconds and put it under pressure to make a crumble puck. This should help meld the flavors together.
My puck press is just a 2" schedule 40 PVC repair coupling (the shorter one with no ridge in the middle), a 2" end cap that I cut so that it can pass all the way through the repair coupling with, some parchment paper, some clamps, and a large washer to help prevent cracking the end cap where the c clamp presses down.
It's been about a week since I blended up the three tobaccos and put them in Mylar and I decided to break them out and try them so I broke out three non-dedicated cobs and loaded up:
-Sutliff 515-RC1 (Tangy Matured Red Virginia)
-Sutliff 507-S (Stoved Virginia)
-Arango Balkan Supreme
The blends are (from bottom to top, foreground to background in the photos)
1. Sutliff 1022 (equal parts 515-RC1 and 507-S)
2. 1022 ABS (1 part 1022 + 2 parts by weight Arango Balkan Supreme)
3. 1022 ABS CF (#2 pressed for a day into a crumble flake)
Tasting notes:
Blend 1 1022: nice straight VA blend with some pleasant sourness. I prefer this to blend 2, but preliminary results are that it's about even with the pressed 1022 ABS Blend 3.
Blend 2 1022 + 2xABS: I noticed when I smoke this that the smoke coats the tongue making it hard to compare these Balkan Supreme blends to the straight VA blend. The pleasant sour note from the 515-RC1 Tangy Matured VA seems to get lost in the blend or is barely there. This is my least favorite, but I've also been noticing that my taste for Latakia is waning lately which may play a part.
Blend 3 1022 + 2xABS CF: Stronger flavors due probably to both pressing this into a crumble flake for a day as well as the tobacco being a bit drier. Very interesting retrohale with spicy and sour notes. Have to take care on the retrohale not to overstimulate my nose. Blend equal to the straight VAs.
I might consider lowering the Balkan Supreme to one part so that it would be equal parts for all components to see how that tastes but I know someone else playing with this blend on another forum that's looking at increasing the ABS to 4x from 2x.
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Here's a free eBook on tobacco blending for pipers including how to make perique tobacco.
Blend Your Own Pipe Tobacco -- 52 recipes with 52 color labels
Mixing equal parts, about 1.1 oz each, of Gawith and Hoggarth Coniston Cut Plug (left) and Bosun Plug. I may buy some Bosun Cut Plug next time to make this easier, the difference in volume for the same weight is amazing.
I picked up 5 oz of yellow blending VA and 1 oz of blending Smyrna, mixed and split 4 ways and then cut the following cigars into coins and lightly mixed, rolled, and vac sealed to blend for 45 days. I'm looking forward to trying this.
My calendar says 45 days is up, so I cut open the blend with the yellow VA, Smyrna, and a Blackwatch Maduro cigar cut into coins with a cigar cutter, which came out of the vacuum sealed bag like a triangular crumble cake bar of tobacco and loaded up the pipe and a canning jar for a try. It has a strong pepper retrohale, sweet flavor notes, and good strength and body. I need some more time with this blend but I like it.
A few years back I took a tin of 925 and mixed it 50/50 with some Oriental blending tobacco and put it in a mason jar. Opened it up yesterday and had some. Pretty nice!
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
My last bowl of my BLTC Viaticum cigar blend left me wanting something, so I reblended it with some whole leaf perique to add some spice and flavor.
I removed the center vein from the leaf, chopped it up with my ulu, then tore it up with the "spice" grinder shown below. I'm looking forward to trying this reblend.
Digging around I a couple weeks ago I realized that I had some 6 or 7 year old Squadron Leader that was getting pretty dry. So, what to do? Then I noticed that I had about an equal amount of Captain Black Royal, about the same age, and that stuff never dries out.
So, I mixed the two together and gave them a little time to equalize. I'm currently enjoying some in my Stanwell HCA, tulip shape, and it's a pretty awesome mix.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
Sounds like an unlikely mix, I'm glad that it worked well together.