Adventures in home rolling

[BrewinHooligan]

Center stem in or removed?

That he did not say. Personally I leave it in and from what I can tell the majority of manufacturers do as well.

 

[blisscigarco]

That he did not say. Personally I leave it in and from what I can tell the majority of manufacturers do as well.

Stems seem damn common in Nicaraguan boutique sticks. I've never found one yet in a Cuban, though.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

Stems seem damn common in Nicaraguan boutique sticks. I've never found one yet in a Cuban, though.

Well, I haven't dissected any Cuban sticks but I also haven't seen Willy pull any stems out of any leaf either unless they looked like tree trunks.

 

[blisscigarco]

Well, I haven't dissected any Cuban sticks but I also haven't seen Willy pull any stems out of any leaf either unless they looked like tree trunks.

I dissect one of every commercial stick of which I have at least two. Recently I've found zero stems in: Bolivar, Partagas, RyJ, Trinidad, Upmann, Cohiba, Montecristo.

 

[Gdaddy]

Stems seem damn common in Nicaraguan boutique sticks. I've never found one yet in a Cuban, though.

In this video it appears she doesn't remove most of the center vein. She does pull out the bottom part of the stem but leaves the rest of it to be rolled.

 

[ATL827]

I love beer so I brew my own, I love coffee so I roast my own, I love cigars and after seeing what @HIM* could roll at home and sampling some of his creations I decided I too would try to roll my own. I watched countless hours of videos on how to roll online before even placing an order for leaves. I wanted to keep my costs low in case I didn't like rolling or what I could make. I ordered a kit from wholeleaftobacco.com that they said included enough leaf to roll approximately 20 robustos which included Corojo wrapper leaf, Dominican binder, Corojo Seco, and Criollo Ligero. I added a pound of PA Oscuro binder that turns out to be mostly wrapper grade to play around with the blend a little, you can't see in the pictures but this leaf has a ton of mineral sparkle. Total cost including shipping for everything was a little over $60. I went out to Walmart and bought a metal baking sheet for a rolling surface, some kitchen shears for trimming the ends of the sticks, and a pizza cutter to cut the leaf. I also bought fruit pectin (no sugar added) to mix with distilled water to make cigar glue. I am far from an expert as my pictures will show but it has been fun so far. A thread like this is pointless without pictures so here we go

The order after it arrived:
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Placing the leaves in bags and spraying with distilled water to get up to case:
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The work station:
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Prepping filler to wrap in binder:
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Rolled up in newspaper after wrapped in the binder to "mold" the cigar since I was too cheap to buy molds at this point:
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Unwrapped from the newspaper and ready to apply the wrapper leaf. I roll the veins down on the wrapper with a beer bottle to try and make it as flat as possible:
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All wrapped and ready to dry out for a week or two before smoking:
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I rolled this one on Friday night and smoked it last night. It was soft from not being rolled tight enough and smoked pretty wet but I was pleasantly surprised that it had a decent burn and a nice flavor. It was sweet and creamy with some nuts and spice.
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Thanks for looking!!

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere in the thread, as I only looked through the last 10 pages or so. It has been a little over 2 years since you wrote this. If you were to go back and start over, are these still the same tools you would start with? Anything you would add to this post 2 years later? I've been watching videos and reading about rolling cigars over the last couple of weeks and believe this is something I really want to try in the near future.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

Apologies if this has been covered somewhere in the thread, as I only looked through the last 10 pages or so. It has been a little over 2 years since you wrote this. If you were to go back and start over, are these still the same tools you would start with? Anything you would add to this post 2 years later? I've been watching videos and reading about rolling cigars over the last couple of weeks and believe this is something I really want to try in the near future.

Thank you for taking the time to read what you have! I definitely would still start with these same tools. An ulu knife or a chaveta is easier to use for your cuts long term, but for starting out the pizza cutter is inexpensive, readily available, and always useful for its original design purpose if you decide the hobby isn't for you. I will add that the WLT starter kit blends are not the greatest blends to my tastes and to many other home rollers, but they are the most cost effective way to get filler, binder, and wrapper in a small quantity to your door to get some practice in to decide if you like the hobby enough to order pounds of leaf to really get your hands dirty.

 

[keithjjones]

Thank you for taking the time to read what you have! I definitely would still start with these same tools. An ulu knife or a chaveta is easier to use for your cuts long term, but for starting out the pizza cutter is inexpensive, readily available, and always useful for its original design purpose if you decide the hobby isn't for you. I will add that the WLT starter kit blends are not the greatest blends to my tastes and to many other home rollers, but they are the most cost effective way to get filler, binder, and wrapper in a small quantity to your door to get some practice in to decide if you like the hobby enough to order pounds of leaf to really get your hands dirty.

I was also disappointed with the leaf only bold combo.

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[blisscigarco]

Maybe we could concoct a legit LO "kit" of 1/4 lb purchases, like Dom binder, Dom (piloto) seco, Brazil viso, and habano shade wrapper of choice?

 

[keithjjones]

Maybe we could concoct a legit LO "kit" of 1/4 lb purchases, like Dom binder, Dom (piloto) seco, Brazil viso, and habano shade wrapper of choice?

Is piloto good? I haven't ordered from LO since my Nicaraguan. The stuff from wlt is more flavorful, spicy, plus if you order over $80 shipping is nearly free. Pls they ship same day while I usually wait a week for lo to put it in the mail. You can use that code to get 5% off of lo, but you'd have to order more to equal the wlt discount.

Btw I'm printing a double Perfecto, my favorite shape, as a mold now. I'm going to see how bad my rolls are with it. I've nearly gotten comfortable with standard rolls of all ring sizes above 44.

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[keithjjones]

Do you all do anything with your tobacco before the usual pre rolling hydration of the leaves once you receive it? Meaning, do you try to wash them at all like you would with vegetables from the grocery stores?

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[Hopduro]

Do you all do anything with your tobacco before the usual pre rolling hydration of the leaves once you receive it? Meaning, do you try to wash them at all like you would with vegetables from the grocery stores?

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Hell no

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[blisscigarco]

Do you all do anything with your tobacco before the usual pre rolling hydration of the leaves once you receive it? Meaning, do you try to wash them at all like you would with vegetables from the grocery stores?

No.

 

[Marc L]

Do you all do anything with your tobacco before the usual pre rolling hydration of the leaves once you receive it? Meaning, do you try to wash them at all like you would with vegetables from the grocery stores?

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Did you get some dirty leaf?

 

[keithjjones]

Did you get some dirty leaf?

Nah. I was just curious if I was supposed to be washing them off or whatever.

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[Marc L]

Nah. I was just curious if I was supposed to be washing them off or whatever.

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If your getting ammonia from it you'll want to aerate it out where you'll be doing more of a saturation then the typical misting for rolling prep. To aerate ammonia out you'll want to shake the access off, spread the leaf out to let it air and repeat as necessary. Be attentive when doing this. It will disintegrate if not watched.

 

[keithjjones]

If your getting ammonia from it you'll want to aerate it out where you'll be doing more of a saturation then the typical misting for rolling prep. To aerate ammonia out you'll want to shake the access off, spread the leaf out to let it air and repeat as necessary. Be attentive when doing this. It will disintegrate if not watched.

Nah, no ammonia. Was just curious about cleanliness, if anything. Thanks.

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[blisscigarco]

When you try out that awesome new blend idea with that killer new "Nicaraguan leaf" you just bought.

 

[keithjjones]

When you try out that awesome new blend idea with that killer new "Nicaraguan leaf" you just bought.

Which nic? What happened?

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[blisscigarco]

Which nic? What happened?

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No specific nic. An abstract joke. I chose nic for it because that's the leaf-word first-time rollers are apt to be real excited about when they see they can buy them some.