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    Hi Everyone, as mentioned in my introduction post, BOTL needs quite a bit of updating, patching and whatever else I might come across. Over time BOTL may be unreachable on occasion as I do migrations or updates, etc. Just be patient - we'll be back! I'll generally try to keep these maintenances until later in the evenings.

Homemade Virginia Plug

smokinghole

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Well here we go again. I deribbed the baccy yesterday morning and moistened it to bring it into medium case for pliability.

200gr red virginia
100gr bright virginia
100gr lemon virginia

This seemed like it wouldn't fit but I got it in there with periodic compression with the c-clamp. Check back in about 5-7 days to see what 400gr of virginia tobacco turned into.
 

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smokinghole

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Buy a couple pounds of Virginia and give it a shot. You can buy 3 lbs for what it would cost you to buy 250gr of Gawith. Sure it won't taste the same but I bet it will be real good and cheap to boot.
 
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Checked the compression today and it took a couple turns worth for more compression force. Yesterday I stood on it and cranked down with a 24" pipe wrench. It settled it seems overnight and it took some more compression.

I am only doing this to see what pure unadulterated flake tastes like. Every big-time blender that discusses blending publicly says everything is flavored or sugar added in some amount. I understand that they probably deal with subpar leaf more often than we realize and all their tobacco alchemy makes it pleasurable to smoke with the cheapest tobacco they are willing to buy.
 
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Here it is! Is a little lopsided from this front to the back (it gets thicker) but thats OK. Its hard to tell how even it is as I pack the tubing. I do periodic tests to check how even I was and I am happy with how it ended up. Now to let it age a little but I will of course try it soon enough. Heres to hoping it doesn't bite.....
 

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Now the proof will be in how it tastes. It looks and smells like nice sweet baccy. I only added water to moisten the leaves so we will see what the bite is like. I cut up the first flake and some trimmed pieces into a cube cut sort of and plan on burning some tomorrow to see how I did.
 
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Well I have the first flake and some of the edge trimmings in my hackert as a cube cut. Burns easy with an obvious VA flavor and sweetness, smokes cool even in this Hackert poker as short as it is, and has little to no bite. Just has a nice zingy tobacco flavor with a slight citrus edge. Produces ample smoke very nice snork. Makes me forget that I wanted to buy Wessex gold plug. Reminds me of a cooler/drier combo of Gawith BBF and FVF. For the simplicity in blending this I don't know how much commercial stuff I will be buying here on out. I figure this came out to 420 grams so damn near 1lb and only about $12.50 vs Gawith at $70/lb. Sure that's a lofty comparison but the price savings makes up for a lot of its attractiveness.
 
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smokinghole said:
Well I have the first flake and some of the edge trimmings in my hackert as a cube cut. Burns easy with an obvious VA flavor and sweetness, smokes cool even in this Hackert poker as short as it is, and has little to no bite. Just has a nice zingy tobacco flavor with a slight citrus edge. Produces ample smoke very nice snork. Makes me forget that I wanted to buy Wessex gold plug. Reminds me of a cooler/drier combo of Gawith BBF and FVF. For the simplicity in blending this I don't know how much commercial stuff I will be buying here on out. I figure this came out to 420 grams so damn near 1lb and only about $12.50 vs Gawith at $70/lb. Sure that's a lofty comparison but the price savings makes up for a lot of its attractiveness.
Click to expand...
I need to buy some bulk VA and make a press asap! Thanks for the feedback!
 
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