Oh boy, Im in over my head here (Cigar rolling club)

[smthbrothrj]

Hello fellow rollers, consistent forum lurker here!

You see, I have you some might call a sit-u-ation over here.

Not long ago, I took over a small weekly cigar club on a military installation in Kuwait and I started to teach free cigar rolling classes. It quickly grew unexpectedly, and we know have 70-90 people a night concurrently. Most classes include 10-15 people, and many times multiple classes a night. They MWR (military morale club) says we are the largest cigar club around southwest asia at the moment, and I am expected to be "reputable" now. Problem is, I secretly have no idea how to do stuff like this for that size of an event. I need help pretty bad, which is why I came here. I am calling the Cigar Roller Bat-Signal!

I tried to categorize my issues, in true military fashion, below:

Equipment -
Im not a rich man. Neither is my club. I have to do more with less, for example we use pizza cutters instead of chavettas, and a medic friend of mine built a still out back to homebrew distilled water. We dont triple cap, because for some crazy reason finding and keeping a sharp capping tool is neigh impossible. That being said,what are your guys/gals tips or tricks to "do more with less"?

Blends-
I admit I love rolling cigars, but I am an amateur when it comes to this. Currently the cigar club looks through the current selection of leaves on vendor websites and picks what they think sounds cool, we order them, throw them together, and I assume they smoke it eventually. Needless to say we have ordered some...interesting stuff. I particularly remember my guy at Leafonly asking me at least three times "Are you SURE??". What would really be great is to find a decent to good blend that may not be the best ever, but focuses more on being palatable for a wide variety of audiences. I know you guys are about a million billion times more savvy with this stuff than I am, and I am shamelessly begging for your GOOD BLENDS!

Humidty control -
Due to regulations we must roll our cigars outside. During the summer and fall the humidity is almost always <10% and the temps usually are between 115 F and 130 F. The leaves dry out almost instantly, leading to a lot of surface spraying with a water bottle to keep it pliable, leading to either wet cigars or dry cracked cigars. I have tried portable humidifiers (usb powered) ones, as we do not have power where we meet, but the water output vs the environment makes it hard to keep up. When I teach the class I usually have to spend an hour for them to roll one cigar, and I am losing my mind trying to find a solution! Any Arizonians or fellow desert folk out there with some advice, I would love you if you could share.

TLDR (Too long, didnt read):
Im in Kuwait and run a weekly large(ish) cigar rolling class/event. I need advice for humidity control and "tips" to do more with less stuff. Also begging for your secret blends (shamelessly)

May the blends be ever in your favor,
smthbrothrj

 

[blisscigarco]

Hello fellow rollers, consistent forum lurker here!

You see, I have you some might call a sit-u-ation over here.

Not long ago, I took over a small weekly cigar club on a military installation in Kuwait and I started to teach free cigar rolling classes. It quickly grew unexpectedly, and we know have 70-90 people a night concurrently. Most classes include 10-15 people, and many times multiple classes a night. They MWR (military morale club) says we are the largest cigar club around southwest asia at the moment, and I am expected to be "reputable" now. Problem is, I secretly have no idea how to do stuff like this for that size of an event. I need help pretty bad, which is why I came here. I am calling the Cigar Roller Bat-Signal!

I tried to categorize my issues, in true military fashion, below:

Equipment -
Im not a rich man. Neither is my club. I have to do more with less, for example we use pizza cutters instead of chavettas, and a medic friend of mine built a still out back to homebrew distilled water. We dont triple cap, because for some crazy reason finding and keeping a sharp capping tool is neigh impossible. That being said,what are your guys/gals tips or tricks to "do more with less"?

Blends-
I admit I love rolling cigars, but I am an amateur when it comes to this. Currently the cigar club looks through the current selection of leaves on vendor websites and picks what they think sounds cool, we order them, throw them together, and I assume they smoke it eventually. Needless to say we have ordered some...interesting stuff. I particularly remember my guy at Leafonly asking me at least three times "Are you SURE??". What would really be great is to find a decent to good blend that may not be the best ever, but focuses more on being palatable for a wide variety of audiences. I know you guys are about a million billion times more savvy with this stuff than I am, and I am shamelessly begging for your GOOD BLENDS!

Humidty control -
Due to regulations we must roll our cigars outside. During the summer and fall the humidity is almost always <10% and the temps usually are between 115 F and 130 F. The leaves dry out almost instantly, leading to a lot of surface spraying with a water bottle to keep it pliable, leading to either wet cigars or dry cracked cigars. I have tried portable humidifiers (usb powered) ones, as we do not have power where we meet, but the water output vs the environment makes it hard to keep up. When I teach the class I usually have to spend an hour for them to roll one cigar, and I am losing my mind trying to find a solution! Any Arizonians or fellow desert folk out there with some advice, I would love you if you could share.

TLDR (Too long, didnt read):
Im in Kuwait and run a weekly large(ish) cigar rolling class/event. I need advice for humidity control and "tips" to do more with less stuff. Also begging for your secret blends (shamelessly)

May the blends be ever in your favor,
smthbrothrj

Wow, what a situation! I really wish I could fly over and help you out, even though the <10rh sounds almost impossible.

I can offer one thing: if someone has a knife then you can just cut a rough disk for the third cap.

Good luck.

 

[webmost]

You could certainly cut a cap with a large caliber bullet casing.

Outside, with that heat, and dry as dust, I'm thinking you would have to roll as quick as you can. This should be a challenge to someone who lives in AZ to pop out a vid showing how to roll quick as a wink gars out on their back yard. Bliss, you ever get inland to Barstow or some such dreary place? I bet you could find similar hot and dry conditions in a public park thereabouts, and you are good at snapping out vids.

I don't see what distilled water adds. Water of any sort is going to get sucked right out and gone. What's in the water that you are worried about?

I wonder if you could sit at a picnic table with an umbrella over it and a sprinkler on the umbrella? Essentially, you would create a humidity oasis.

WholeLeafTobacco offers some low cost pre-blended packages you could try. Same package holds the filler, binder, wrapper, and a touch of glue. And their packaging is the very best, when it comes to impermeable. So it should arrive ready to rock and roll.

Just spit-ballin here. Good luck to you and thanks for your service.

 

[Jim D]

As for improving the speed of rolling their first cigar, you could have them watch @webmost video on wrapping with a paper towel to practice before getting the tobacco out in the dryness. Get some muscle memory built in with something other than the actual tobacco first, then go for it.

 

[Bruce T.]

My suggestions may be a bit simplistic or downright useless but what the hell... my opinion is free.

Pizza cutters work better than chevettas in my opinion as long as you sharpen them.

For beginners get them to practice with paper filler and binder so they get an idea what they are doing before pulling out the leaf and letting it dry.

Keep all leaf in plastic bags and only take out what you need in the next few minutes (I'm sure you already do this).

Impress upon everyone that they must keep there completed cigars in some sort of plastic bag and give them a procedure for drying them if needed. Maybe opening the ziplock bag and letting the dry air in a few times a day for a few days. This may take some experimenting.

As was suggested, look at the blends at Whole Leaf. You can then order larger quantities of the suggested leaf. My go-to blend is the Honduras Grand Habano blend from Whole Leaf.

 

[smthbrothrj]

Thanks for all the great feedback! I will definitely develop some type of dry run before getting the tobacco out, our supply guy will never find out what happened to those paper towel rolls....

I don't see what distilled water adds. Water of any sort is going to get sucked right out and gone. What's in the water that you are worried about?

We use distilled water on dry leaves to case them a few hours before rolling. In this environment it takes less than 3 minutes for a cased leaf to go completely dry and start crumbling. Its hard for a first time roller to go from bunching to binding to press in less than that time. Heck I cant even do that yet. Due to the size of the class I always have to keep a few pounds ready to go at a time, so they dry out. To give you a feel for what I am working with I store the tobacco in a trash bag in my only sock drawer. We tried to build a box out of discarded pallet cases but the bugs got to the wood before we did. The sprinker idea is a great , but alas our non-bottled water over here is controlled, and we would probably have to move sites.

As was suggested, look at the blends at Whole Leaf. You can then order larger quantities of the suggested leaf. My go-to blend is the Honduras Grand Habano blend from Whole Leaf.

I will definitely check out WholeLeafTobacco!

Thanks again guys, you probably saved our bacon.

May the blends be ever in your favor,
smthbrothrj

 

[webmost]

I keep wondering what rolling surface might stay damp. For instance, if one had a cookie tray fille with water, and one laid an unglazed stoneware slab in that, then there would be a surface apt to wick up water constantly, thus keeping your leaf damp.

I'm thinking of Mami and Papi, who lived in Bayamon. Mami had a two-jug stoneware device. The top jug was glazed, except for the bottom. That covered jug sat atop a second jug. That one was unglazed on the sides. Cistern water went in the top jug. As that water sweated through to the bottom, it would get filtered. That prevented giardia. The bottom jug sweated so as to cool Had a spigot. In Bayamon, it rained every afternoon. Water came from an attic cistern.

Guys... What kind of surface could they use to roll on which could be kept damp?

I do like rolling quickly. I think a guy coujld master a three minute roll. But I have no dry place on this coast where I could test out a vid.

Quickrolls. I'll work on it.

 

[blisscigarco]

If I were to try something in Palm Springs (where I'm apt to be sooner than Barstow), I'd take samples of each component and fully dunk them in a bucket of water. I'd yank each component (wrapper, binder, filler) out, give it a shake, and let it drip dry, then roll it up in a water-sprayed garbage bag for some amount of time, say 30 minutes or whatever, and then watch to see if it absorbed some of that water to get to the necessary case (feel) in some amount of time (instead of it just evap'ing off the surface 100%), and then see how long that window of opportunity tended to last in the given heat/humidity.

While I never roll with anything remotely moist here, I'm in 70F. So what I'd do is be willing to roll with filler and binder that still felt a little too floppy, assuming that nature would wick off that moisture from the rolled cigar in no time, practically before I could even roll too tightly because of over-floppy or moist ingredients.

I think three or so cigars-worth of ingredients and roll attempts would be a good starting point to calibrate what the heck was going on.

As always in cigar rolling, everything has to be tested out in every given unique situation.

I think one of your biggest factors to sort out in the equation is how much bag time works for each component.

In general, for a non-pro, a cigar takes 5 minutes to bunch, 5 to wrap. That's quick enough that it might be possible to find out how much moisture you need to get into each leaf type before you start.

Good luck!

 

[webmost]

How bout a pizza stone?

 

[ras_oscar]

pizza knife is fine for cutting tobacco. I use a 3/4" copper pipe fitting for a cap cutter. No sharpening needed, just roll the outer edge around. There is a blending thread here on the forum where BOTLs have shared their discoveries. Congratul;ations on you successful club and good luck.

 

[webmost]

I wonder whether a Tobacco Conditioninbg Chamber might be useful to you


I would prep your wrapper and binder in this, and keep it in perfect shape right up to the very instant you are ready to bind and wrap.

You could even put your filler in there. Then take it out one leaf at a time. Strip the stem, roll each leaf half into a loose tube for entubade. Then immediately place it back in the chamber and prepare the next leaf. Once all filler is ready to go, take out a handful of your entubado leaves, assemble th bunch, take out a binder leaf, and bind. I doubt each bunch would be out long enough for your terrible heat and dryness to have a deleterious effect. Wrap immediately, and you are goot to go.

A modular method should keep each component in good shape to use. Nothing should have to be out more than a minute or so.

Caveat: I have no place on this coast hot and dry enough to experiment. The closest bleak wasteland is 2,000 miles away from me, here in DullAware.

 

[ras_oscar]

I'm wondering: if your environment is that dry, would it benefit you to try to increase the humidity in an enclosed room, instead of handling the leaf multiple times to try and keep it from drying out. When my kids were small I created a rain room for them to play in. Attached a garden hose to a PVC loop frame and fitted it with spray heads like this one:
https://www.mcmaster.com/spray-nozzles It creates a fine mist. The mist is fine enough that with sufficient temperature it would evaporate prior to falling 6 feet. You could add a timer valve to the water input and adjust to where you want the room humidity. Do you have an enclosed room large enough to accommodate the entire club and sufficient water supply?

 

[smthbrothrj]

Final update for those interested. The project was a smashing success, in no small part to the help I got on here!

We ended up finding a large quantity of semi-permeable membranes from discarded miltary packaging, cleaned those up and used them in combination with a homemade misting chamber (USB mini humidifiers in a ice chest). we kept the leaves in these cleaned bags tied off and set a humidity sensor cut and sealed into the ice chest. we drilled a hole for the usb cables and sealed it with silicon. finally we taped a few battery banks to the lid and disconnected/reconnected the power as needed. it seemed to hold up to 80% interior humidity, and the wrappers were pretty supple. All in all it was a serviceable option. big shout out to the humidity chamber Webmost!

 

[smthbrothrj]

I'm wondering: if your environment is that dry, would it benefit you to try to increase the humidity in an enclosed room, instead of handling the leaf multiple times to try and keep it from drying out. When my kids were small I created a rain room for them to play in. Attached a garden hose to a PVC loop frame and fitted it with spray heads like this one:
https://www.mcmaster.com/spray-nozzles It creates a fine mist. The mist is fine enough that with sufficient temperature it would evaporate prior to falling 6 feet. You could add a timer valve to the water input and adjust to where you want the room humidity. Do you have an enclosed room large enough to accommodate the entire club and sufficient water supply?

Yes that ended up helping a bunch.

 

[smthbrothrj]

If I were to try something in Palm Springs (where I'm apt to be sooner than Barstow), I'd take samples of each component and fully dunk them in a bucket of water. I'd yank each component (wrapper, binder, filler) out, give it a shake, and let it drip dry, then roll it up in a water-sprayed garbage bag for some amount of time, say 30 minutes or whatever, and then watch to see if it absorbed some of that water to get to the necessary case (feel) in some amount of time (instead of it just evap'ing off the surface 100%), and then see how long that window of opportunity tended to last in the given heat/humidity.

While I never roll with anything remotely moist here, I'm in 70F. So what I'd do is be willing to roll with filler and binder that still felt a little too floppy, assuming that nature would wick off that moisture from the rolled cigar in no time, practically before I could even roll too tightly because of over-floppy or moist ingredients.

I think three or so cigars-worth of ingredients and roll attempts would be a good starting point to calibrate what the heck was going on.

As always in cigar rolling, everything has to be tested out in every given unique situation.

I think one of your biggest factors to sort out in the equation is how much bag time works for each component.

In general, for a non-pro, a cigar takes 5 minutes to bunch, 5 to wrap. That's quick enough that it might be possible to find out how much moisture you need to get into each leaf type before you start.

Good luck!

the humidity stabilized in about an hour. the convection forces the moisture out of the leaf in about 5 minutes to a crackling crumbling mess once it is outside. liberal use of a high quality tabletop mister helped a ton

 

[webmost]

XLNT!

Need pics.

 

[MrBOakley]

Thinking about things you might have on hand. Could you convert empty ammo boxes into sealed storage? That way you can have another place to store your leaves.