Blending

I do, quite a lot. Searching for the elusive Balkan Sobranie replacement.

I think you need to add some White Cube Burley or maybe a regular mild Burley until the strength gets taken down some pegs. It worked for my Legendary Tobacco Burger from Hell, though it is still quite potent and tries to escape its cage

I do. And I measure and write everything down in a log-book... so the recipes can be duplicated.

The whole subject of home blending...I find very interesting. I particularly enjoy the idea of "customizing" existing, professional mixtures like "Carter Hall", "Prince Albert", "Haunted Book Shop" et al. by adding a little of this and a little of that, with the hopes of making a much better, more complex mixture, with these additions. I think most call them "Hybrid Blends". I've done some minor blending "experiments" using Lane Ltd. "HGL" as the base. Why? This Lane Ltd. blend is easily available -in bulk- and probably will escape the onerous "deeming regulations". I mix this "HGL" base with various other, professional blends, to create a "hybrid" mixture. I prefer to do my blending this way, rather than buying and using basic tobacco components, and starting from scratch. I build on what's already available.

So far I have come up with two very nice "hybrids", that I enjoy smoking, and was quite surprised that I was successful. Sadly one custom blend that I call "Golden Hours" will be short-lived because it has Mc Clelland's #2050 oriental Cavendish as a major component. Isn't MC going out of business? So, at this point, I have no idea if there is a good substitute for MC's #2050. I mixed MC-#2050 1:1 with "HGL. Let me know if there's a good sub for MC-#2050, please.

My other triumph with mixing the "HGL" base, is called "Pleasant Moments". It's a Va/Per/Bur blend containing some mild cigar-leaf + "HGL". The recipes for both are posted on this forum, and, to share with you.

I wish there was a specially designated area on this forum for "hybrid mixtures" and other home-blending recipes. I enjoy sharing any home blend experiments with other pipe smokers. If there IS such a section for home blending, please help me find it.

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Open questions to all the Professional Blenders.....

1- What's going to happen to all your expertly blended concoctions if the FDA deeming rules go into effect?
2- Will your secret mixtures they ever get to the market?
3- Will your "newer" recipes languish away, and die, in some private, hand-written recipe-book?


Here's an idea..... If you can, are allowed.... sell your unmarketable, collections of your blends and mixtures, to us pipe smokers. A cheapo, spiral-bound, "vanity publication" would be fine. Or sell the recipes as an "E-book". Share your blends with us. I'd buy a copy. What good are all these new blending recipes and discoveries, if the costs of bringing any newer mixtures to the market are cost prohibitive? If there's no chance in hell for most of the newer tobacco blends to be introduced onto the very limited pipe tobacco market, why let these recipes die a slow death? Make them available for a fee. Just thought I's ask. The devil is always in the details, and nothing's ever as simple as it looks. But if you can....sell/share your recipes with us pipe-smokers.

Will we, in the near future, and as non-professional, home-blenders, be prohibited from mixing our own tobacco blends from what's commercially available from the traditional tobacco retailers, like P&C, etc? I hope all the older blends made before 2007 will still be on the market.

Frank
NYC

Yep! I buy whole-leaf tobacco and make my own plugs & twists ... roll cigars too.

briarpipenyc , I use McC 2050 as a base in a lot of stuff too. It certainly is like orientals of old,even more so. It does have a topping, I once talked to Mary at McC, and she told me that, but of course wouldn't tell what it was. I suspect it is clove oil in some fashion, somehow toned down a bit. I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me. I'm playing with that approach now. We'll see how it goes. I have found nothing anywhere to compare with it. One if those magic McC Orientals.

I also weigh all components, using a gunpowder scale so I can do small amounts accurately. Pretty handy. For those not familiar with those scales, they measure in grains, and there's about 437 grains go the ounce. You can measure a gnat's arse.

Hey, I'm an engineer. I measure everything.

...welcome to the 500...

I have some pretty good twists..Thanks Darin for starting me out...and I make a number of my own blends but never measure.everything is "by guess and by golly"

how did you apply the maple . . . watered down in a spray bottle?

slowroll....Not happy reading about MC-#2050 having no substitutes. That's the kiss of death for one of my fav blends.

I laughed when I read that you use a gunpowder-scale to measure your tobacco components. Maybe I'll dump a few grains of "Bullseye" or "Red Dot" into my next tobacco mixture and dump it into a 45-70 case. : )))

mwps70.... your concoction sounds interesting. "10 to Midnight" mixed with "Velvet". Thanks.

@ chico.... Re: cigarbum/Pete Siegel...is this blend assessment still offered as a service? Your Double Bass is an interesting blend that contains cigar-leaf. How does this mixture rate on the Chico Scale?

Very interesting ideas have been posted. Hope pro-blenders will share their recipes if it finally hits the fan.

Thanks,
Frank

briarpipenyc, well, if you do that, you'll have to fire it, not smoke it. BTW, 2050 does look like a gunpowder number from Western Powder.
Unfortunately, my favorite home blends use 2050, or Yenice Agonya, or Smyrna #1. The only good news for me is I have about 2 lb of 2050 and about 12 tins of Yenice, and I probably just got the last 4 cans of Smyrna #1 from SP.

I do have a pretty good blend of unflavored black Cavendish, dark Va, H&H Smyna, perique and latakia. Mix to taste. I use about 35 % lat, 12% perique or so.

Sounds familiar. Hope that it works out for me as well as it has for you. Thanks.

It's all I do. Been growing for over 20 years now so I have A LOT of tobaccos to blend, including homemade Perique and Cavendished Virginia.

Do you find the wholeleaf and Leafonly  to be equal? I've only tried leafonly, and found   4 different tobacs tasted kind of ashy.

Do you use one of their shredders?