Home blending

It really depends on what you're working with. Raw and/or whole leaf or processed? If raw, how you case and/or top it makes a difference. If processed, how does it smell and taste?

Whatever you choose, smoke a bowl or a few of individual components. Take note of their tin notes and their smoking notes. Decide in your mind what will work with another.

With the three that you mentioned, you can go Virginia forward or you can go Oriental forward. As for the latakia, it depends on your taste. Treat it like a spice or a condiment. Add a small amount in as you can always add more but cant take it away. Five to ten percent latakia is a good start or right where it should be if it tastes smells and tastes.

Best advice....start with a professionally blended mixture, and then add a little of this and a little of that, to it, and call it your own when you hit the sweet spot.  Good,  commercially available mixtures are balanced, have a far more consistent flavor profile, and are very economical, compared to stocking individual blending tobaccos.

Figure out what you like to smoke, e.g. mild English blends. Ask yourself what's missing, then add it. Let's say you like brand X English, but want a little more of a Perique hit...then add more Perique. Latakia, too strong? Dilute the blend with some Virginia, or Burleys. Better yet, make a "hybrid" blend of two commercially available mixtures, in varying proportions until you hit pay-dirt.

Write everything down in a small log book, and especially write in some  of your comments and critiques. It's very easy to forget and lose track of ingredients, and how they tasted when mixed.

Buying 1 oz. samples of various blends is a good place to start.  Major tobacconists sell sample collections. The cost for the small samples is negligible compared to the cost of throwing out large amounts of homemade mixtures that you dislike. Pick a "base blend" and start adding other blending tobaccos or other mixtures to the base.  Use a small volume measure, like a shot glass, or empty pill bottle.  

I recently was given some sample packets of different, commercially available , mixtures at the NY Pipe Show. I smoked through a few...then started mixing. I loved mixing Wilkes "High Hat" (English) with Stokkebye's Luxury Bullseye Flake (Va-Per) 1 : 1. The LBF mellowed the HH rough spots and cut that creosote Latakia flavor to almost nothing (I'm no fan of Latakia). The unique aroma and flavor of the HH still was still there, but the added sweet Virginias and Black Cavendish from the LBF turned this "hybrid" marriage into something really special.  So....I ordered larger amounts of both Wilke's "High Hat" and Peter Stokkebye's -Luxury Bullseye Flake for some further mixing in various proportions. So far I made a cigar-leaf mixture -that became my favorite- and now, this newer Va-Per/English blend has become another favorite.  Because I started with some free, sample-packets, the cost of discovering  the latter cost me nothing...zero, and both of those commercially-available, and consistent mixtures will be around for a long time.

Just a few thoughts, and hope the suggestions might help. Happy Blending to you.....

Thank you. I was going to buy the 1 ounce bags of various tobaccos. I figured 4 or 5 ounces were less costly than pounds.

Hello Mel...

UR most welcome.

Seriously...if you have a lot of money to spend on trying to reinvent the wheel....buy individual blending tobaccos, and start experimenting, casing, pressing, storing, aging, stoving, fermenting. But the final smoking of what you made will determine if your blending concoctions will go into the pipe bowl, or into the garbage can. The learning curve can be a lot of fun. Palm off the rejected blends on some unsuspecting friends and they'll surely tell you about the merits and demerits of your latest mixing experiments.

The genesis of my cigar-leaf blend ...."Pleasant Moments" ....started with using Lane Ltd "HGL" for the main tobacco. HGL It's really "Captain Black"-original ....with a little added Latakia for a bit of added interest, just enough to keep the pipe smoker from falling into a deep coma. HGL is nice, and easy to smoke, but I made it even nicer and far more interesting, by adding some cigar-leaf, cube cut Burley, some extra Virginia/Perique, and a small bit of Black Cavendish. BINGO! It cost me very little to experiment because I bought sample size amounts from the tobacco vendor, and used a small pill bottle for measuring out the various tobaccos. The point of using commercially prepared tobacco mixtures is that they are very consistent from year to year....and the pros mix them in huge batches, so there is less variation from batch to batch. BTW, when I need to mix a new batch of my own blend(s), I save a few ounces of the older batch, and mix it into the newer batch.

I can't stress enough that you need to write down all the ingredients when mixing up a batch, and even any tiny amounts/additions to the original recipes. Be accurate when critiquing your own blends. Harshness, tongue-bite, hard-to-stay-lit, smells awful, are good types of things to note when experimenting.

Main thing is to have fun. Share your triumphs, and failures with your fellow pipe-smokers. We are interested...and there is much to learned from the failures.

Best of luck...

I would try using Bright VA leaf some Canadian bright leaf.. aged burley leaf...and some lat leaf..I have yet to try orientials just because I have not made a purchase recently.

So I attempted to make my first home blend.  I have been favoring latakia so that was what I was shooting for.  So I did 1 oz turkish, 1 oz black cavendish and 1 oz latakia.  All of it was Peter Stokkebye.  So I am tasting the latakia but can't say hit is hitting the spot.  Any advice or feedback from the experts. 

It really depends on what you are going for. I havent tried any mixes with cavendish yet. Without tasting it I would imagine that the 1:1:1 mix doesnt let the Turkish come through very much.

I go about 2 weeks if I press something, a month if jarred and packed tightly, before I taste anything.

Thanks. I really had no idea what I was doing. I just winged it. I will let it sit for a month and see how it tastes then.
P.S. I hope your wife is feeling better. 😀

Yep, good advice.
Usually I'll make a very small batch when experimenting but for whatever reason I got a little overconfident in my blending skills & mixed about 4 ounces of English/American blends before adding some Matured Red Virginia 515-RC-1.
It tasted terrible,

Feeling like I'd wasted the tobacco, I put it in the cupboard figuring that I'd press it when my noodle press arrives, hoping that that might save it.
After a few weeks had passed I tried another bowl. Surprisingly it's actually quite good since it's had a chance to meld. The 515-RC has added a nice tartness to the mix.

This book is pretty good to get you started www.lulu.com/shop/robert-ca-goff/blend-your-own-pipe-tobacco-52-recipes-with-52-color-labels/paperback/product-23931062.html

Also Ernie of Watch City Cigars posted a golden gem on toppings on another forum entitled "Ernie Q on casing, pressing, and blending"

No, I mean putting it in a jar with foil over the top and putting it in the oven for a while at a specific temperature. Foil because you dont want a true seal while it's in the oven.

I've tried many different times and temps but 225 for 4 1/2 hours made it just how I wanted it for what I was doing.

For science!!!

When you stove tobacco, it gives an impression of aging. It's not true aging and as such, lacks certain characteristics but can give you an idea of what something will become years later.

The other thing it's good for is mellowing out a sharp blend or bringing out other flavors. For example, Sutliff 515 is a good red virginia as is. Once stoved, the sugars will lightly caramelize and that adds another depth of flavor. 

Different tobacco's and blends will do different things and its easy to put some in a small jar see what comes out. If you like what you get, make a bigger batch.

Darin..........thanks for the link, I have some interesting reading later👌👍👍