Growing and Processing Tobacco

I've been growing and processing smoking tobacco for many years. I rolled cigarettes with it and used the leaves to roll cigars from it as well. I've never chewed tobacco, but with the wild wintergreen growing around here, I suspect I could prepare it for that as well. I started growing it as a back-market product I could use in a SHTF scenario but have smoked it when I couldn't afford to buy tobacco from the store.

First off, tobacco needs a long growing season, fertile soil, and full sunlight. Here in Michigan, in order to get the plant to mature to seed, I need to plant it the last week of March and grow it indoors for about 6 weeks before the danger of frost is over and I can plant it outdoors. It will grow big and tall, up to like 8ft tall, when you use fertilizer on it, and then it produces pretty purple-ish colored trumpet-shaped flowers at the top. I have only been able to grow the Virginia variety to maturity, but to do it right you will need to grow Burley tobacco as well and blend the two together.

The larger lower leaves are used for wrapping cigars (or blunts) while the mid-sized leaves near the middle are best for smoking. The smaller leaves near the top, I don't know, chew maybe? The thing is those small leaves appear about the time the plant flowers and you want to harvest the plant before that unless you want it to go to seed for planting the following season. If you do that then you will have to trim the plant to harvest the leaves you want from it while it grows.

Dry out the leaves laid out on a screen in the sun or indoors after harvesting. Allow them to dry slowly so they can turn that dark brown color that tobacco is known for. After a couple of weeks, it should be ready for processing. It's important to keep the fragile dried leaves intact at this point.

The processing goes through a couple of steps. First, soak the dried tobacco leaf in what the industry calls the casing. This is a solution of water and other ingredients that add sugars, aromas, and some color. The recipes used for the casing are different for every brand and a corporate secret. I have a simple recipe for tobacco casing as follows.

Stir 1 tablespoon baking grade cocoa powder,
1 tablespoon molasses (or maple syrup or brown sugar),
into three cups of just boiling water. Then pour over tobacco leaves.

Allow the leaf to soak in a pan or pot for a while then pull each leaf by the stem with one hand while grabbing the end of the leaf with your other hand to twist the leaf on itself and ring out the casing. Place the tightly twisted leaf on a tray or drying rack and dry it out.

Once dry to the point of being a little moist, cut the twisted leaves into very thin pieces with a razor knife, or a pair of scissors, or my favorite, a paper cutter like they use in the schools. Now you have a pile of tobacco pills. Roll the pills around in your fingers and begin to pull them apart until you have a pile of shredded tobacco just like they have in the bag at the store.

Now you will need to put the tobacco into a large plastic ziplock bag for the next step, adding the top flavor. You will need some toothpicks soaking in anise and some others in vanilla extract for a few days, then put them in the bag with the tobacco to give it that licorice and vanilla aroma that will blend with the cocoa scent in the casing. You can get a menthol flavor by adding mint oils and extracts to the tobacco. After about a week, take the toothpicks out of the tobacco.

Below are a few "secret" casing recipes from some tobacco companies . . .

Phillip Morris Casing Ingredients and percentages
SUGAR: SUCROSE 4.2%
SUGAR: HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP 2.9%
L- MENTHOL 2.1%
SUGAR: INVERT SUGAR 1.5%
LICORICE EXTRACT 1.1%
COCOA AND COCOA PRODUCTS 0.9%
PEPPERMINT OIL 0.7%
CAROB BEAN AND EXTRACT 0.2%
MOUNTAIN MAPLE EXTRACT SOLID 0.01%
SPEARMINT OIL 0.01%
VALERIAN ROOT EXTRACT 0.01%
VANILLIN 0.01%

L&M Ingredients (unknown percentages)
high fructose corn syrup
sucrose
invert sugar
casing flavor (secret )
natural and artificial licorice flavor
menthol
artificial milk chocolate
natural chocolate flavor
artificial tobacco flavors
valerian root extract
molasses extract
vanilla extract
vanillin
cedarwood oil
patchouli oil
vetiver oil
olibanum oil

Mac Baren casing ingredients (unknown percentages)
Liquorice
Chocolate
Cane sugar
Maple sugar
Cacao
Honey
Fruit extracts (secret )

Yesmoke Casing Ingredients and percentages
Sugars (glucose, fructose, corn syrup & honey) 30%
LICORICE 10%
COCOA 10%
FRUIT EXTRACT 10%

Wonderful MSB.

I grow the golden Virginia and haven't really got past that stage. A few boxes I dried a year or so ago.

I guess when Tobacco becomes too expensive the retailers will stop carrying cigarettes. That would include cigarette papers.

We'll have to make our own cigars.

One thing I forgot to add was that the seeds are super tiny, smaller than poppy seeds. When you plant the seeds indoors, use fertile topsoil and just sprinkle the seeds on the surface and water them by misting with a spray bottle. The seedlings are also super tiny and will be hard to separate when you go to transplant them.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

I am old enough to remember a time living in Kentucky when farming tobacco was thriving, profitable and decent way to earn a living given the right circumstances.

I’ve planted, topped, cut, hung and stripped but never anything past that other that taking it for sale. it’s really interesting to read how you take it through the whole process. Any recommendations on where to get quality seeds?

I live in Virginia zone 6 if that makes any difference. I’ve considered growing a small plot for a few years but it hasn’t ever made it further than the thought.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

Here's my golden virginia as an example.



I have a few more photos of growing and drying.

I'd like to give this a try just for fun. I don't smoke but know plenty of people that do. Is tobacco dear-proof? They eat just about everything in my yard and unless I cage my vegetable garden, they decimate it.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

Dang I had no idea HFCS was in cigarettes as well. They're really trying to shove that stuff down our gullet by any means necessary hehe.

originally posted by: LogicalGraphitti
I'd like to give this a try just for fun. I don't smoke but know plenty of people that do. Is tobacco dear-proof? They eat just about everything in my yard and unless I cage my vegetable garden, they decimate it.

I've grown it outside the fenced-in garden area and never had a problem. That was near the raspberry and bramble berry bushes they frequent, so they were around it but never touched it.

MagesticEsoteric wondered about a source for quality seeds. Not sure anymore, that was years ago when I bought a couple of tiny little crack baggies with a small line of seeds in the bottom. Since then I've figured out how to get them to go to seed, I've got more tobacco seed than I use. Sandwich baggies filled with Virginia tobacco seed.

Just run a search and you'll find some I'm sure.

I remember working in tobacco fields as a teenager to earn extra money...at a whopping 2.00 per hour.

I was the skinniest so when it came time to hang, I always got the top with all the pissed off bees, not to mention how hot it is with a metal roof.

originally posted by: Shoshanna
a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

Dang I had no idea HFCS was in cigarettes as well. They're really trying to shove that stuff down our gullet by any means necessary hehe.

The sugars are added to make the tobacco leaf hydrophilic, which means that the leaf will absorb and retain moisture. This makes the leaf spongy and less crumbly so it doesn't deteriorate into dust when you smoke it.

originally posted by: RickinVa
I remember working in tobacco fields as a teenager to earn extra money...at a whopping 2.00 per hour.

I was the skinniest so when it came time to hang, I always got the top with all the pissed off bees, not to mention how hot it is with a metal roof.

I can’t even remember how much I got paid lol. I do remember when it came time to stripping, it didn’t seem worth it

Stained, cold and sticky fingers for days

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

Thanks I’m sure if they sell wacky backy seeds online now, I can find the regular ones

originally posted by: MagesticEsoteric
a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck

I am old enough to remember a time living in Kentucky when farming tobacco was thriving, profitable and decent way to earn a living given the right circumstances.

I’ve planted, topped, cut, hung and stripped

but never anything past that other that taking it for sale. it’s really interesting to read how you take it through the whole process. Any recommendations on where to get quality seeds?

I live in Virginia zone 6 if that makes any difference. I’ve considered growing a small plot for a few years but it hasn’t ever made it further than the thought.

www.ebay.co.uk...

I have been buying packs for a few months now as I see this as a new growth industry , there should be a amerian version where you live

I need to get some seeds to try to grow it on my land. I just want some to make sure if things go bad, I will be able to have some I can process.

When medical marijuana became legal I went to the local cop shop and talked to the chief of police about growing it in my commercial building to sell to the dealers. It was all cement block with good strong doors and I could have easily secured the building.

I told him I had grown a ten year supply that summer, he looked at me strangely...I knew him well...I told him I got one plant in my garden that was about eight inches high all full of buds. I said that was ten years worth for me. His weird look turned to a smile. He then told me that the people there would get into the building, it was a small town and some of the young would break in. Then he got a call about an explosion at the Snyders pharmacy while I was talking to him, he had to run. I stopped by at the pharmacy, the propane tank on the fork lift had exploded. I told him that it was an omen, I was not going to even consider it anymore.

I dried that little plant and cleaned out the seeds and stems and put it into a drawer in the garage and forgot about it there. Last summer I found it, didn't have any smell anymore, so I tossed it out. Yeah, it lasted me ten years. At the time I tossed it out last year, it was legal already to have it for recreational use.

I suppose now that pot is legal, a plant that dumbs you down a little, they will make tobacco illegal because it binds to the acetylcholine/nicotine receptors and makes you think better. They do not want people to be able to think well, those people are hard to BS.

a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck


Great info MSB , I have 20 or so thousand seeds so far waiting for spring to come and hope with the climate where I stay in Scotland will be better this coming year than last summer .

My problem is where to grow it now but a little advert in a local paper will sort that out and it is not illegal to grow it in the UK as long as it is for personal use .

We just had a £3 $4 increase in the tax on Wednesday bringing the price to 26 bucks for 30 grams , all that will accomplish is driving people to seek out other avenues and lose the UK treasury a lot of money , and this was the government announcing tax cuts to the public ! .

They really do not think these policy's through but smoking is one of the things in their sites for the near future and anyone reading this thread in the UK needs to buy some seeds asap .

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck


Great info MSB , I have 20 or so thousand seeds so far waiting for spring to come and hope with the climate where I stay in Scotland will be better this coming year than last summer .

My problem is where to grow it now but a little advert in a local paper will sort that out and it is not illegal to grow it in the UK as long as it is for personal use .

We just had a £3 $4 increase in the tax on Wednesday bringing the price to 26 bucks for 30 grams , all that will accomplish is driving people to seek out other avenues and lose the UK treasury a lot of money , and this was the government announcing tax cuts to the public !

.

They really do not think these policy's through but smoking is one of the things in their sites for the near future and anyone reading this thread in the UK needs to buy some seeds asap .

Back in the seventies, a nice bag of pot was around thirty grams. A bag of columbo gold was twenty five bucks. Hmmm. Inflation sure is a bugger, back then cigarettes were under a buck a pack of twenty at the store.

a reply to: rickymouse

I have been telling friends to stock up on tobacco seeds Ricky I saw this coming many months ago , years ago when they banned smoking in restaurants, bars etc they were hitting people with thousands in fines for smoking in their own work vehicles even when they were alone and wanted to ban people smoking on main streets and within 100 metres of a government building like they do in Australia.

Getting caught growing cannabis gets you a prison sentence here and anyone visiting your property ie gas , electricity etc really has to be viewed with suspicion as they get paid to grass you up to the cops .

A tiny piece of solid mj the size of a mouse dropping 0.01 of a gram got me a thousand buck fine 25+ years ago , one joint ten years ago and I was in the police cells for 5 days waiting for court

originally posted by: rickymouse

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: TheMichiganSwampBuck


Great info MSB , I have 20 or so thousand seeds so far waiting for spring to come and hope with the climate where I stay in Scotland will be better this coming year than last summer .

My problem is where to grow it now but a little advert in a local paper will sort that out and it is not illegal to grow it in the UK as long as it is for personal use .

We just had a £3 $4 increase in the tax on Wednesday bringing the price to 26 bucks for 30 grams , all that will accomplish is driving people to seek out other avenues and lose the UK treasury a lot of money , and this was the government announcing tax cuts to the public !

.

They really do not think these policy's through but smoking is one of the things in their sites for the near future and anyone reading this thread in the UK needs to buy some seeds asap .

Back in the seventies, a nice bag of pot was around thirty grams. A bag of columbo gold was twenty five bucks. Hmmm. Inflation sure is a bugger, back then cigarettes were under a buck a pack of twenty at the store.

I can remember as a kid getting a pack of ciggies for my grandmother and they were 26 pence 40 cents now one cigarette is over $ 1.30 , one gram of rubbish weed is 13 bucks now .

It is actually cheaper to fly abroad and buy some duty free at the airport than to buy it in the shops

a reply to: rickymouse

Ah, the good old days.

Back in the seventies, a nice bag of pot was around thirty grams. A bag of columbo gold was twenty five bucks. Hmmm. Inflation sure is a bugger, back then cigarettes were under a buck a pack of twenty at the store.

Here in Oz I would not be surprised to hear the "merry goanna" is cheaper than tobacco now.