AceFour Whole Leaf Blends

Since you cannot sell it, share it! Here are my best recipes for whole leaf tobacco plugs

Bosporus Strait Plug - Va/Per/Or

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Thought I would try something new and experimental with whole leaf Virginia, Oriental and Perique tobacco plug. Pressing a 200g block consisting of:

The Virginia is cased with sugar water with a 1 to 1 weight of water to sugar to make 200g of basically simple syrup with a cap full of white vinegar and spoonful of Brewer’s Best Plum Extract. The mixture is brought to a boil to invert the sugars (thanks to the vinegar) and let cooled down. I use 2oz of the mix to case 1 lb of Virginia. The Perique and Izmir do not need to be cased.

All the components are mixed in a bowl. I tried to unravel the perique from the dense clumps. Had shred by grabbing two fists full and ripping with a twisting motion. Then toss the tobacco salad and load into my steel press.

I press the mixture down using an frame press ($169ish at Harbor Freight or Northern Tools) and the remove the form and clamp it down with a C-Clamp. I will periodically tighten for a week but probably won’t need much after using the frame press.

Next I throw the whole form, clamp and all in the oven for 4 hours at 200F.

This was a really enjoyable blend. No harshness. The Virginia and Perique are at the forefront but Izmir comes through as well adding complexity.

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Virginia/Perique/Oriental plug

Dunhill Apertif Clone

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Maiking a Latakia blend whole leaf plug. Worked on de-stemming the red Virginia and cased it with the plum casing I used for the Virginia/burley plug.

Whole leaf latakia blend

Thumbed through Goff’s book since it was full of English/Balken blends and settled on this recipe called Cajun Muse. Modified it by casing the Bright and Red Virginia with plum casing.   Plum casing is made from 100g sugar to 100g water by weight.  Add in a tablespoon of Brewer's Best Plum Extract and a cap full of white vinegar.  Bring to a boil and let cool down.  Spray 2oz on 1 lb of whole leaf Red Virginia after de-stemming and the same for Bright Virginia.  No need to case Latakia, Izmir or Perique.

Latakia 37.5% (6 of 16 parts)
Oriental 12.5% (2 of 16 parts) (I used Izmir)
Virginia Bright 12.5% (2 of 16 parts) (plum casing)
Virginia Red 25% (4 of 16 parts) (plum casing)
Perique 12.5% (2 of 16 parts)

Dropped it in the frame press two weeks ago and then moved it to a C-Clamp the next morning. I have to say I am impressed on how this plug looks. With the summer plugs I would keep them clamped and stored in the hot truck as a poor man’s stoving. The plug was slightly sticky, likely from the perique and sliced up nice but almost like a broken flake.

Flake cut

This is very enjoyable right out of the press. After slicing up with an antique plug cutter with a blade made by Bingham Knifeworks I loaded up the Savinelli 605. Initial light was wow and immediately thought of Nightcap. After about a minute it occurred to me this is a Dunhill Apertif clone. Back when I first started smoking a pipe I use to smoke Dunhill London Mixture, Nightcap and Apertif pretty much exclusively.

Dunhill Apertif is a Scottish blend with Cavendish, Latakia, Oriental/Turkish, Virginia. This plug I made does not have Cavendish but it is real close.

You cannot buy Dunhill Apertif anymore and even the release under Peterson does not offer it (yet?). You can get a close from Robert McConnell called St. James Park.

This one was a winner and I have already blended up another plug and put it in the press. Here are pictures of the second plug.

Dunhill Apertif Clone
Dunhill Apertif clone

And made a third plug is made

Third Apertif clone plug

Red Queen Plug - Va/Per

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Making a whole leaf version of Red Queen which I call Red Queen Plug. This is slightly different then the commercial version of Red Queen V that is sold at Afterburners.   While it is slightly different it seems have more body, plus the bonus of being able to fold and stuff flake makes me very happy and of course cannot be sold commercially since it is made with raw tobacco leaf! If I had my choice between the RQV blended with commercial components and RQP blended with whole leaf, I would pick RQP. I guess I have done something right . . .

This is a slightly different blend the Red Queen V which is made with commercial components. The whole leaf version is:

Plum casing is made from 100g sugar to 100g water by weight.  Add in a tablespoon of Brewer's Best Plum Extract and a cap full of white vinegar.  Bring to a boil and let cool down.  Spray 2oz on 1 lb of whole leaf Red Virginia after de-stemming and the same for Bright Virginia. 

I press in my steel form using a frame press and let sit overnight.  I then take it out of the press and put a C-Clamp on and stove for 4 hours at 200F.

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Memphis Plug - Dark Fired/Virginia

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This is made with equal parts bright Virginia flue cured, red Virginia flue cured and dark fired Kentucky.   All of these leaves were purchased from Whole Leaf Tobacco. First step is prepping the leaves.


Prepping the leaves, by unfolding, de-stemming and hand ripping the leaves and placing in a plastic bags. Use one bag for bright Virginia and one back for the dark fired Kentucky. De-stemming is easy my grabbing the tip of the stem at the top of the leaf and pulling down. After you may what to hand rip big leaves into smaller pieces and put in a shopping back. Next we need to case the bright Virginia.

The bright was cased with the blackberry casing. Plum casing is made from 100g sugar to 100g water by weight.  Add in a tablespoon of Brewer's Best Blackberry Extract and a cap full of white vinegar.  Bring to a boil and let cool down.  Spray 2oz on 1 lb of whole leaf Red Virginia after de-stemming and the same for Bright Virginia.  There is no need to case the dark fired Kentucky. Casing the bright Virginia in a shopping bag by spraying and turning the leaf makes a lot less mess than doing it in a bowl.  Let the cased leaves rest for a bit before adding the dark fired Kentucky.  Toss the salad to make two components mix. Next we need to stuff the press.

3″ X 3″ Square Aluminum Press

This was a about 8 oz of tobacco and it took a lot of stuffing to get it all in the press mold.  There is no special method for doing so just stuff it.  Folks have asked me if you layer the leaves are flat.  Ummm, no. Just grab and shove it in there and get as much as you can. Again it seems to take about 10 days of hand tightening the C-Clamp before it will go no further an A-Frame Press from Harbor Freight will do it in about a minute.  Once it cannot get cranked down it is placed in the truck on these hot summer days for 5 days.

This one was a home run and perfect on those summer nights.  As many have described it, it smells like BBQ. Not as in grill smoke, but real BBQ. You are not sure if you want eat it or smoke it! (please don’t eat it and if you do, call 911)

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Whole Leaf Processing/Pressing/Casing Resources

Blending/Processing Whole Leaf

Press:

Whole Leaf Vendors and Casing supplies

Cutting:

Grateful Plug - Va/Bur

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The casing for the burley is the following :

Bring to boil, let cool and strain to storage vessel.

 After stripping the stems for 1lb of whole leaf burley from WholeLeafTobacco.com I ended up with 326g.  Use 2oz of molasses casing and sprayed using a small spray bottle and let the leave rest over night.

The bright Virginia was cased with tonka casing.   The recipe as follows:

After stripping a 1lb of Bright Virginia from WholeLeafTobacco.com I had 351g of tobacco cased with 2oz of tonka casing and let rest overnight.

Made three 175 plugs 50/50 burley/Virginia and loaded up the press.   After a week I recommend stoving in the press for 4 hours at 185-200F

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