Memphis Plug - Dark Fired/Virginia

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.

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)