quick and dirty writeup...
The tobaccos used with description when available
1.Prescott valley vanilla- burley and virginia with black cavendish
2.Imported whiskey - import + domestic +scottish whiskey
3.black cavendish - steam sweetend and fire cured burleys with a hint of chocolate and
4.baja blend - burley and virginia with green river black
5.Tucson blend - sweet blackened leaf with lemon virginias and creamy vanilla, malt dressing and a subtle and sweet rum note
6.mellow- mellow
7.black and gold - black and gold
8.vanilla- vanilla*
9.captain black - captain black
10.Amsterdam blend - roll your own cigarette tobacco
11."Netherlands" blend - roll your own cigarette tobacco
below I will refer to the pipe blends by the lettering of the names and the cigarette tobacco as simply RYO 1 and 2
*I forgot to buy the second batch of vanilla so only had one ounce, hence the vanilla will only be used in a slow room temperature maceration.
The supplies :
All jars are 8 oz canning jars and each contains one ounce of tobacco to begin. The tobaccos were kept in a freezer before use for many days.
A1 series- 150ml PG to saturate. Room temperature maceration (why reinvent the wheel?)
B1 series- 150 cc everclear 190 proof which had been chilled in my freezer before use, Tobacco in this series includes CB, PVV, BC, M and BB .These were capped and placed for 6 hours in a freezer, removed then filterd with aeropress (just experimenting, no reason to break out the vacuum filter just yet) and left open and sitting with a fan on them in front of an open window (per user : Lastlokeans method) . They will be left for 24 hours until a syrup forms.
Upon retrieving this from the freezer and putting it into the aeropress I noticed the tobacco felt "crisp" and "dry" , almost like I'd hit it with liquid nitrogen! , total liquid about 125cc per jar (from the original 150cc used) , questionable as to how much liquid I will be able to dry off.
B2 series - 100% vg , put in freezer, 150cc, TB, IW, BG - checked on after 2 hours vegetable glycerin is gelatinous, removed from freezer and placed with A1 series for time maceration at room temperature. This was an accidental addition as I did not want to leave to go get more everclear.
c1 series - 50/50 pg vg including 2 ryo , 24 hour slow cooker. Series Includes all tobaccos including RYO , purchased a slow cooker but having trouble lowering temperature below 180f
Horrible mistake : I made a jar that was a mix of all the blends minus the RYO , it weighed 14 grams, this I mized with 100 cc 50/50 pg/vg and microwaved and then immedaitely filterd and extracted. I took 1cc and mixed in with 9 cc of 50/50 pg/vg. It tastes...tobaccoish on inhale and...just bad on exhale. I have dubbed it "frankensteins afterbirth" to commemorate its birthday on halloween. I have decided not to get rid of the 100ml or so of concentrate I have, perhaps it will get better with time.
Thoughts : I'm not hopeful about the pure VG but very curious to see how the PGA mix turns out, I'm curious as to wether or not one could add pg / vg in equal parts with the pga to begin with for added flavor effect. The author has purchased far too many mason jars.
UPDATE: My cheap non mercury thermometer broke when checking temperatures 12 hours in, the cheap crock pot is scalding hot, I terminated maceration on the blends contained within it, both RYO1 AND RYO2 as well as the BB and IW. The IW has some kind of foam forming on it. The newer slow cooker I purchased at sears has bathrub warm water, I can place my hand in it no trouble. I'm placing the 4 terminated 12 hour heat extracted jars with the A1 and B2 series to cool.
Nov 1 - c1 series out after heat maceration (9 pipe blends and 2 RYO's), allowed to cool. Will pull 1 ml of each and store for later comparison. 1ml to blend right now with a further 50/50 vg/pg at 14% concentration. I'll check again in a week (might even take more samples) . Planning on 2 weeks total before final filtration.
PGA left to sit an additional 8 hours, some of the jars had 45-60cc left , this was possibly a mistake as I ended up with 15-20 cc when I rememberd to check. Lots of waxy stuff on the side of the jars. I bottled these 5 for later and placed them in the freezer to store.
nov 4th - sampless from c1 series all have a "hollowness" to them, hard to describe, they smell like the tobacco they were born of. They tastwe like it on inhale, a note on exhale, but inbetween its flat, nothing for the tongue to play with even when its rapped against the roof of the mouth filled with vapor. It occurs to me that 14.2% (1ml with 3ml pg and 3ml vg) might be too weak. I add another .75 ml to each from the concentrates I had frozen. Now at 22.5% concentrate. Immediate improvement. I'll let these sit awhile longer.
nov 7 - 2ml samples taken from the still unfilterd c1 series (heat macerations 24 hours) , mixed with 6ml 50/50 pg /vg
also started 2 new slow cooker macerations which will be series D1, one set of 6 will be left in the slow cooker for 6 hours allowed to cool to room temperature and then put back for another 6 hours, the second set 12 hours straight, these will then be allowed to steap at room temperature. 1 oz tobacco mixed with 100ml pg (per boomerdudes reccomendation...actually he said 80 but I round up) We have
sedona - golden virginias, rich burleys and smooth black cavendish with creamy vanilla
bisbee - vanilla burley, virginia and green river tobaccos
black velvet - fire cured cavendish, with vanilla, chocolate and whiskey
prickley pear - aged american burley, flue cured virginias topped with cognac
the prescott valley vanilla and
the baja blend
Nov 14 - C1, I did 2 batches of mellow for some reason so I decided to leave one sitting, the rest were strained , first with the normal filters the aeropress came with and then 2.5 micron filter gravity.
nov 15 -
Heat maceration taste test
C1 series 50/50 pg/vg , 8 pipe blends , 2 ryo's and one blend of captain black with a generic black cavendish at a 50/50 ratio of concentrate.
I ran 7 flavors for taste tests among some friends and decided to call it in.
3 bottles of each flavor mixed at 20%, the first bottle was concentrate pulled immediately after the heat maceration (no extra time) , one bottle was made of concentrate that had been allowed to sit at room temperature for one week after the initial heating, final bottle 2 weeks.
the captain black / black cavendish had 4/5 of volunteers choose the 2 week hands down. One volunteer couldn't decide between the 2 and 1 week.
Imported whiskey - (imported + domestic tobaccos and scottish whiskey) 4 chose the 2 week maceration and one person prefferd the concentrate that had been pulled immediately after heating.
baja blend - (burley and virginia with green river black cavendish) - completely inverted! , some extra folks walked into the b&m and took part, 5 participants chose the baja that had not been left any longer than the initial 24 hour heating. 2 chose the 2 week, no one prefferd the 1 week.
captain black - one preferred no time, one preferred one week and 3 chose the 2 week.
Prescott valley vanilla- (burley and virginia with black cavendish) , 5/5 chose the 2 week.
Ryo1 - 2 chose 1 week, 3 chose 2 week.
ryo2 - another outlier, 3 chose the 1 week, one chose 2 week, one chose no extra time (heat only)
I had freshly ground coffee in a jar for the volunteers to sniff in between tasting, testing was done with participants blind to the age of what they tasted, using mech mods running duel coils at .3 ohm with japanese cotton.
