Acclimation Issues With Tangiers By Sonthert

[ih303]

Survey 2 sent.

[Sonthert]

Familiar Joe: Never received the first questionnaire. Please resend. Are you still doing OK with the stuff? Have you gotten it to smoke pretty regular, now?




Now, bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of respondents to use to form a good statistical certainty, I have identified three variables that may be affecting everything. One I'm about 90% sure on, one I'm 60% sure on and one I'm 30% sure on. I will be in touch, to be sure. I may be PMing a short set of questions to answer. They are formed, I'm asking everybody the same questions and would appreciate some more answers. Thanks.

Believe it or not, 5/9 respondents answered the same question the same way, while no control subjects answered in the affirmative. Of the other 4, two others had similar responses in a very strange manner that I actually never asked the question to, but brings up an interesting point. I will investigate that more, three others had another item in common that none of the control subjects had. I'll tell you more when I finish the data...I don't want to bias results accidentally. Patterns are developing, though.

[mattarios2]

Familiar Joe: Never received the first questionnaire. Please resend. Are you still doing OK with the stuff? Have you gotten it to smoke pretty regular, now?




Now, bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of respondents to use to form a good statistical certainty, I have identified three variables that may be affecting everything. One I'm about 90% sure on, one I'm 60% sure on and one I'm 30% sure on. I will be in touch, to be sure.

Do tell!

[ilikemyusername]

Patterns are developing

sweet, hopefully I'll be able to try it again sometime with a different result.
(tangiers that is, sorry its early and I'm hangin' over.)

[Sonthert]

OH, like I said, when all the results are in, I'l let you know. No sense in biasing good results.

[Sonthert]

So, I guess I won't wait for the stragglers on the second survey.

[FamiliarJoe]

Familiar Joe: Never received the first questionnaire. Please resend. Are you still doing OK with the stuff? Have you gotten it to smoke pretty regular, now?




Now, bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of respondents to use to form a good statistical certainty, I have identified three variables that may be affecting everything. One I'm about 90% sure on, one I'm 60% sure on and one I'm 30% sure on. I will be in touch, to be sure. I may be PMing a short set of questions to answer. They are formed, I'm asking everybody the same questions and would appreciate some more answers. Thanks.

Believe it or not, 5/9 respondents answered the same question the same way, while no control subjects answered in the affirmative. Of the other 4, two others had similar responses in a very strange manner that I actually never asked the question to, but brings up an interesting point. I will investigate that more, three others had another item in common that none of the control subjects had. I'll tell you more when I finish the data...I don't want to bias results accidentally. Patterns are developing, though.

FML!

I lost all of my answers to it, I KNOW I sent it!! That's just bad luck...or something :|

I have been holding on to the last 200g ish of Tangiers I have until this is completed. Now that I have golden canaries JUST for when I pack Tangiers it has helped a lot. I still need to work on my technique though, something just isn't right..

[Doubon]

I've sent in both. Let me know if there are any problems.

[Sonthert]

I won't field any questions about the questionnaires or the methodology or the respondents or control group. They were a mix of people from the Forum and from people who haven't responded on this thread.

Thanks to all of you who answered the questions on both questionnaires honestly and tried to help everyone else out. Included below is a new experimental acclimation procedure. If you have questions about the acclimation procedure or other directions in this, please respond to this thread or send me a PM.

There are two groups the “Test Respondents” or “Respondents” who have had recurring problems with acclimation and the “Control Group” or “Controls” who have a few problems or no problems acclimating Tangiers.

Respondents, based on the data from your two questionnaires:

In general, first: If you problems acclimating, I would advocate opening your tobacco for four hours the day before you will be smoking at about the same time you want to smoke and then sealing it up in the tub. Don’t stir the tobacco. These are slight changes in acclimating directions. If you have a cycling humidity condition, the tobacco may be cycling behind the humidity. I have studied where each respondent is and determined that everybody’s absolute humidity is relatively stable, however.

Juice loss is something to think about in all brands of hookah tobacco. Minimize transfers of tobacco to minimize the loss of juice. Juice loss is more of a problem in flavors that are more concentrated (from the manufacturing perspective) and less viscous, like Kashmir anything, orange, green apple, and mint come to mind. Pineapple, melon blend, blueberry to name a few are less susceptible to juice loss. Several of you seem to be having a problem with juice loss.

Also, juice bias is a problem, especially with very low-density flavors like cherry. What happens is you stir the tobacco, but take tobacco primarily off the top of the tub. Lower density flavors, lurking at the top of the tobacco, like oil on water (or for you old farts, cream from the top of raw milk) will get taken off in too large a quantity, dip into the tobacco and take tobacco from top and bottom equally to reduce juice or flavor bias. Flavor bias is not a large problem for water-based tobaccos. It is something unique to Tangiers. When in doubt, stick to taking tobacco from the bottom of the tub, not the top.

Additionally, acclimate the tobacco in the tub that will be its new home. Don’t acclimate it on a separate sheet of foil, waxed paper, plastic wrap or whatnot.

Moreover, the error margin on a small bowl is smaller. Be more careful to insure you have a good amount of tobacco. A medium or large bowl is far more forgiving.

Lastly, Acclimating in a Ziplock-type bag is not recommended. Ziploc bags are made of polyethylene and will absorb some flavors, notably mint and citrus flavors. If you are going to approach acclimation from this direction, just leave it in the bag it came in, which are nylon (#7 with an N under the recycling symbol), but I would recommend putting in a polypropylene tub. Nylon, polypropylene (#5), glass and polystyrene (#6) are good materials for storage. Polyethylene (#1, #4) and vinyl (#3) are not recommended. This is true for any brand of tobacco.

I’m not going to address packing issues, I’m only addressing why your tobacco isn’t smelling and smoking right. Some of you I don’t think are having an acclimation issue as much as a handling issue compounding the acclimation. That being said, juice loss may make acclimation harder…it won’t ever smell right, that’s a fact.




In each person’s case, there are people in your general area (other than Alberta, which I have no data on) that have plenty of success with Tangiers. I was thinking there might be some reason, but the main variable seems to be spreading out on foil to acclimate with a secondary variable of leaving it open continuously. I’ve always assumed that leaving it open indefinitely wasn’t a problem…I may have been wrong about that assertion. I have noticed flavors like raspberry, BGB and blueberry do fade in a month or two, faster if left open. Each one of the nine respondents answered affirmatively to one or the other of these two ideas.

There are weaker correlations I discovered, but nothing astounding or universal. The first four respondents in the second survey all never drink soda…I thought I might have been on to something, but then 4 of the next five did drink soda.

There will be, by random chance, false correlations. That’s what some of the following are…mainly due to the small sample size.

1.x indicates question #x from the first questionnaire,, 2.x indicates #x from the second questionnaire. The number in parentheses is the deviation between averages.

1.10b People with recurrent problem were more likely to respond that they had problems when it was hot (-.56). There are quite a few people who smoke when it is hot and cold, but it doesn’t cause that much problem with acclimation unless the temperature swings are large. All the respondents who had trouble had air conditioners which would alleviate this situation.

1.10c People were more likely to have trouble when it rained/snowed. (-.44) I have better success when it rains, personally, and San Diego gets both dry, cold rain and warm, hot rain, so I don’t think that’s a real correlation.

1.12 5 of 9 of the respondents acclimated their tobacco on foil, waxed paper or plastic wrap. See notes above. I intentionally skewed the statistical results in the data tabulation, so the difference in average is irrelevant.

1.14 People who lived in rural areas were more likely to have trouble than people who live in density populated areas. (raw: -.89, adjusted: -.45) If this is important, it would be because the heat and humidity signatures in rural areas are more variable and less stabilized than in densely packed areas. This is highly unlikely because people who live in rural areas often smoke Tangiers and report no problems, even in similarly situated areas to the responders (Again, no data for Alberta).

1.17, 1.18. One respondent lived on a high floor in a condo and this created an artificial deviation in the averages. Discounting this data point removes the difference in average.

1.39 Respondents having problems were more likely to have pets. Specifically reptiles and fish interested me…I doubt its significant. The number of types of pets and the small sample size makes any meaningful differences impossible to discern.

1.40 Respondents having trouble were more likely to have an artificial body of water near them, either a saline fish tank or a pool or a Jacuzzi. Since more of the respondents are from southern areas, by sampling error, this would stand to reason. Open pools are not that popular in areas that freeze over. (-.44)

1.48 Respondents were less likely to have air conditioners that had automatic set-point variations. (.44, Adjusted:.22). The adjusted deviation in average is not significant. The raw deviation is caused by having 3 possible answers.

1.59 Respondents who were more likely to eat at home were more likely to have trouble with acclimation. That might seem significant, but no allowance for people who actually cook and people who heat up TV dinners was made (could it?). (-.44). I screwed up the control averages since I never cook at the store, where is the location I filled the questionnaire out for. If you remove me from the average, the answers fall back into line.

Note, the number of respondents dropped in the second survey, so the averages are off and the statistics compromised, but I did the best with what I had.

2.2 Respondents who lived in areas with thunderstorm activity were more likely to have trouble acclimating. I know several people who report increased difficulty in these weather patterns, but they still don’t have trouble to the same extent. (-.5). That being said, it could be a contributing factor. Thunderhead formation is associated with tropical air flow, which are more likely to be seen in southern latitudes, which is a bias created by the sampling error from more respondents being in Southern areas again. One acclimation condition that happens in temperatures of roughly 80F or more when the humidity jumps up (associated with rain and thunderheads) will create big clouds with no flavor. The tobacco may smell slightly weak, but not to the extent the respondents experienced it.

2.4 Respondents were more likely (.375) to describe the tobacco after stirring to smell worse than before they stirred it. That makes sense, of course, this is a check question, to determine the deviation of the rest of the questions.


2.17 Respondents with better senses of smell were more likely to report recurrent problems. This makes sense on the surface, but this goes against intuitive logic that people with worse senses of smell would be more likely to be insensitive to the changes in smell. (-.46)

2.19 Respondents who were more sensitive to spicy foods were more likely to have recurring problems. (raw: .92, adjusted: ~.3). This is a small deviation in any rate and screwed up by me and another control subject. Me personally, I drink hot sauce and Worcester sauce straight out of the bottle and eat whole lemons, including the rind.

2.20 Respondent who reported more problems were less likely to drink alcoholic beverages (.42).

2.23 Respondents who had trash cans further away from where they acclimate were MORE likely to have recurring acclimation problems . (-.79, adjusted: -.38)

2.26 Respondents who used dental floss were more likely to have recurring acclimation problems. (-.5)

2.31 Respondents who frequently had open windows were less likely to have recurring problems. This might be significant. (.42) If artificial climate systems defy the natural temperature outside more during the day (or night), this might cause trouble when the system is shut off. All the respondents who had recurring problems, except one had their A/Cs/heaters running constantly, so this would seem to be a false correlation.

2.36 Respondents who acclimated in the actual tub the tobacco was stored in had fewer recurring problems. (-.75) This is the reflexive case of people acclimating outside the tub, from the first questionnaire. This question was phrased to create a better, tighter spread of data points. It did just that.

2.38 Respondents who didn’t stir the tobacco while it was acclimating were less likely to have recurring problems. (-.54) This deviation encouraged me to tell people not to stir the tobacco while acclimating.

In summary, 2.39-2.47 questions regarding water around your houses provided some thick and some non-existent deviations in averages. (-.54 to .958). The only interesting one was that people who lived near a body of fresh water were more likely to have recurring problems. The choices weren’t gradiated so the actual deviation in the averages wasn’t significant. I was looking for a homerun in terms of statistical significance…sometimes deviations in averages mean nothing (like this one).

2.48 Was another reflexive question. Respondents who lived in rural areas were more likely to have recurring problems (-.88, adjusted -.44).


I did a fit on each person’s data and found that of 16 respondents, 14 respondents had satisfactory fits to their data sets, testing at a P value of .05 with a one-tailed test, due to the low sample size, and I found that based on certain check points in the data, 2 respondents had appreciably lower P values (~.03, ~.04) than could be obtained normally. The other numbers are all quite healthy (~.51-~.92) This indicates that 2 respondent’s data sets were compromised, either by repeated accident (misreading the questions, etc.) or by intent (Giving incorrect answers to mess with the results or outright lying). I expected this, of course and ran statistic sets additionally without the two people (who know who they are) that are lying, can’t read questions worth a shit or are trying to mess with the questionnaire results for some reason. Since the sample size borders on tiny, I think it can be said that a series of errors in their answers could have created the low-fit P-values, but the number of points suggests otherwise. Nonetheless, this was to work on a better way to acclimate tobacco, Tangiers, specifically. The data was slightly bulged by these outliers (out-lying ? ), but corrected for. So, hopefully this new procedure will yield fruit.

One thing that occurred to me as I was fitting this data…the control respondents (people who have had good success acclimating Tangiers) have a very lazy, whatever method of acclimating. They pay very little attention to it, just ignore it. The people who seem to have recurring problems seem to be far more…attentive and work a lot harder to get it to acclimate. I don’t know if there’s a lesson here or not. Just an observation. The two bad little children claimed to have worked very hard to get it to acclimate, on the other hand, so that is slightly biasing the test respondents. So, take this observation with a grain of salt. Only one test respondent took the “Throw it in the closet and forget about it” approach. So, chill out. You built yourselves up to believe its so different than other types of tobacco, you’re doing things you wouldn’t normally do, just ignore all that. Just treat it like its like any other brand of tobacco and see what kind of results you get. Tangiers isn’t that different…how you use it is very slightly different.

Please each of you PM me your addresses. I was going to send each of you 500g of tobacco for participating, but due to the two bad little children, I will have to modify that and only send out tobacco to 6 people for further testing. I won’t be sending any tobacco to Germany, due to the cost (sorry Sascha! You did get some freebies in the last order, though!) I won’t disclose the specific answers on the survey to other people and keep them in strict confidence. Each of you who responded in the questionnaires, PM me your address and I’ll find some manner of selecting six people to receive samples to conduct further testing. I won’t reveal the process of selection, to protect the identity of the two poor-fit data points. I might send tobacco to both of them. I might send tobacco to neither of them, not include them in the drawing at all. I might select one of the two and assign the other five randomly. I would like to send tobacco to all the good little children, and send none to the two bad children, but then it would certainly call attention to the two who didn’t receive it and violate their confidentiality. So, if you don’t get picked to get free tobacco, you can blame the two people who felt it would be fun to lie or try and mess with all of our efforts; even if you don’t know who they are.

If both of the bad little children want to PM me and withdraw their name from the free drawing, I will send tobacco to everybody else in the survey (14 people). I don’t expect them to care that other people have to lose out to protect their identity and confidentiality, but we can hope. If you don’t want free Tangiers, for any reason, please send me a PM telling me as such. You don’t need to go into details why you don’t want freebies.

Despite the trouble, I enjoyed this, it gave me a chance to brush up on statistics and refresh me as to my statistics and Social Science classes.

[Sonthert]

just wanted to let you know that the kashmire apple I got a few weeks back has acclimated and now tastes very good.I first let it acclimat for two days and tried smoking a couple of times and Yuk it was terriable.Hard to say when kashmire flavors are ready the smell of kashmire was so strong and I could't tell what it was supposed to be like.So I threw it in the back of the pantry and there it sat untill yesterday when I noticed the rest of my stash was gitting low.So I gave it another shot and wow it was really good ,best bowl I had in weeks. All the tangiers I've had really have been best when they acclimate for 2-3 days open then letting them sit on the shelf for two weeks sealed.Wish I would of figured this out earlyer most my tangiers is gone before its at its peek.Plus I found that coconara is too hot to the touch for tangiers but with two layers of HD foil it smokes like a dream.Just takes 8 puffs instead of 2 gitting started.worth it

Well done. You empirically derived what it took me 20 hours of statistical analysis to arrive at. I feel dumb.

The new procedure is similar to twoapplesplease's procedure. Glad it smoked well for ya. Hopefully everybody else will find the same success you did.

This is what I also said in my last entry, people without problems seem to have a "whatever" throw it in the closet kind of approach to acclimation.

[mix_tape]

This is all very fascinating very interesting results.

[mattarios2]

hmm ... well if i receive the goods i'll give all of this a go.

If I don't receive it ... i'll eventually get around to ordering a 250g and seeing where this information takes me.

[ilikemyusername]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

[scratchy]

I honestly hopes this solves all of the acclimation issues.

Eric is stand up guy and I can tell he has real passion for his product.

Good luck everyone and well done for being fucking awesome Eric Edited July 12, 2009 by scratchy

[pinky]

Thanks Eric for your work and for taking our problems serious! I can report that the lazy method of acclimation worked for me. Along with the improvements on packing technique you helped me with. I am enjoying a bowl of indigo flower at the moment. Great flavor and clouds. Also satisfying results with clove and pink grapefruit. So the only troublemaker is Kashmir Apple, who right now sitting in the freezer and enjoying a cold dry stay to run a new acclimation phase.
To all of you facing issues, listen to Erics advices! The ones he gave here and if he tells you it might be packing issues, don't hesitate to try a different things.

I don't worry about not getting more freebie stuff, you have been generous and very helpful during the last few weeks!

[Arcane]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

No...I AM SPARTACUS!!

[Ralleac]

edit: deleted, mean to PM.

Anyway, I was acclimating on foil, and then transferring it to sealed plastic containers. Maybe that is where my problems started. Edited July 13, 2009 by Ralleac

[Sonthert]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

Hehheh. Thats funny. I appreciate your words, I don't think that really addresses the issue, though. What purpose would be served for you to lie?

I know who's data was misfit. They both need to step down. You couldn't possibly be both.



Hopefully this will yield some good results. Twoapplesplease reporting a similar process seemed to work is encouraging.

I am receiving some people's addresses. Get them to me in the next week. Thanks.

[FamiliarJoe]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

Hehheh. Thats funny. I appreciate your words, I don't think that really addresses the issue, though. What purpose would be served for you to lie?

I know who's data was misfit. They both need to step down. You couldn't possibly be both.



Hopefully this will yield some good results. Twoapplesplease reporting a similar process seemed to work is encouraging.

I am receiving some people's addresses. Get them to me in the next week. Thanks.

I actually had a halfway decent session of Orange soda tonight. The flavor was faint and had decent clouds, but NO HARSHNESS WOOHOO!!! Im getting there.

Im guessing you sent PM's to the people who's addresses you need?

[newjacksm]

I am going to print out your earlier post on your findings Sonthert and tape it to my hookah cabinet so I can read it every day.

[Sonthert]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

Hehheh. Thats funny. I appreciate your words, I don't think that really addresses the issue, though. What purpose would be served for you to lie?

I know who's data was misfit. They both need to step down. You couldn't possibly be both.



Hopefully this will yield some good results. Twoapplesplease reporting a similar process seemed to work is encouraging.

I am receiving some people's addresses. Get them to me in the next week. Thanks.

I actually had a halfway decent session of Orange soda tonight. The flavor was faint and had decent clouds, but NO HARSHNESS WOOHOO!!! Im getting there.

Im guessing you sent PM's to the people who's addresses you need?

No, People are sending me their addresses. I didn't get your first one, so your data is not reflected in the study.

That being said...did I predict accurately how your tobacco was going to smoke or what, dude?

NewJacks. Oh, you. I'm thinking I know one free tobacco recipient off the top.

[Arcane]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

Hehheh. Thats funny. I appreciate your words, I don't think that really addresses the issue, though. What purpose would be served for you to lie?

I know who's data was misfit. They both need to step down. You couldn't possibly be both.



Hopefully this will yield some good results. Twoapplesplease reporting a similar process seemed to work is encouraging.

I am receiving some people's addresses. Get them to me in the next week. Thanks.

I actually had a halfway decent session of Orange soda tonight. The flavor was faint and had decent clouds, but NO HARSHNESS WOOHOO!!! Im getting there.

Im guessing you sent PM's to the people who's addresses you need?

No, People are sending me their addresses. I didn't get your first one, so your data is not reflected in the study.

That being said...did I predict accurately how your tobacco was going to smoke or what, dude?

NewJacks. Oh, you. I'm thinking I know one free tobacco recipient off the top.

It's me, right Eric?

[Sonthert]

Shhh! Jay...its supposed to be a secret.

Oh, PS, like I said in my large post, it is possible that one/both of the people just misread a bunch of questions.

[FamiliarJoe]

wait wait, 14 people participated and took time out of thier days, 2 deliberately lied and you know which 2 it was so you're only sending a freebie to half the people who genuinely cared about helping you? I signed up for this for the greater good of the forum so we could stop seeing as many "how do i acclimate?" threads, not even knowing there would be any giveaways at the end. I will be sparticus so that everyone who deserves thier free tobacco can get it. Both of the people who lied are me. Send the tobacco to the other twelve people.

Hehheh. Thats funny. I appreciate your words, I don't think that really addresses the issue, though. What purpose would be served for you to lie?

I know who's data was misfit. They both need to step down. You couldn't possibly be both.



Hopefully this will yield some good results. Twoapplesplease reporting a similar process seemed to work is encouraging.

I am receiving some people's addresses. Get them to me in the next week. Thanks.

I actually had a halfway decent session of Orange soda tonight. The flavor was faint and had decent clouds, but NO HARSHNESS WOOHOO!!! Im getting there.

Im guessing you sent PM's to the people who's addresses you need?

No, People are sending me their addresses. I didn't get your first one, so your data is not reflected in the study.

That being said...did I predict accurately how your tobacco was going to smoke or what, dude?

NewJacks. Oh, you. I'm thinking I know one free tobacco recipient off the top.

Yes you did, mark my words everybody. Eric knew how my bowl was going to smoke before I even finished packing it

In the end, what a great session. Still needs tweaking on my part, though.

[scratchy]

I also get some free Tang right?






RIGHT? Edited July 13, 2009 by scratchy