Cutting Up Tangiers

[ASUSEAN1]

i kno mush said the same thing but this really does help//

lately i have been taking a knife, and cutting up tangiers tobacco into fine pieces before packing it. the flavor is better and the tobacco burns more evenly

edit- and it doesnt seem as harsh. although i never thought it was too harsh Edited January 7, 2007 by ASUSEAN1

[web250]

Hmmm...I wonder what the man himself would say to that.

[Sonthert]

How long does it take...like 30 minutes? I think thats its actually acclimating and cutting it up doesn't change anything. Moving it around and turning it over and over probably speeds the process along. You could probably get the same results by just poking the tobacco with your finger for a half an hour. Most of the people doing this probably left at least a day between smokings too...but it wouldn't matter I theorize. I can remember fondly watching one of the owners of Fumari with scissors cutting and recutting the tobacco in great tubs. (It was Nahkla, at the time) he believed it made the tobaco smoke better. I believe it just acclimated it better, spreading it out thin and moving it around.

Smaller pieces do have at least two drawbacks:

1. Smaller pieces tend to get sucked through the holes more, clogging things up and getting in the water.

2. Smaller pieces make the tobacco pack tighter...you then need to separate it to get it to smoke right, but it still wants to fall back to that clump and it won't draw right (I call it "settle")...if you're smoking for an hour and then the draw gets too tight, its probably because of settle, caused by too small of pieces of tobacco.

Similar to what I wrote on another post, assuming that small pieces of tobacco are the only way or are the most traditional way is false, tobacco pieces used to be larger (hence sitting around chopping up the Nahkla). Nahkla's has gotten smaller. Much of the Middle East manufacturing is built on presumption. Abu Hitham came along and started selling much more finely-ground tobacco and Al Waha, too. Note Al Waha pieces have actually increased in size over the years. I sat here and tried to think of an analogy. The only thing I have come up with is painting hospitals white inside which tries to imply they are cleaner. Are white things necessarily cleaner? No, but you can seee dirt (stems) easier and saying "Stems are bad, they make the smoke harsh" comes into play (Which is false, by the way, stems don't impact anything, yet I find myself removing them compulsively!). When everyone starts painting their hospital rooms white, the other hospitals follow suit, soon everyone has white rooms, trying to show how clean they are. There is a correct size range for pieces of tobacco...Al Waha and Pharoahs are much closer than the old ones used to be. Maybe a little small, but not bad at all. Al Amir is too small, Havana is too small. Fumari is too small. Whatever anybody told you about size of pieces is probably wrong, suffice it to say. It would absolutely be no problem for me to manufacture the tobacco chopped much finer than it is now...but I don't think the product would perform as well.

[camelflage]

sonthert is right. mathematically, cutting up the tobacco would not change it at all. it is still the same amount of tobacco and same amount of glycerin an molasses, wth a negligable increase in surface area due to the cut ends. the larger tobacco packs fluffier and would actually burn better because volumetrically speaking there is more air to heat around it. finely chopped shisha packs together and gives the same effect as trying to cook a baked potato as opposed to a pile of french fries. just on a smaller scale.

20 points to the first company to create cheesy hash brown shisha though. a smoke with breakfast would make my day start better Edited January 8, 2007 by camelflage

[Jeff_T]

mmmm..... biscuits and sausage with country gravy....

[.cOLt.45.]

xD instead of glycerine use bacon grease...

[mushrat]

Bacon grease aside,,I'm starting to reakky being abe to enjoy my Tanguers again, I;m chppping it uo wirh a nice paring knife, usinf 2 1.4 pieces of 33mm 3 kings on a shcreen using an old mysa bowl and smoking like the good old days...Smoked my old favorite Melon Blend and re,membered why I loved this stuff so much. Yonight...Raspberry!