Fixing a pipe tobacco blend
It will have happened to everyone, maybe even you, to find yourself with a good pipe tobacco blend that is lacking in something.
It may be that the blend is too strong or too light, or not enough full bodied or with an excessively high nicotine load.
The ideal in these cases is to fix the pipe tobacco blend, trying to overcome the flaw in the blend you are smoking.
Fixing a pipe tobacco blend: how to do it
Don't worry: fixing a blend is not difficult at all, the important thing is to have pure tobaccos and to know how to do it.
Let's see how different types of pipe tobacco perform in fixing blends.
Let's start with Burley, which is a tobacco that is useful for several purposes: it can increase nicotine load and body, but also soften flavors that are all too pronounced, better binding the components of the blend.
We are talking about a multifaceted tobacco: it is never intrusive and merely makes some variation in the blend.
Virginia serves to lighten the body of a blend, imparting a variable note of sweetness, or to modify it substantially.
If, on the other hand, we add "flavoring" tobaccos (Latakia or Perique) to the blend, it changes considerably in flavor, but without varying in aroma or body.
It's impossible to say precisely the amounts of tobacco to fix, partly because there are so many variables involved.
If you intend to correct the blend with Virginia, Orientals or Burley, you can choose the quanti
If you intend to fix the blend with Virginia, Orientals or Burleys, you can choose the amounts according to your taste.
In the case of flavoring tobaccos, however, you should follow certain parameters, otherwise you risk completely distorting the blend.
Fixing a pipe tobacco blend: examples
Here are some examples of fixing blends.
Consider any English Mixture, consisting of Virginia, Orientals and Latakia.
Virginia is the basis, Orientals the supporting and Latakia is the flavoring.
If you feel this blend is too strong, you can lighten its body by adding more Orientals or light Virginia.
Conversely, if the blend is too light, you can toughen it up by adding Kentucky, Burley, or a more intense Virginia. With this correction, which varies the composition percentages, the aroma of the Latakia will be muted.
Are you a lover of Latakia? You can safely add it to the blend, but know that you will lighten its body. If, on the other hand, you would like to change the blend substantially, you could correct with Cavendish or a flavored cut tobacco.
In both cases you have to proceed by trial and error, as you may get different results.
Let's now take a Cavendish blend as an example.
Being a basis, you can add a Virginia or Burley as a supporting and some Latakia as a flavoring.
Here the possibilities are many: you can also blend Cavendish blend with Virginia, Orientals and Latakia, so you get a Modern English Mixture.
Finally, we have the case of the blend composed of Burley, Virginia and Orientals. It certainly lends itself well to a flavoring, such as some Latakia or Cavendish. One must be careful with Perique, because it may be that the Virginia present is already spicy enough.
These are some examples of applicable fixings, but in general it is important that the components of the blend have the same degree of moisture. If this is not the case, the advice is to over-moisten the tobacco and then even out the cut.
Putting the mixture under pressure will bind the components better, rounding out the edges. Afterwards, it is a good idea to let the blend rest for an appropriate amount of time.
Adding cigars to the pipe tobacco blend
Many smokers, especially in Italy, tend to add crumbled cigars to cut tobaccos or smoke them pure in a tobacco pipe.
But how to add them properly?
First, you'll need to humidify the cigar so that you can crumble it without the risk of it turning to dust.
Now you can break it up coarsely and group the fragments together. At this point, using a sprayer, spray some tepid water.
Then, continue crumbling the cigar, trying to moisten it evenly. The goal is to get a coarse cut tobacco that is very moist, but not wet.
Having done this, using a grinder, equalize the cut: now the crumbled cigar is ready to be added into your blends. If you intend to smoke it pure, I recommend letting it dry a little first.
If you intend to use a Kentucky-based Italian cigar, avoid throwing away the wrapper, because it is the most valuable tobacco in the cigar.
But what is the yield in smoke?
Regardless of the cigar, you will always get a full-bodied blend, but thanks to the humidification, you will have mitigated the sour taste you would get by just crumbling the cigar and smoking it.
When mixed with other pure tobaccos, the crumbled cigar can be considered on par with a supporting or flavoring.
If you love smoking very full-bodied tobaccos you might also try using it as a basis, but it depends a lot on personal taste.
In any case, both Caribbean and Kentucky cigars are quite full-bodied, so they lend themselves well to fixing and strengthening blends.
Finally, experimenting with aromatic cigars can impart interesting flavor notes to blends.