I thought I would make a thread on RYO and other tobacco smoking techniques. I've gathered enough observations to make a small guide.
When I hear people talking about RYO tobacco and it's harshness or smoothness and flavor or lack thereof, I am always skeptical because how the cigarette is prepared has as much to do with flavor as what tobacco is used. Every tobacco has degrees of harshness and flavor that can be adjusted by changing the humidity of the tobacco or packing of the cigarette.
The flavor also depends on whether you use a filter, what kind of filter it is, the ambient humidity and temperature, the time of day, and certainly how your body reacts to smoking.
Some smokers can never handle more than a few cigarettes in a day. Many others have a higher tolerance, which seems to strongly affect preference in general. I fall into the first category and I find that reducing harshness is a necessity, whereas more regular smokers don't really experience harshness the way I do, which makes sense given their higher tolerance. They are more likely to be happy with rolling a cigarette quickly without much controls.
Even between people who have similar tolerance, preferences for flavor strongly impact the preferred "recipe" for a cigarette.
The starting point for determining your preferred recipe is to discover something about the cigarette you roll that you don't like. Harshness is a common complaint. With that as a starting point, there are several ways to reduce it.
Counterintuitively, filters often increase harshness. Filters you buy from the tobacco store are usually some kind of plastic fiber which strongly affects the flavor of the tobacco. I found that I prefer to use cotton from vitamin bottles. Cotton balls often contain astringent or residual chlorine from bleaching, but cotton from pill bottles seems to be very clean - I would guess that it must be chlorine-free in order to preserve the nutrients in the vitamins (sometimes it is rayon instead of cotton). One can come up with theories about vitamin residue in the cotton being a problem, but that is as yet hypothetical for me because I have never had a problem with it. If however you were allergic to soybeans and you used cotton from a vitamin that included soybean oil, there is little doubt it could cause a problem. I use a cigarette holder and pack it with cotton so that it provides some air resistance, but less resistance than the cigarette itself. I keep the cotton straight. Balled up, tangled cotton in my experience loses effectiveness as a filter, you might as well not use one. I take the filters out of these and reuse them with my own cotton filters:
https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Filter-Disposable-Filtered-Holders/dp/B0028LIV7I/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1496651719&sr=8-2&keywords=Cigarette+water+Filters
In general, humidity and packing work against each other. So if your tobacco is dryer and you want to have a similar result, then you will want to pack the cigarette tighter. This is useful for when your tobacco has dried out a bit too much but you can't wait. The flavor won't change too much and the harshness will probably be acceptable.
Most cigarettes have little humidity. They are treated with propylene glycol and something is done to them so that if you drip water onto the end, it will just roll off no matter how hard you try to wet the tobacco. For a manufacturer this makes sense - it makes the flavor consistent between cartons. But for RYO, you want to be able to control humidity because it gives you much more flexibility towards the intended outcome.
70-80 degrees humidity seems to be the "goldilocks zone". A slightly moist tobacco in my experience will be more harsh than a dry tobacco, but as you increase humidity, somewhere between 70-80% you will find the harshness falls sharply. And then as you go above that it returns in a different form. The moist smoke can be so thick that it will burn your mouth or your lips and will fowl your cigarette holder if you use one. The best point will be different for each blend of tobacco. Some blends you may want to keep dry. Don't let cigarettes sit for very long after rolling because they dry out fast.
How hard the tobacco is packed in the cigarette is also important. I use small 70mm cigarette papers, and I find 1.1g of tobacco per cigarette is a good starting point. I've found that less packing in general means more sweetness, although super-light packing has it's own problems. For harsher tobaccos such as American Spirit blue can, I tend to pack harder around 1.2g. The less harsh the tobacco, the lighter I can pack the cigarette. But light packing also makes the cigarette stronger biologically - too much lighter than the goldilocks zone and there is a sharp rise in the strength of the cigarette, which is too much for me. But for those of you who want your tobacco to be stronger biologically, try making your cigarette lighter rather than heavier. You may be surprised.
The type of paper you use has a strong effect. I find whiter, paper-like papers give a sweeter, less harsh taste. One thing I do to all papers though is tear off the gum strip. It's unnecessary and can mask the flavor of the tobacco a surprising amount. I'll explain this later with rolling.
Let's say instead of reducing harshness, you want a stronger cigarette. In my experience lighter packing is important here. Also lower humidity if it is high. Simply putting more tobacco in the cigarette works to some extent, but it usually works better to maximise the tobacco you have. If you really need more tobacco it's more efficient to get a longer cigarette roller and longer papers. That way you don't strain the recipe to increase strength.
The cut of the tobacco matters, although most cigarette tobacco is cut the same way. More finely shredded tobacco can be packed tighter without harshness, although RYO tobacco is usually already as fine as it can be. If you have powder left at the bottom of your container though, I found it can have great flavor if packed very dense, at 1.4g for a 70mm cigarette. Cigarettes made this way can be flavorful with little strength or bite. If you prefer this you can put your tobacco in the blender to shred it finely. But it must be done in small amounts and tends to dry out the tobacco during the process.
I use the common cigarette roller that you can get cheaply at any tobacco store. They can be frustrating when they don't work. One of the most common problems is when the edge of the paper comes around to the top, hits the other end of the paper and instead of rolling around the cigarette, crumples up or goes the other way, producing a misshapen or totally broken cigarette. One thing that can help a lot is to take the part of the paper that goes in first, and curl it so that it follows the shape of the eventual cigarette. This way it will naturally tuck under the other end of the paper when it comes around. This will increase the number of wrinkle-free cigarettes you can make and reduce the casualties. When it does go horribly wrong, you can turn the roller backwards, grab the paper with tweezers and feed it back out to try again. This way you don't have to dump the tobacco out.
The gum strip on these papers is unnecessary and not good for flavor in my experience. I fold it over, wet the crease with my tongue and rip it off. The feathered edge that remains works just as well, but don't try this with scissors because without the feathered edge the paper won't stick to itself and your cigarette will come apart.
When I hear people talking about RYO tobacco and it's harshness or smoothness and flavor or lack thereof, I am always skeptical because how the cigarette is prepared has as much to do with flavor as what tobacco is used. Every tobacco has degrees of harshness and flavor that can be adjusted by changing the humidity of the tobacco or packing of the cigarette.
The flavor also depends on whether you use a filter, what kind of filter it is, the ambient humidity and temperature, the time of day, and certainly how your body reacts to smoking.
Some smokers can never handle more than a few cigarettes in a day. Many others have a higher tolerance, which seems to strongly affect preference in general. I fall into the first category and I find that reducing harshness is a necessity, whereas more regular smokers don't really experience harshness the way I do, which makes sense given their higher tolerance. They are more likely to be happy with rolling a cigarette quickly without much controls.
Even between people who have similar tolerance, preferences for flavor strongly impact the preferred "recipe" for a cigarette.
The starting point for determining your preferred recipe is to discover something about the cigarette you roll that you don't like. Harshness is a common complaint. With that as a starting point, there are several ways to reduce it.
Counterintuitively, filters often increase harshness. Filters you buy from the tobacco store are usually some kind of plastic fiber which strongly affects the flavor of the tobacco. I found that I prefer to use cotton from vitamin bottles. Cotton balls often contain astringent or residual chlorine from bleaching, but cotton from pill bottles seems to be very clean - I would guess that it must be chlorine-free in order to preserve the nutrients in the vitamins (sometimes it is rayon instead of cotton). One can come up with theories about vitamin residue in the cotton being a problem, but that is as yet hypothetical for me because I have never had a problem with it. If however you were allergic to soybeans and you used cotton from a vitamin that included soybean oil, there is little doubt it could cause a problem. I use a cigarette holder and pack it with cotton so that it provides some air resistance, but less resistance than the cigarette itself. I keep the cotton straight. Balled up, tangled cotton in my experience loses effectiveness as a filter, you might as well not use one. I take the filters out of these and reuse them with my own cotton filters:
https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Filter-Disposable-Filtered-Holders/dp/B0028LIV7I/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1496651719&sr=8-2&keywords=Cigarette+water+Filters
In general, humidity and packing work against each other. So if your tobacco is dryer and you want to have a similar result, then you will want to pack the cigarette tighter. This is useful for when your tobacco has dried out a bit too much but you can't wait. The flavor won't change too much and the harshness will probably be acceptable.
Most cigarettes have little humidity. They are treated with propylene glycol and something is done to them so that if you drip water onto the end, it will just roll off no matter how hard you try to wet the tobacco. For a manufacturer this makes sense - it makes the flavor consistent between cartons. But for RYO, you want to be able to control humidity because it gives you much more flexibility towards the intended outcome.
70-80 degrees humidity seems to be the "goldilocks zone". A slightly moist tobacco in my experience will be more harsh than a dry tobacco, but as you increase humidity, somewhere between 70-80% you will find the harshness falls sharply. And then as you go above that it returns in a different form. The moist smoke can be so thick that it will burn your mouth or your lips and will fowl your cigarette holder if you use one. The best point will be different for each blend of tobacco. Some blends you may want to keep dry. Don't let cigarettes sit for very long after rolling because they dry out fast.
How hard the tobacco is packed in the cigarette is also important. I use small 70mm cigarette papers, and I find 1.1g of tobacco per cigarette is a good starting point. I've found that less packing in general means more sweetness, although super-light packing has it's own problems. For harsher tobaccos such as American Spirit blue can, I tend to pack harder around 1.2g. The less harsh the tobacco, the lighter I can pack the cigarette. But light packing also makes the cigarette stronger biologically - too much lighter than the goldilocks zone and there is a sharp rise in the strength of the cigarette, which is too much for me. But for those of you who want your tobacco to be stronger biologically, try making your cigarette lighter rather than heavier. You may be surprised.
The type of paper you use has a strong effect. I find whiter, paper-like papers give a sweeter, less harsh taste. One thing I do to all papers though is tear off the gum strip. It's unnecessary and can mask the flavor of the tobacco a surprising amount. I'll explain this later with rolling.
Let's say instead of reducing harshness, you want a stronger cigarette. In my experience lighter packing is important here. Also lower humidity if it is high. Simply putting more tobacco in the cigarette works to some extent, but it usually works better to maximise the tobacco you have. If you really need more tobacco it's more efficient to get a longer cigarette roller and longer papers. That way you don't strain the recipe to increase strength.
The cut of the tobacco matters, although most cigarette tobacco is cut the same way. More finely shredded tobacco can be packed tighter without harshness, although RYO tobacco is usually already as fine as it can be. If you have powder left at the bottom of your container though, I found it can have great flavor if packed very dense, at 1.4g for a 70mm cigarette. Cigarettes made this way can be flavorful with little strength or bite. If you prefer this you can put your tobacco in the blender to shred it finely. But it must be done in small amounts and tends to dry out the tobacco during the process.
I use the common cigarette roller that you can get cheaply at any tobacco store. They can be frustrating when they don't work. One of the most common problems is when the edge of the paper comes around to the top, hits the other end of the paper and instead of rolling around the cigarette, crumples up or goes the other way, producing a misshapen or totally broken cigarette. One thing that can help a lot is to take the part of the paper that goes in first, and curl it so that it follows the shape of the eventual cigarette. This way it will naturally tuck under the other end of the paper when it comes around. This will increase the number of wrinkle-free cigarettes you can make and reduce the casualties. When it does go horribly wrong, you can turn the roller backwards, grab the paper with tweezers and feed it back out to try again. This way you don't have to dump the tobacco out.
The gum strip on these papers is unnecessary and not good for flavor in my experience. I fold it over, wet the crease with my tongue and rip it off. The feathered edge that remains works just as well, but don't try this with scissors because without the feathered edge the paper won't stick to itself and your cigarette will come apart.
