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Last post 3 years ago by Pudding Mittens. 8 replies replies.
Totally delicious free pipe tobacco, forever!
Pudding Mittens Offline
#1 Posted:
Joined: 08-15-2016
Posts: 1,291
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Pudding Mittens' Smoking Life Hack #347:

Get an airtight container, throw a Boveda pack in it, close it.

Whenever you want a cigar, open the lid, cut the cigar over it, letting the clippings fall into the container. Immediately close the lid again.

The container will slowly accumulate what is basically free pipe tobacco!

It'll be in a variety of shapes and sizes (caps from straight-cutting round-head cigars, wedges from V-cutting them, little pyramids from straight-cutting torpedoes, etc. etc.) When you want a pipe, just "rub" the pieces on your palms or fingers to break them up, or chop them up somehow with a blade, whatever you feel like doing to get them into the proper consistency for packing your pipe.

The really cool part is, the wrapper-to-filler ratio in this stuff is far, far higher than that of your cigars. Your cigars are mostly filler, this stuff is almost all wrapper. Because the wrapper is often the most tasty and intense part of the cigar, this pipe tobacco you're accumulating is usually "flavor bomb" territory that can be quite amazingly good. As an example, smoked a lot of A.J. Fernandez blends with the Pennsylvania broadleaf maduro wrapper, and the pipe tobacco that came out of this was YOWZA! Super-strong, spicy and hugely full-bodied. Totally excellent.

Also cool is that this free pipe tobacco automatically mirrors the flavors of what cigars you've been smoking lately (just more intense and flavorful due to wrapper predominating), so as your cigar tastes change, so will your free pipe tobacco!

You can even ask your pals to clip their cigars over your container, etc., provided they're not slobs who make out with the end of their cigar before cutting it, yielding spit-soaked clippings (yuck!).

If you're not already doing it, start now, it works great! Feel free to comment below about your experiences doing it.

I recommend a corn cob pipe for this, but then again, I recommend them for all pipe tobaccos anyway!

Advanced level-up stuff for guys who smoke a lot and generate a lot of clippings: make several containers for different types of flavors (mild, medium, full, or whatever), and cut each cigar over the appropriate container. You can then even experiment blending these in different ratios!
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USNGunner Offline
#2 Posted:
Joined: 05-17-2019
Posts: 4,402
That's actually kind of a cool idea. Nice.

Given the shape of most caps, it's like "Foreskin Riff". You should patent that.


LOL
Pudding Mittens Offline
#3 Posted:
Joined: 08-15-2016
Posts: 1,291
USNGunner wrote:
That's actually kind of a cool idea. Nice.

Thanks. The cheapass side of me (which is most of me!) figured why throw away a few percent of a cigar that's made of the exact same good stuff as the rest of the stick? Why not accumulate and then use it instead, particularly as it's so wrapper-rich and extra-flavorful? Why let it fall on the ground or be put in the trash?

It seems kind of obvious once you hear it, yet I've never seen the idea mentioned anywhere. So I figured I'd share.

Quote:
Given the shape of most caps, it's like "Foreskin Riff". You should patent that.LOL

It's Mohel-tastic! Heh-heh.
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frankj1 Offline
#4 Posted:
Joined: 02-08-2007
Posts: 44,211
Pudding Mittens wrote:
Thanks. The cheapass side of me (which is most of me!) figured why throw away a few percent of a cigar that's made of the exact same good stuff as the rest of the stick? Why not accumulate and then use it instead, particularly as it's so wrapper-rich and extra-flavorful? Why let it fall on the ground or be put in the trash?

It seems kind of obvious once you hear it, yet I've never seen the idea mentioned anywhere. So I figured I'd share.


It's Mohel-tastic! Heh-heh.

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you rang?
pacman357 Offline
#5 Posted:
Joined: 02-27-2006
Posts: 42,596
There are some good pipe blends out there with what is called "cigar leaf", which could mean many things. As far as mixing trimmings, I'd suggest at least adding a little decent Virginia and/or white burley to even out your mix. The former will give you some bite and sweetness and the latter some nuttiness. Sutliff and Mac Baren make some pretty good stuff that you can find in cans and bulk. But that's just my $.02.
Pudding Mittens Offline
#6 Posted:
Joined: 08-15-2016
Posts: 1,291
pacman357 wrote:
There are some good pipe blends out there with what is called "cigar leaf", which could mean many things. As far as mixing trimmings, I'd suggest at least adding a little decent Virginia and/or white burley to even out your mix. The former will give you some bite and sweetness and the latter some nuttiness. Sutliff and Mac Baren make some pretty good stuff that you can find in cans and bulk. But that's just my $.02.

Mixing the clippings with commercial pipe tobacco? That's a great idea! It might indeed make the overall mix better or more balanced. Plus it increases experimentation options, which is always fun.
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delta1 Offline
#7 Posted:
Joined: 11-23-2011
Posts: 28,754
you ever try chopping up the cigar nubs after cutting away the ashy part? or has the flavor been affected by the tarry residue that gathers at the head as you smoke?
Pudding Mittens Offline
#8 Posted:
Joined: 08-15-2016
Posts: 1,291
delta1 wrote:
you ever try chopping up the cigar nubs after cutting away the ashy part? or has the flavor been affected by the tarry residue that gathers at the head as you smoke?

Never tried that. I suspect it wouldn't work for the reasons you mention. Anyone who's smoked a cigar to the end and then left its butt in an open ashtray in a closed room overnight knows what happens... the room smells absolutely horrible the next day, and so would your container of "free pipe tobacco" if you put post-smoking tobacco in there, I suspect. You might ruin the whole stash with the stink.

Time may be a factor though (the overnight thing, for example). During the Great Depression (and even today among cheap-ass guys like me), lots of cigar smokers got maximum value out of their cigars by smoking them until they were too short to hold, then immediately putting the still-lit butt into a pipe, ash/cherry side up, push it down in there with a tamper a bit, then smoke it like a pipe bowl. Doing that, you can smoke the ENTIRE cigar. However, you have to do it immediately, not the next day, or it'll be nasty.

The optimal solution here may be:

1. Cut cigar, put clippings in your "free pipe tobacco" sealed container for pipe use arbitrarily later.
2. Smoke cigar as usual until it's too short to hold.
3. Stick the butt, cherry-side-up, in a pipe and smoke the rest immediately.

This seems like the optimal way to be a super ultra tight-ass cheapskate. Herfing
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