Hi, Tomas, welcome to the forum, it is so nice and friendly place.
It is so interesting for me to read on your home grown tobacco. I would be delighted to hear on your curing/fermentation method. Let me share here my own modest experience in this matter with hope, that Administration will not find it inappropriate in this thread; if so - I will remove the tobacco curing part.
Some time ago I received dry, cut to large pieces and pressed leaves of yellow Virginia from USA. I have cut (or crushed) these dry leaves into small pieces - ca 3x3 mm size and I put them in large flat pan/vessel. Then I sprinkled these small pieces with liquid/solution made of 1/3 of intensive natural honey diluted with 2/3 of water. All volume of the liquid was about a half of a tea glass (ca 1/4 liter=ca 0.5 US Pint) for a little more then half of a pound of these dry leaves. I used buckwheat honey. I have covered/closed the vessel and exposed the vessel with moistened tobacco inside into moderate heat - simply by putting it at the window in day when the sun shines, so the moist will go all over throughout the tobacco. After two days I put the moistened tobacco in mason jar with twist type lids and was keeping it in moderate heat (again at the window exposed to sun light, and for nights I wrapped the jar in my sleeping bag; many years ago landowners or farmers in their lands/real estates/farms at home were putting the containers with fermenting tobacco in large baskets or barrels filled with hay or straw.) After two weeks I smoked the first bowl after short drying the part of tobacco to be smoked at the piece of paper: the smoke was strong and a little harsh at the beginning, but the natural sweetness of Virginia was obviously sensed/tasted/present.This blend was two months old in July 2011 , and it improves with time; still strong and a little harsh at the beginning, but burns exceptionally well, and, what is most important for me, the natural sweetness of good Va is present all the time up to the bottom of the bowl. After next couple of months it has mellowed and is really nice blend of straight Virginia. Mixed with ca 5% of St James Perique makes so nice a smoke, that some of my pipe friends can not believe that the blend is just a home cured tobacco.
Then I repeated this procedure using leaves of lower quality Virginia. It is the Va that is presently growing in my home country - Poland. We used to have perfect tobaccos growing, but due to lack of common sense, good organization etc. that was characteristic to the former regime our tobacco farming went down with it's quality. Still the blend that I made of local Va. after described fermentation is quite OK, just more harsh at the start. Perhaps it will mellow with age.
I believe that such simple home tobacco fermentation/curing will result well with other then Va kinds of tobacco - like many kinds of Oriental tobacco which, I presume, grow in your country.
Maybe following links will be of an interest on the matter of home growing and curing tobacco:
http://www.coffinails.com/index.html
http://www.tobaccoseed.ca/
http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/
To end with: I begun my adventure with home fermentation/curing in May of this 2011 and now I am experimenting with my blends by adding different additives. One of the ways is to add to mason jar with my Va several crushed dark "fruits"/balls of juniper that I collect when trekking in forest. The other way is to add few leaves from the cherry tree. The simple and obvious way is to add some prunes and raisins.
So far I am using leaves that I obtained from other sources. Due to priceless friendly help of one of my Friends (Thanks, Bill!) I received seeds of Yellow Orinoco Heirloom Virginia. I do not have farm or garden, but some of my pipe colleagues do. So in coming Spring our first minimal garden tobacco growing will begin.
Kindest regards
Jacek in Poland
