How Long Before Jarring?

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JJPHOTO

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How long can tobacco be in a ziploc before you need to start looking at jarring it? I think someone said it was about 10 days before a tin starts to lose it, but wasn't sure if ziplocs were okay for an extended amount of time. At only one or two bowls a day, I'm worried I'll start losing some quality after a while.
 
You can always put it in a jar. Jars make great temporary storage. But I have never studied what happens after a number of days. I do notice that when I open a tin of Dunhill that I smoke it up fast enough that I can still tell it's getting drier each day.
 
Ziplocks are borderline worthless. They keep moisture in, but everything else (volatile oils &c.) leaks through them. Jar first thing on opening.

Especially if you're going to age some. It needs the moisture to develop over time. Dry tobacco just sits there, jar or no jar.

:face:
 
Yak":hf18u1ax said:
Jar first thing on opening.
I thought you only jarred if you were going to age it. Sanitize, heat, seal, etc. otherwise it doesn't create an airtight seal like a ziploc does? I must've misunderstood.
 
If you can smell tobacco through a zip-lock, then volatile compounds are getting out, and ergo air is getting in.

(You don't need to jump through hoops of sterile jarring if you're going to smoke your purchase right away, but a mason or bail-top jar will keep it fresh.)
 
1) Open tin

2) Transfer tobacco to jar

3) Smoke same

Two small jars, with one filled to the top, are preferable to one larger jar with extra room in it.

Tins -- even GLP's -- don't re-seal really well. Left in an opened tin, inside of three days you can start to smell (and taste) that it's drying out -- going flat, as it were. Like it's losing one of the dimensions it had, day by day.

:face:
 
Jars are definately the way to go to keep your tobacco fresh. I keep most of my opened tobaccos in jars. I do have a few samples taken from the box pass this year in zip lock baggies as it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep such a small amount in a jar.

As a side note I have also vacuume sealed several of the jars using a mason jar attachment with a vacuume sealer. Not sure if this will re-start the aging process once the tobacco is removed from the tin. As I understand it, the anerobic process starts after the air is used up by the microbes in the tobacco and that is when the magic begins. Don't know if vacuuming will remove enough of the air but it does make for a tight seal on the lid. Oh and you get that cool Woosh sound when opening the jar followed by that heavenly aroma. :D
 
"Sanitize, heat, seal, etc. otherwise it doesn't create an airtight seal like a ziploc does? I must've misunderstood."

There are two schools to what you've written. One says do all the things that you have in your list. The other says that this (the heating) is unnecessary. Personally I haven't created the low-pressure seal you describe in quite some time, but I do sterilize using very hot water, then cold water, then very hot, again. My seal consists of using a lid that is in good condition and tightening it atop the jarred tobacco as tight as I can. This does create a type of seal as you can tell from the rush of air into the jar after it's been shut for a year or two. With the lid screwed down sooooooo tightly, I very much doubt that the lack of a heat seal has allowed any more air/volatile compounds, etc into or out of that jar than had it been heat-sealed.
 
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