Tin Size

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JJPHOTO

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I've got a few tins of random blends in my very small cellar, but I've found my first blend that I really want to stash away. My question is this - is it better to buy several 2 oz. tins or larger 8 oz. tins? It seems more economical to go the route of 8 oz, but if you go the 2 oz route then you can open small portions at a time.

I guess if you buy the 8 oz then down the road when you want to smoke some of it, you have to open it, get out a few ounces, then jar the rest to put back in the cellar and restart the aging process?

Which way do you guys usually choose to cellar larger quantities?
 
I normally follow the advice of Greg Pease which is to cellar (for aging) small tins, 2oz., and open as needed. You could always also buy larger quantities, divide it up into small jars and then seal and cellar those for much the same effect. That said, however, I think the purchase of the smallest tins possible is best for long-term aging, including the fact that say you wanted to sell/trade a blend after 5-10 years: a sealed 2oz. factory tin is of considerably more value than the same 2oz. jarred.

Just my two cents.
 
If you buy bulk you'll save, but then you have to buy jars. If you buy tins you take the chance on losing good seals over long periods......

I do both. I have both very large jars (will hold more than 1/2 pound of rubbed out or about 1 LB of flakes) and small jars that hold about 50G of rubbed. If you buy the smaller jars ( the wide mouth Kerr or Ball 1/2 pint ) then you can get a pound into about 5 or 6 of these and there's no need to worry about recanning or 'How long will it take me to smoke all this'?

When you consider that you can reuse the jars it pays in the long run.
 
This is a very situational issue. I am fortunate enough at the moment to have a large cellar and the resources to purchase 2 oz tins (always GLP) as desired. I think tins are preferred for long-term (5+ years) storage. However, I categorize my blends into American, Cob (1792 variants), English, and Floral (Lake District's) - smoking each equally - and can keep my cost per ounce down by purchasing Cob and Floral in bulk and jarring them. Since neither of the latter two gain much by generous aging, I only keep about 150 ounces of each on hand. With the American and English blends, I keep somewhere north of 300 ounces each on hand and this lets me smoke nothing from either group younger than four years old.

A compromise position would be to buy the GLP's that come in 16 oz tins (keeping cost at about $3/ounce) and divvying those into 1/2 pint jars immediately. The cost of jars is pretty much zilch since they are recycled with the only ongoing expense being the purchase of cheap replacement lids.

I've spent untold hours noodling on this...good luck :lol:

Buddy
 
I buy it all. A mix. Whatever strikes me at the time. 2, 4, 8, and 16oz. Tins and bags. Plenty of jars. I try to go though my stash looking for tins that may be showing some pits from rust on the inside. I look for flat tins that have lost their seal. I jar those ASAP after noticing. I may use an 8oz tin as a desktop humidor if I seem to be smoking the dickens out of a blend. The 8oz tins, and I assume the 16oz, do not dry out like a 2 oz tin does. Some bulk purchases come only bagged, and those get jarred right away.
 
The vast majority of my collection is 2oz tins.
I bought several 8oz tins of favorites that I intend to
smoke a lot of, and a full pound of Old Joe Krantz
(it's hard to ignore the economy of larger quantities).
Things will most likely continue that way,
mostly 2oz tins, with a few exceptions.
 
When comparing tins, cost wise I like the 8 oz. tins. When I open them I can always transfer them into the canning jars and smoke them one jar at a time. IMHO it doesn't affect the aging process that much to do it that way. In the mean time I would let them age in the 8 oz. tin.
 
I've been moving more and more to smaller jars. Eight and sixteen ounce, buy bulk by the pounds, and usually fill one sixteen ounce jar for use in the next year or so, and two to four eight ounce jars for long-term aging.

Seems to work for me,

Natch
 
I almost always buy in bulk & store in 8oz or so jars. Then I fill up the 2oz tins I have on hand from the bulk storage. I find the bulk doesn't deteriorate too much from the infrequent openings (heck it's only 4 times). I any case I will have stored it for some time so it will have matured a little at least. I figure this way I kind of get the best of both worlds.
 
I have a list of favorites with about 20 blends in it. The goal is to accumulate 10 lb of each, to have a stock if they are discontinued or if the anti-smoking crowd get their way. I like the 50 g tins the most, but storage space becomes an issue quickly. Most of the blends in the list only come in 50 g tins anyway, and only a handful are available in 100 g tins or larger, therefore there isn't much of a choice. The only blends in my list that are available in the 8 oz tins are the GLP and Captain Earle blends (I don't like the pound tins).

If there was plenty of storage space available, I would only buy 2 oz tins. I don't buy bulk for cellaring.
 
Now that I more or less have the hang of cellaring tobacco, I have to say that this hobby is very forgiving. I think that you could take any and all of the advice on this thread and it would work out just fine for you. You'll have to be the one to decide which method of cellaring makes you the happiest as a pipe smoker. That said, I prefer the 2 ounce (or 50g) tins the most for a few reasons. For one, at the slow rate that I smoke it takes me a while to get through even a small tin. Also, I don't like to have too many things open at one time, mostly because I just get confused and it's easier for me to enjoy one thing at a time. Lastly, there's something very satisfying about opening a new tin, even if its the same one you just finished. Pure decadence, I know . . .


JJPHOTO":14l3zvhj said:
I've got a few tins of random blends in my very small cellar, but I've found my first blend that I really want to stash away.
Ok, time to let the cat out of the bag. Which blend is it?
 
I kinda feel the same way Tin Man... a 2 oz. tin can last me a pretty good while, so 2 oz. tins seem like it may be the way to go for me at this point.

And to let the cat out of the bag so to speak - I was referring to my recent love affair with McClelland Arcadia. It's my first venture into orientals, and I love it!
 
JJPHOTO":9d8a74pw said:
I kinda feel the same way Tin Man... a 2 oz. tin can last me a pretty good while, so 2 oz. tins seem like it may be the way to go for me at this point.

And to let the cat out of the bag so to speak - I was referring to my recent love affair with McClelland Arcadia. It's my first venture into orientals, and I love it!
Let me add a hardy amen to that! I love that Arcadia.
 
For me it depends on the tin date on the 8 oz tins that I buy when available. If it's a recent date I go ahead and jar a lb, let's say, as 1 8 oz and 4 2 oz. That way the Big Daddy does the serious aging while the jelly jars can be opened at whatever interval I prefer. If there is a 6 mos date then I just leave it alone.

Some will sneak a peak and open a jar before the date that they plan to age its tobacco, but for me that's a no go; air hits the tobacco and aging has to be jump-started on resealing, and that tobacco although it will age, will age differently.
 
As with others here, I do a bit of both. I buy my favorites in bulk and jar 'em up. For example, I buy FVF pounds at a time. I open the boxes, cut the flakes in half and stuff the short flakes into 8 oz jars (the small ones, in case I screwed up the oz count). One pound fits into four jars, and I have a few cases of jars of just that blend alone.

For those that I smoke less often, I usually buy 50g / 2 oz. tins as cellaring is just easier to deal with and a tin's worth will usually satisfy the urge for a particular blend. Unless, of course, it becomes a favorite and TAD takes over..........
 
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