white ish spots on my tobacco?

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the rev

the rev

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I have some full virginia flake and it was in a ziplock for a while before I got it into a jar, maybe week and a half two weeks. It has some whit ish spots on it. Is this fungus? is this tobacco ruined? Can I cut off the spots and I will be ok?

rev
 
That's most likely bloom. Sugar crystals and IMHO to be desired. Check it with a magnifying glass. Look for wispy hairs/threads/tentacles (WTH?) and a bluish or greenish cast. If none of those are present it's probably bloom. Just whitish crystals under the glass. There's a thread out there somewhere on bloom/mold.


Bloom is pretty common with FVF, 1792, Bracken Flake, DFS and some others.
 
Rev, get a magnifying glass and look at it under bright light.

If the spots are fuzzy, then it's mold. If not it could be sugar crystals.

I once had some blueish spots on some SG Navy Flake and it turned out to be sugar crystals.

If it's mold, I'd try and remove it as best I could and smoke it up.


HTH


Cheers,

RR
 
While storing cigars I would get the humidity a little to high and fuzz (mold) would develop. All I had to do was rub it off and the cigars were fine to smoke.
 
Betcha dollars to doughnuts its just plume (sugar crystals)...and its a good thing.
 
My 2009 FVF has this, :D my 2012 doesn't :(

Agreed it's most likely 99.9%, sugar crystals. It's also on my 1792 & Stonehaven.
 
Happened to me a number of years ago. Plume. Rubbed it off. Smoked it in the comforts of my home. No ER.
 
petertschantz":itkyltez said:
on cigars plume is a wonderful thing!
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Yes it is. Sometimes I still wish I smoked them. It's hard to keep them properly humidified here in the desert though.
 
I have some white spots on my FVF and St James Flake jarred in 2011. But it shines under a bright light so it is clearly crystalline (sugar) - I didn't open the jars for closer inspection.
 
I have some bloom going on in some 3.5 year old jars of FVF. Mmmmmhmmm!
 
I am happier by the post, now to get a magnifying glass just to be sure

rev
 
From what I've personally seen, moldy tobacco mostly goes fuzzy-green...it's unmistakable. Think accidental science experiment with forgotten leftovers in the fridge. If your tobacco has spots, sparkly bits, or even little white veins, it's the good stuff (bloom/plume, microbe poop) that means tasty aging.

Maybe Greg should do an article with close-up pictures of tobacco mold versus bloom.

8)
 
Kyle Weiss":fmlusgea said:
Think accidental science experiment with forgotten leftovers in the fridge.
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I can attest to this; one of my tupperware containers had some tobacco in it and got packed up on the trip to Japan. 6 weeks later it was nothing but fuzzy green gunk. I wanted nothing to do with it :suspect:
 
no fuzz, no green, just nice tasty smoke :)

thanks heaps guys, smoked a nice bowl full yesterday.

rev
 
For the records, Penzance will do the same thing. It doesn't take as long as you would think, either.
 
Dave_In_Philly":vctq91km said:
For the records, Penzance will do the same thing. It doesn't take as long as you would think, either.
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Yep. Discovered this pretty early on. Hell, meat, cheese and cabbage all have their controlled bugs 'n' fungi that make 'em taste alright, might as well be a microbe-set just for 'bacca. Nature's cool like that.

Granted, being the cheap, crude dude I am, my thoughts of bloom being fungus was treated like questionable food... taste first, then decide if it's bad. If it's even better than expected, well...just keep consuming. :lol: I think the first cheese was probably some forgotten-about milk, furrowing the brows joining some wrinkled noses on hungry faces, and then the "wow, this isn't bad..." revelations happened after the adventurous guy dove in. :lol:
 
It's hard to keep them properly humidified here in the desert though.
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Google up Tupperdor.

Sounds like it's a pretty easy, low-investment solution.

:face:
 
Yeah, desert 'bacca-keeping ain't that hard, just gotta seal it up. Once in a while a sniper bit of tobacco or other gremlin keeps the seal from doin' its job, but it's easy to prevent. Fortunately tobacco is pretty forgiving, to a point.
 
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