Try rolling your leaves into a fat cigar shape, and cutting slices off of them with a knife if you want to hand process. Or roll an even fatter cigar and using a meat slicer. Doing it by hand with a sharp knife, I can get quite acceptable shreds, but it is a little time consuming, and I'm basically lazy when I can be, so I use a meat slicer. With a little practice you can match commercial tobacco for fineness, or even surpass it if you like. I'm using a cheap plastic bodied second hand slicer, bought at a thrift shop ($2.00)

How do you get the cigar-shape flat so that a knife can cut it? Let's say I've removed the midrib already, now do I layer the half-leaves on top of each other then roll them up? There must be a limit to how many leaves you can roll up like this. I'm able to get 4-6 oz. in one brick and shred the whole thing in one operation.

I'm always interested in new ways to do things! I've tried layering and folding the leaves and using scissors to cut it, but the shreds are unacceptably wide. Good for cigars, but not my tube injector for cigs. Also, using scissors maks my hand cramp up!

Bob: I remove the ribs, then just layer them up into a fat, crude cigar. I lay the halves with the base ends of the leaves alternating, cut side alternating in and out, and some a bit diagonally. If I have smaller pieces that wouldn't be rolleable on their own, i spread them through the layers of the larger leaves, trying to keep everything moreor less even for thickness, although it isn't that critical. I slice from below the top edge of the cigar, and rotate the cigar every two or thee slices, so the cigar doesn't have to flatten. I use a good high carbon steel knife (I find stainless dulls too quickly), and touch it up frequently on a butchers steel while cutting. It takes very little practice to start cutting off nice thin slices. The ugly cigar works very well with a meat slicer too.You do want your tobacco a bit too moist for smoking, so the cigar will stick together a bit. Once sliced, I cross chop the shreds to shorten the strand length to a manageable size for rolling. After that, fluff it up a bit, and place in an open pail or bucket (I use 2 1/2 gallon ice cream pails) to let it dry down to usable moisture content, then fluff again, and put in what ever you are using for a tobacco container.CheersGrunt

Today I attempted making my first 'brick' of tobacco. Small though it was! How long do you keep it pressed? Do I wait for it to dry out? I would think not, but then again I haven't done this before. I had been thinking of how I was going to construct a press and what materials I would use. As I was contemplating this I looked around my shop and it hit me-heck I already have a tobacco press and didn't know it! I used my bench vice! I only had to cut two pieces of wood to size and wrapped them with plastic wrap and place my tobacco in between I was ready to go! Worked great so far!

I've been pretty much following Bob's lead with a couple of twists. I use scissors to cut mine so I make 3 different "bricks" side by side. I remove the rib then lay 7-10 leaves,chunks,etc. on top eachother then when I get all 3 done I fold the stack over in half right where the rib used to be (maybe 1/8" thick?). Do all 3 that have been placed on top of plastic bag, then I use a peice of plexi-glass and lay it on top of the 3 piles that have been folded. Now I just put a few phone books and 2 weights (5lbs each) on top the books and compress for 2hrs maybe...then cut them up semi-wet. I use Bob's method of the blender to bust up the stuck together wetter pieces and it works good if it's not TOO wet. Gonna try and let my "slices" air dry abit before the blender next time.....

So far I've done real well with the hand cut and can cut some mighty fine smoking bacci but each time I seem to add more and try and do a little larger batch and with the larger batches I've noticed more problems with wettness when I use the blender....kinda get some balled up wads of bacci.....no biggy tho

That's what's been working for me so far....still learning and experimenting

oneguy, I'm sticking with the boxcutter/utility knife for making the finest shreds. I did try scissors and it was miserable. Maybe 4 mm shreds if I was lucky. Came out cut like pipe tobacco! (well, not that bad, maybe like cigar shreds).

As far as using the food processor, I do let it dry out very dry. In fact lately I've been setting it in the sun until it's pretty crispy before I food processor it. This makes the layered shreds "shatter" apart. Then I mist it in a plastic bag to bring it back to smoking moisture.

I've noticed there is a limit to the thickness of the brick I can cut thin enough. I've made some pretty big ones, 8 ounces. Those are too big for the razor to cut thin enough. Maybe "shaving" the brick is a better term for what I'm trying to achieve. Also, the bottom and top of the brick need to have the bigger leaves on them or they start to bunch up as I work across the brick. I've started separating the bigger leaves from the smaller ones and pieces so that I have big leaves on the bottom and top, and fragments and smaller leaves in the middle. That helps keep the brick together while I work down it.

My method has been working pretty good for me with little problem but I can only "process" about enough for 2 days of smoke. It takes me about 15min after pressing to slice up/blend 2 days worth....

I came back online LMMFAO!!!!!!!! just to tell you that I went out to my front room to roll up a smoke and Fox News mentioned something about rolling your own so I lit up and waited for the commercial break and the bit on ryo..... THEN they mention some guy named Bob Kemp and show his "operation" on tv!!!!! I shat my pants....now I know what you look like and saw your operation on the tube.....YOUR A STAR!!!!!! lol

Now that the world knows it'll probably get the Obammie tax nazi's and the ATF to hurry up and make it illegal to grow....

How else will Obammie get the $ for "health care" unless he taxes ALL of us? I keep telling my Mom (she hates my smokin) not to worry because "Obammie is gonna buy me an Iron Lung when Health Care reform goes thru".....lmao!

As far as "shaving a brick".....for some reason I keep thinking about how I can use my small hand plane from my woodshop somehow....??? Sob is SHARP and would definately cut some fine shreds and of course adjustable...trick would be how to hold brick,etc.???? Just something to ponder in the never ending quest for the bacci shredder.......

Yeah! I found out last night when they were running the gorw your own tobacco at home interview I did with Fox News Dallas on national TV! I just happened to be in a Yahoo chatroom when people started saying BOB! BOB! YOU'RE ON FOX NEWS NATIONAL TV!

Yeah! I found out last night when they were running the gorw your own tobacco at home interview I did with Fox News Dallas on national TV! I just happened to be in a Yahoo chatroom when people started saying BOB! BOB! YOU'RE ON FOX NEWS NATIONAL TV!

LOL!

Very exciting! I hope this boosts seed sales!

Bob

Have you seen it yet....???? They gave you probably 1-2min worth and showed your kiln, hanging leaves, plants, you rolling one up with your machine, and you mentioning getting mad about bacci taxes,etc. Pretty good little bit!!!!! Then Julie Banderas (luv the foxes on Fox) said something like "looks like a lotta work and probably easier to just quit"....lmao!

Do those rolling machines with the filter papers work worth a sheet...????

No! I haven't seed the video with the audio on it yet. Seen the video and had people tell me what they were hearing. I don't watch TV at all and have no speakers on my computer. But all she did was use the same interview that aired here in Dallas and wrap it in some little commentary.

Yes, I use the tube injectors and have used them for years. They work fine except when it's really humid, or when the tobacco is powder, then they kinda jam up. Mostly, they work fine. I wouldn't get the Top one, though. Not sure which other one I have but lost in the house, but it works better.

Have you tried a electric knife? Works well and with a little practice you can get it just like comercial brands, when I first started using it I almost quit but then realised you have to go slow letting the knife do the work and apply almost no pressure.

My bricks are 1 inch to 1 1/4 inch after they come out of the press, I put 24 to 36 leaves in the press at a time depending on there size, I then put the press in a 6 inch vice and put as much pressure on it as I can for at least 8 hours most times longer. The leaves are fairly wet when I put them in and juice runs out,I start cutting as soon as I take the brick out of the press if you let it dry out it starts falling apart on the edges when using the electric knife. I also use a block as a guide for the knife

I would give this a try it works best for me, interesting is a meat slicer won't work on bricks made this way it just tears them up, but the slicer was barrowed and one of those cheaper ones