Hello to all.

Spring time is not far away here, so it's time to think about our gardens.
This year, I will try to grow a few Nicotiana Rustica plants, in order to use it more wisely than commercial tabacco I used to smoke.
I've red many interesting things about how to cure leaves before to smoke them but it still remains unclear to me if curing is also needed before to prepare snuff.
Any advice or snuff recipe would be welcome. Thanks!

You can dry it green or cure it for snuff - both are effective, but different.
Then there's the ashes - you asked in this thread https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=751797#post751797
I'm about to start experimenting with making my own ashes, too. In traditional use it's always said that not just any plant source will do, and various different properties are ascribed to ashes from different plants. I'm not sure why, because the ashes should just consist mainly of various proportions of minerals, but some are more alkaline than others, which is what you want. I'd love to hear any chemists chime in, regarding this!
You need to burn your chosen plant parts completely, so there's no carbonised material tainting it. A clean white or whitish ash seems to be preferred. I plan to try a few different things and test the ph with test paper, after wetting the ash sample, to see if I'm on the right track. Anyway, I read recently on the website of one snuff merchant that olive trees make a really good ash - I presume leaves, they didn't specify. At least where I live, these are quite commonly cultivated as ornamentals as well as in plantations for the olives, so that's potentially a good readily available source.

Wow! Finally got an answer!

Thanks.

Since I posted this, I tried two different recipes of N. Rustica snuff, each one with no curing (I find green dried Tobacco better than cured Tobacco for this purpose): one with mint and oak ashes (from a very old tree I visit each time I go in this forest), wich is great and another with beech ashes and a blend containing many aromatic plants, also great but less "inspiring" in the spiritual way...

Now, N. Rustica snuff has become a prerequisite to outdoor Changa sessions! Especially with my beloved "Mapachanga", made with Tobacco flowers.

I also heard of different qualities of ashes and would also like to read someone who's experienced with different kinds of ashes!

Apparently green rape is really low in nitrosamines compared to rapes made from cured tobacco, so that's an added bonus for the health-conscious
I tried making some ash from olive leaves and twigs the other day. They were bone-dry. I held them in little bundles and burnt them over a metal plate. It was hard to keep them lit sometimes (blowing on them meant blowing away some of the ash that was being collected, so I tried to minimise that), so I ended up just chucking it all on in a pile to burn down. I was pretty disappointed with the results. I ended up with a fairly carbonaceous dark grey ash that, just from some initial tastes, doesn't seem sufficiently alkaline and tasted sooty. I'll keep trying with olive and different things and report back. I would never have thought making some good ash would be so tricky! I know sometimes people are reported to separate the finest white ash from the rest, but in this case at least, that was not feasible.

careful with the ash experimentation.
the yawanawa traditionally use tsunu ash, wich is one of the smoothest in the nose, and more medicinal.
in other hand, cumaru ashes are also used traditionally by many tribes and rapé makers in brasil, and you have to use much less quantity, otherwise it will dry up and hurt the nose cartilage.
once i tried a rapé with copaiba ash, made by an indigenous actually, and it made my nose bleed. (and copaiba is a very medicinal plant, i assumed it would give a good effect to the snuff before i tried it...)
its good to be cautious while experimenting with new ashes, start with very little amounts to feel if its neutral enough, doesnt clog the nostrils and so on.
also for the best ash quality you want to use only tree barks, not the wood itself

all best

Awesome i was just about to start a thread on different rape' mixes.

I am glad to see there are still a few here working with Rustica snuff's and would love to hear a few of your recipes and mixing techniques

-dm

also, its not really necessary to cure/ferment the tobacco, but if you do it, it will producea much stronger snuff. i feel the Moy tobaco and rope tobaco (tabaco de corda, a really dark one) are much stronger then the mapacho used in peru for cerimonies. usually they dip the tobacco in some kind of melasses, squeese a lot of leave together to make like a roll, and put it inside a bamboo, for how long i dont know, but thats whats makes that tobaco so perfect for rapé, strong and with a pungent, almost amonia smell

yay, start the thread, i will share a few easy to do recipes