Stripping the wrapper

Interesting. I had never thought to try that. I'm a big fan of shaggy foot cigars for the exact reason you mention.

That an interesting idea for sure... but with ZERO rolling experience, and grizzly bear size hands, I'd def have to start with a very thick wrapper!

I'm assuming you'd have to pectin the wrapper back down to secure it after removing the desired amount of wrapper to keep it from unraveling?

kuzi16:

if you peel it of "the right way" it sholdnt be too much of an issue. worst case would be that you touch it up with your torch if it starts burning weird at the transition point.

well, the whole doing it "the right way" thing is gonna be my challenge...

would it be easier with a larger RG so there's more surface area to work with, or would that just be more room for error?

That's another interesting idea King. I've heard of people smoking a cigar in a pipe... but not like you've described... very interesting, indeed!

and yes, hand rolled cigars typically have a binder. Some have 2. I can't think of any that don't... but there may be some.

KingoftheCove:

Noob observation and questions here, so............
What about the binder?

thats a good question. the binder does have a significant effect on it as well. you cant see it as much in the test we are discussing because you do need something to hold it together.

KingoftheCove:

I was under the impression that most cigars that we smoke ("hand made" for the most part) consisted of wrapper, binder, then filler.
Are there cigars that are only a "wrapper" surrounding only filler tobacco?

yes there are. most of these are cheaper and look very rustic. think of the Backwoods brand. this is the type of cigar that was smoked in the old west when people hand rolled cigars themselves.

KingoftheCove:

Do they usually use the same tobacco for binder and filler?

nope. some tobaccos are better or filler and some are better for binders. Binder tends to be thicker and stronger so it can hold the cigar together. it CAN be the same as some of the filler but it usually isnt.
i tend to think of the binder as part of the filler when it comes to blending. the wrapper is 40-60% of the overall flavor. the binder is 40-60% of the fillers flavor in my mind. i need to play around a bit more in a blending room to confirm this suspicion.

KingoftheCove:

I'd almost be tempted to simply cut 2 inches off a cigar I wanted to "test" this way, and get a clean/new pipe, and then smoke only the wrapper, clean the pipe, then the binder, clean the pipe, then the filler.

i would use 3 unused pipes for that.

this is actually easier of a process in a blending room. one of the things that blenders do is to roll a very small one leaf cigar and smoke it to understand what that leaf is bringing to the blend. once all laves are blended you are then able to taste all of those elements from each leaf and tweak accordingly.

Cool idea for sure. Kind of a make your own shaggy foot thing. I think I'll give it a shot.

I've removed lots of wrappers, but usually on machine made cigars and to replace the filler lol.