DIY Kreteks Experiment 2: The Return

After my late-mid-afternoon cup of coffee, I decided to be kind to you, dear readers, and not to let you wallow in suspense over my ingenious solutions to the previous clove cigarette failure. The despair you must have felt truly awes me. How you must have refreshed the blog page, frantically, madly hoping against hope that I, your Fragrant Goddess of Smoking Science would once more step down from the heavens to cast my gift of illumination upon you. Rejoice, mortals, for thy wishes have been granted! I have come among you, Caffeinated and Radiant, to guide you, yet again, on an Adventure of Great Importance.

In this experiment, we shall forget (temporarily, so don't fret) about the flavoured clove cigarettes, and focus on the basic kretek. Mainly this is because the flavoring-by-added-paper technique failed so abysmally, and while I have some ideas for ways around this, you are not yet ready to venture down these uncharted avenues. Soon, my chickies, soon.

Firstly, let's go over the supplies. We are still using the Rizla Rolling Machine as we did in the first experiment, as well as the same cigarette filter tubes. If you need a refresher, I go over the machine -- and its use -- in this post. So clicky clicky. However, we are switching to Natural American Spirit Original Blend ($38.00 for a 150g canister) tobacco, and preparing the cloves a bit differently, so you'll also need a mortar and pestle (varied prices), or a comparable hand-held crushing/grinding utensil.

The cloves, as before, are regular old supermarket whole cloves. On the right and the left are pictures of the cloves as they come in the package, and what they look like close-up. Go on, guess which is which! If you get it right, you get a Hearty Thumbs Up!

The tobacco, American Spirit Original Blend, is available in the large canister (shown) and also in smaller pouch-packages. The pouch is usually priced around $10.00. I chose this for the second attempt because, compared to the Bali Golden Shag, it is much dryer, so that should solve the smokability problem caused by the Shag's moisture levels. However, the taste is still very enjoyable, though a bit mellower, and it's preservative-free, with no tar or other additives. Quite nice, I must say.

As you might have extrapolated by now, we are going to prepare the cloves by using manual labor. We are doing it this way because last time the cloves were ground up too fine, which resulted in two unfortunate side-effects; no crackling and a moist, hard-to-smoke cigarette. Hopefully, this will solve both problems. Place a small number of whole cloves into the mortar, and crush them with the pestle. Start off by thumping the pestle straight down on the cloves, and once they've been smushed a bit, roll the pestle around in a circular motion, rubbing with some force against the well of the mortar. Unless you've the upper body strength of a naked mole-rat, it should take less than a minute to grind the cloves to about the coarseness shown at left. Don't worry if some pieces are bigger than others; that's kind of the point. Now, I like using a mortar and pestle for all my coarse grinding needs, but if you don't have access to a set, you can put the cloves on a flat, non-porous surface and roll an empty wine bottle over them until you reach about the same consistency as above. This might take a bit longer, but it'll still be less time than going to the store and trying to find and buy a mortar and pestle set. Also, you'll have had wine! And who doesn't love wine?

To finish up, then, mix a small handful of the American Spirit (or any comparably dry tobacco you may prefer) with about a teaspoon of the cloves, pack it into the Rizla machine, and fill your filter tube. A suggestion -- since both the cloves and the tobacco are dryer than the Bali Shag and the super-fine cloves, you'll need more of the clove-tobacco mixture to pack the machine to the desired density. Remember to keep the density even through the length of the machine, but also be sure not to pack it too tightly, so that you'll actually be able to push the mix into the empty tubes.

Once again, congratulations! You've stuck through to the end, you incredible person, you! It is time now to roll myself a few packs' worth, and dedicate myself, in the name of Science, to cigarette enjoyment for a few days. Next post will contain my blatherings about the experience, so stay tuned, and may the Clove be with you.