it feels and seems a little dry to me. Or is that typical with cake/plug like tobacco?

When firmly pressed, as in a plug, when chopped up it will feel cool to the touch, rather than wet.

If your pirate cake is truly too dry it will crumble to powder rather than rough bits...

Sorry to say my Pirate Kake is all sealed away, so I can't check for its moisture level

Should yours really be too dry, rub some out, seal in a jar with a few drops of water, shake gently each day for a few days to a week


Or place in a bowl (rubbed out as well) and cover with a moist (well wrung out) paper towel for a few hours, then jar...

Should you have any 70 percent cigar humidity packs (from your local B&M or last cigar order) they work perfectly when jarred up with dry baccy for a few days to a week as well.

Been looking around the web and dryness on arrival (needing immediate jarring to prevent over drying) seems to be the word on the PK...

PK can be a little granular when it's rubbed out. Try it that way before you rehydrate it, I usually don't have a problem with it and it burns well.

Also keep in mind that its not a cigar. Dry pipe tobacco isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some folks prefer their tobacco bone dry. I'd suggest that you try smoke it and make sure there is something wrong before you start worrying trying to fix it. I had a baggy of Billy Budd that I let get dry, then I went a little overboard trying to re-hydrate a portion of it, then I realized that the dry stuff was as good, maybe even better, than it was on day one.

I figure the difference in flavor with dry tobacco vs moist is that the dry stuff has a penchant to smoke hotter, and as we all know, when tobacco smokes too hot it loses its flavor. So dry baccy probably requires a bit more discipline from the smoker.

All great posts. Thank you so much!

I agree with Storm Crow, drier tobacco smokes hotter with less taste. There's a happy medium that every smoker has to find for him (or her) self. Right now I've got some P&W Nut Brown Burley that I let get too dry that smokes hot, bites, and doesn't have nearly as much flavor as the blend originally had. So I'll have to get the distilled water out and moisten it lightly to bring it back to its' original excellent taste.

Smokey

I smoked some Billy Budd this morning that I keep in a ball jar and it had been dried out. Several days ago I rehydrated the blend by giving it a spritz or two of distilled water that I keep handy. I prefer the slight moisture rather than an absolutely dry bowl when I light up. The Billy Budd took the rehydration very well. My usual humidity control is a moistened humidification disk in the jar for blends that tend to dry out. I now keep one in the Billy Budd jar. I have found that English blends, unlike cased and flavored aromatics tend to need attention to maintenance of proper humidity.