• Hi Guest - Come check out all of the new CP Merch Shop! Now you can support CigarPass buy purchasing hats, apparel, and more...
    Click here to visit! here...

Some guy thinks this is plume

He could probably plant that and grow some stellar mushrooms. Or that’s how he came to the assumption to begin with maybe?
 
Best treatise on the subject I've found. Despite common lore, "plume" or "bloom" or whatever you call it is rare to the point where it's existence is a valid question. These guys did an amazing write up - recommended reading:

 
Best treatise on the subject I've found. Despite common lore, "plume" or "bloom" or whatever you call it is rare to the point where it's existence is a valid question. These guys did an amazing write up - recommended reading:

I will defer to those, like Tom, who are smarter than me, which leaves it open to everyone basically.

Is it possible that plume is a form of mold? They both grow on an a substance based on time, temperature, and humidity. The organic/non-organic makeup of a substance can influence the type and growth rate of mold/plume.

Just a thought..............
 
I will defer to those, like Tom, who are smarter than me, which leaves it open to everyone basically.

Is it possible that plume is a form of mold? They both grow on an a substance based on time, temperature, and humidity. The organic/non-organic makeup of a substance can influence the type and growth rate of mold/plume.

Just a thought..............
FOH has some serious collectors in its readership. They sent out the call for anyone with a cigar with plume on it, so they could analyze it. Every single one they got their hands on was analyzed by smart, qualified guys as clearly mold. Every. Single. One.

It's a significant but small sample. If it does exist, it's damn rare....much rarer than we'd like to believe.
 
I remember consulting our resident mad scientist years ago about this subject. (He got so sick of my questions he moved to an entirely different continent soon after :)) My question to him was a result of someone posting on OLH that they had somebody on their home board analyze "plume" and found it contained 70% propylene glycol. I was asking if PG could form naturally in a humidor (I don't know if this guy was using the PG as a humidification device in his humidor or not) and our mad scientist seemed to think it could, although he was puzzled by how it could crystalize. Below is the mad scientist's reply to me. I will give $1 to anyone capable of deciphering it for me because all these years later and I still haven't a clue what he was on about.

You are correct glycerol would come from the fats and oils in the tobacco. The fatty acids will come off the glycerol through hydrolysis. The humidity in the humidor will keep water around enough that the process can happen, albeit slow. If the hydrogen in one hydrolysis attacks the adjacent carbon of the glycerol unit you could conceivably get propylene glycol. Other wise you need a dehydration step followed by hydrogenation ( loss of water then reducing the resulting double bond). I could draw it out if you want to see it graphically. It isn't what I would have expected but there is a logical explanation of why it would be the major component. The only question that I have is if this would crystallize on its own or does it need some of the other material as a site of nucleation?
 
Top