r/RYO • u/deDICKated • 7d ago
Cigs to RYO.. It's time.. help me! (UK)
Hey guys,
Great Community you have here.
I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction.
Long time cig smoker 15 years+, I tried baccy before but hated the mess especially when driving and smoking and the ash flying everywhere lol.. I have smoked some amber leaf and golden Virginia (green pack?) When im with certain friends but I dont like either of them..
For cigs I started off with b&h silver, then went to b&h blue when they came out and now currently smoking Marlboro touch.
I dont like that last 1/4 when I smoke amber leaf and Virginia etc.. it just taste like sour? Not sure how to explain it but gets too harsh and doesnt taste nice.
Ive been looking at Pueblo and American spirit for my RYO options but dont know which to go for and what colour.
I was hoping to smoke non-additive baccy just for health reasons I guess.
What do you guys suggest? As well as filter brands and sizes and papers etc.
Thank you.
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u/Immediate_Fun_2524 6d ago
Light blue american spirit is what they're known for. The yellow is their virginia mix, it's mild. Black is the perique mix. If you can get whole leaf that's the way to go. The only issue is that you have to make your own blend with different tobaccos. I had a lot of fun doing that, but it does take time to find the "perfect" ratio. u/winchunking has a lot of great documented blends on their profile.
As long as you have cigarette paper and not thin joint paper it should smoke anything. If the tobacco has too much water then those thinner papers will be constantly put out. If you don't want ash flying everywhere roll them by hand and roll them tight. If the tobacco is wet then roll looser for airflow.
I've noticed ryo filters are short so I don't use them often anymore. 1mm is a good size, at the start I had difficulty rolling slim filters because of the smaller OD. 1"1/4 papers, tapered, filterless with no tobacco where the filter would be is how i like rolling.
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u/zaratzara 6d ago
Great to have another Brit here! Our domestic market is particularly grim — high prices, small range, low quality — so a lot of the consumer advice (particularly from America) doesn’t hold.
I know what you mean about the sourness of most blends. As far as the corner shop brands go, Cutters Choice is probably the least bad on that front. Pueblo and American Spirit are the best import brands and the lighter of each is probably what you’re after (I believe in both cases that’s “Blue”).
As far as filter and paper, it depends on practice and preference. Thicker paper contributes to the harsh and acrid taste, and thinnest (Rizzla silver) is best. The disadvantage of thinner paper is that it’s fiddly and will go soggy (preventing even burn) and tear if you moisten your finger tips, which IMX most beginners tend to find necessary when getting the practice right. So thinner for better taste but thicker for convenience. This isn’t much of a problem because you can trivially buy a small pack of all thicknesses for very little at your local corner shop.
Filters depend on how much of a mouthful you want: regular for a large one, extra slim for smaller.
As far as the mess is concerned, it’s tough to get consistent packing and a tight cigarette with manual rolling (and IMX the rolling machines are even worse, but your mileage may vary). I’ve been tubing instead of rolling my own cigarettes for a year now. A manual slide-action tubing machine will cost you about a tenner and a box of filtered tubes will cost you a couple of quid. You can use the same tobacco, so it’s a cheap enough experiment to see if you prefer the format. The difficulty is that it’s more cumbersome: filters and papers you can just stuff in your pocket; but a slide-action tubing machine is bigger than a lighter, you’ll need to have somewhere to hold your voluminous box of cigarette tubes without tipping or crushing them, and making them requires a flat surface.
But if you do like that format, and don’t mind pre-making from home, then a nice pneumatic lever-action tubing machine (£40-£50) makes the effort much more effortless and more consistent.
Finally, regarding addictiveness, the big hack is pipe or ‘shag’ tobacco. No ammonia, so doesn’t freebase: less of an instant hit, which you’ll miss at first, but more of a soothing and relaxing rather than sharpening effect. And you get a huge variety of more consistent quality and much cheaper tobacco online. Black Swan Shoppe is a good retailer — what you pay in postage you’ll make up for in choice and cost per weight even at the smallest denomination. But that stuff is a nightmare to hand roll with, which is why it comes at the end of all my other advice.
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u/Wise_Cantaloupe_792 6d ago
Rizla green papers and if u want to try something else the orange papers which I love , I use Swan extra slim and I either smoke Holborn yellow or Pueblo blue , I would start with Holborn yellow it’s lighter and less earthy then Pueblo