Detection for Cut Tobacco Softness and Its Relationship with Cigarette Making Quality

PurposeTo quantitatively evaluate the softness of cut tobacco and enrich the quality evaluation indexes of cut tobacco.

MethodsThe sensory evaluation process was simulated by using the compression mode of texture analyzer, and the testing parameters were optimized through single factor and response surface test, and a detection method for the softness of cut tobacco was established. Based on this method, the relationship between softness of cut tobacco and cigarette making quality was analyzed.

Results1) The softness of cut tobacco could be quantitatively characterized as the slope of the time-stress curve when a certain density change occurred during the compression process of the cut tobacco, that was, the growth rate of the stress required to produce a certain density change with time. 2) The optimal conditions for texture analyzer to detect the softness of cut tobacco were disc probe, both pre-test and test speed were 2 mm/s, initial compression height was 48 mm, compression distance was 11 mm, and sample weight was 8 g. The intra-day and inter-day precision of this method were less than 4.40% and 2.70%, respectively. 3) The softness value of cut tobacco from different batches was significantly different, and was positively correlated with weight, draw resistance, hardness, dust content, loss of tobacco from cigarette end and loose-end rejection rate of cigarette (P<0.05 or P<0.01), and negatively correlated with moisture content of cigarette (P<0.05).

ConclusionThe detection method of cut tobacco softness optimized by response surface methodology is scientific and reliable, which can reflect the correlation between the softness of different batches of cut tobacco and cigarette making quality, and can be used as an evaluation method for the softness of cut tobacco.