After three days under pressure, I took the 36 g plug of English blend out of the noodle press. It looks pretty good and smells even better – at least it does to me; Darling Wife thinks it stinks. There is a pretty pungent aroma of campfire bordering on “ashes of last night’s campfire”, and I can understand how that might offend some people. I love it.
After letting it rest in a jar for a day or so I broke up the plug and rubbed it out, then tried a bowl. The pressing made a pretty substantial difference. The blend is now fairly smooth, with the rough/harsh edges polished off. It’s not a perfect match for my favorite Sutliff blend, but I didn’t honestly expect that. It is, however, nice enough that I’ll probably finish the entire plug while I decide what changes to try. I think it will improve even more was it ages, but probably won’t last long enough to show its true potential.
What I’m missing is some of the complexity of the BSOMM/White Knight blend. When smoking that I’ll get hints of anise and a few other notes that are so far not present in my own attempt. It’s not a huge deal – even this little test blend is easily as good as some of the commercial English or Balkan blends I’ve tried. I’ll try a new batch with Izmir and see how that stacks up.