Buying a humidor would be the best thing when cigar storage comes to mind. Cigar humidors are perfect since they were specifically designed for cigar storage purposes in the first place, that and the fact that they do come in really fancy varieties or styles.

But purchasing a humidor is only half the battle of keeping your cigars fresh. The purpose of humidors is to keep the temperature and humidity levels controlled in such a way that the cigars will remain fresh. The idea is to maintain an environment where temperature and humidity is close to the natural tropical climate where the tobacco leaves originally came from. The ideal temperature would then be around seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

Aside from the temperature, humidity levels should also be put into check. A measurement of 70% humidity range inside the humidor would be the ideal level of moisture content. Keeping the cigars in theses conditions is a good way of saving money as well since you can buy better quality cigar and not worry about dumping them due to poor storage facilities.

Now, the ideal temperature/humidity combinations is, therefore, 70° temperature / 70% humidity. However, since these are merely “ideal” measurements, most of the time you won’t be able to achieve such perfect results. In reality, however, you might be able to get to as close as  65°F and 65% humidity, which is good.

According to some experts, cigars seem to be better off stored in temperature ranges of 62 to 70 degrees. However, once temperatures surge to about 75 degrees F in your humidor think of buying a better one or better yet purchase an electric cabinet type of humidor with those automatic and electronic kinds which maintains an ideal environment at all times.

Meanwhile, relative humidity should be maintained at  levels ranging from 65% to 75%. While others claim that 80% humidity level is still fine, why risk it?

The logic is, the lower the temperature, the higher the humidity and thus the more need to control the environment inside the humidor. This makes it a good habit to always, always keep your humidors with all the cigars in it in a relatively cool place.

The dangers of having too little humidity inside the storage box will lead to the cigars drying up and becoming flavorless. Maintaining a stable environment keeps them fresh and also prevents the dormant tobacco beetle-eggs in the leaves to hatch. The last thing you want is to see wriggling larvae destroying your precious cigars.

Cigars are highly sensitive to light, temperature, humidity, and friction. So keep your cigars and cigar box from direct sunlight and damp places. Just keep them in a cool, dry place.

Posted in Cigar Humidors

The proper calibration of hygrometers is important since it could be showing a correct relatively humidity range while in fact it is not resulting to drying your precious cigars.

Although, hygrometers should be pre-calibrated when they came of the manufacturing plants, normal shocks resulting from packing, transporting or shipping can cause the unit to be off by a few percentage points.

First thing you need to do after you bought  your hygrometer is to determine if it is calibrated or not. You could do the table salt test to see if the hygrometer is showing off the right readings.

Get a teaspoon of salt and place it in a bottle cap. Moisten the salt a bit but don’t dissolve it. Use distilled water and not tap water. Tap water may contain residues that can affect the relative humidity in the sealed environment.

Place the cap of salt and the hygrometer in a sealed plastic container. Some air might be trapped inside once  you seal the plastic, don’t remove the air. Wait until the environment inside the plastic stabilizes. After a few hours or so, the hygrometer needle should be pointing exactly at 75%. If it is not, then the hygrometer needs calibrating. Take not of the actual reading.

The reason lies on the salt. When water is added to salt and placed in a sealed environment, it will maintain exactly 75% humidity. Calibration is therefore necessary if the reading falls below or above the 75% mark.

To calibrate an ordinary hygrometer, you just need to turn the screw located at the back. After taking note of the actual measurement you can adjust the hygrometer accordingly. If the hygrometer after the salt test measures 70%, all you need to do is turn the screw 5 points higher until the needle reaches the 75% mark. If the actual humidity measurement is 85%, you need to turn the screw until the needle falls back 10% points back to 75%.

Aside from the table salt test, one could still tell if you hygrometer is a little off with its readings. Get your hygrometer and get a piece of cloth. Moisten the cloth and wrap it around the hygrometer. The hygrometer after an hour should be at 96% relative humidity. Adjust the screw accordingly.

If, however, you have a non-adjustable hygrometer, the best way to get the correct measurement every time is to get the difference in the measured percentage points. If for example the salt test revealed a 78% reading, knowing that the reading should be 75% gives you the chance to note down how many points the hygrometer is off. You then add the percentage points difference to get the right relative humidity.

Remember, though, that before making any measurements with your hygrometer, please wait for at least two hours. The two-hour wait is often enough time for any hygrometer to adjust to its present environment and measure the correct relative humidity.

Also, we recommend calibrating your hygrometer once or twice every year.

Posted in Cigar Humidors

I don’t know how often this occurs to better, premium quality cigars (it should not, though), but cigars unraveling is pretty a common problem encountered by cigar smokers with their ordinary, run-of-the-mill cigars. There are a number of reasons why the cigar wrapper begins to peel open and can be controlled and prevented with proper handling and cigar care.

Cigars consist of three parts: there’s the filler or core, the binder, and the wrapper. The filler refers to the tobacco inside the cigar and is responsible for about half of the cigar’s flavor. For hand-made cigars, the fillers are usually a combination of long tobacco leaves bundled or bunched together by a tobacco leaf fittingly called the binder. For machine-made cigars, the binder clumps together short remnants of tobacco leaves, chemicals, and other substances.

After the binder has been applied, the cigar is then rolled into shape and placed in molds until the semi-complete cigar becomes ready to be covered by the tobacco wrapper. The cigar wrapper is actually another layer of carefully grown tobacco leaf. Tobacco leaves that serve to be cigar wrappers need to be flexible enough so that they won’t crack when rolled over the cigar. One can usually determine if the cigar is bad by looking carefully at the wrapper. When cracks are present on the cigar’s outer surface, this is usually an indication that the cigar is dry and has not received proper humidification and storage. A good cigar has a wrapper that is a little bit oily and has a sort of smooth luster to it. The wrapper is very sensitive to temperature and humidity conditions, that’s why it is important to store cigars properly.

Sometimes, human error is the reason why cigar wrappers peel off. It is possible that workers who rolled the cigar in factories and home-made cigar shops made mistakes along the way causing the badly rolled cigars. However, premium cigars are manufactured under strict quality control by very skilled workers which makes human error as an unlikely reason for cigars to unravel.

Another reason is when cigars dry up. When the cigar wrapper dries up, the tobacco leaf loses whatever elastic property it has. It will peel off even exposing parts of the binder and filler. If you notice that the cigar is starting to peel open in the head, you can help moisten the wrapper with your tongue. You can do the same when the wrapper starts to unravel in the middle part. Usually, moistening the wrapper with your saliva would be enough to reseal the the loose wrapper.

The problem, however, is when the cigar wrapper starts to open up on the lit end. Obviously you can’t moisten it with your tongue. Although, you can continue smoking and hope that the cigar wrapper will stop unraveling. But if it does not, you could remove the wrapper altogether and continue with your smoke. But, this is something I would not recommend. Not only will the cigar taste different, since the tobacco wrapper contributes about 20% of the cigar flavor, but you might find smoking an unwrapped cigar not that appealing.

Sometimes, the way you cut the cigar also causes the wrapper to peel open. Cutting the coned shaped head of a cigar at the widest part is almost a certain way to cause the wrapper to unravel. What you should do is just cut near the cigar’s shoulder or the area where the cap of the cigar begins to straighten out.

Posted in Cigars

“Don’t go towards the light!” We have heard this statement hundreds of times in movies and television shows. We have heard people describing near death experiences as resembling moving inside a tunnel towards a brilliant light on the very end. We will never really know whether or not these experiences are real since we’re not discussing them here. I just wrote that first part to catch your attention or simply to have some interesting introduction. What I will talk about is the so called “tunneling”phenomenon that occurs in your cigars. I’ll try touching on other burning problems as well. I hope you’re still with me.

So what is this cigar “tunneling”? Tunneling refers to a situation where the wrapper or the outer portion of your cigar does not ash. If the wrapper fails to ash and the filler or the core part of the cigar will continue to burn, it will transform the cigar into a rolled-up tobacco with a hole bored deep into the middle. With the resulting cigar resembling a tube, a cylinder, or a tunnel, cigar connoisseurs began calling the phenomenon tunneling, plus the words “tubing” or “cylindering” are not very cool sounding names.

Tunneling is not a welcome sight for almost all cigar lovers. Not only does it looks uncool for a cigar connoisseur but also for the apparent reason that the taste will be different. You see cigars are made with different kinds of tobacco. The combination of the filler, the binder and wrapper keeps a distinct blend of taste that cigar lovers look for. If  you light a cigar, your first few puffs can be mild and then changes as you smoke all the way to the end. But any uneven burn can produce a different taste since the combination of filler, binder and wrapper is not being burned evenly. When tunneling occurs, you will experience a harsh and strong tasting smoke which is usually is one-dimensional and devoid of the other flavors and aroma of the tobacco that were put into the cigar.

Fortunately, tunneling can be avoided through some basic techniques and cigar care. You see tunneling can occur if the outer wrapper is too moist or too oily. So obviously you will need to keep your cigars dry. Another reason why tunneling occurs is that the filler and binder are not rolled tightly enough. Generally, the binder is designed to burn faster and better. In this two situations, because of that characteristic the core tobaccos begin to burn faster boring a hole in the middle of the cigar.

One way of fixing tunneling is to get your cutter and clip down the unburned exterior up the point that the tunneling ended. Because the tip has been cut off,  you can easily go and try lighting it again but this time do so the correct way. Make sure that the cigar is properly lit and it is producing an even ash across its foot.

Canoeing is another burn problem which leaves a “canoe”-like shape which appears like the cigar was split in half, right across the diameter. And there’s problem of “coning” which refers to a cigar that has a sharp peak protruding from its foot.

Posted in Cigars