question about beetles
millennium115
Posts: 839
in Cigar 101
Hey everyone,
quick question,
when we trade and purchase cigars online or in person, does anyone put them thru the fridge and freezer to make sure there are no eggs.....
i haven not been , but recently one of my friends had an ashton that was infested......made me think, that it is a good time to start preventing......i dont want to lose all the sticks ive worked soo hard to collect and purchase, all go to the damn beetles.,..
any thoughts, comments, suggestions......
i was told............1 day in fridge, 3 days in freezer than back to 1 day in fridge........my girl came back form l.a and brought back two cubans........dont know who and where they were stored.....i placed them in my humi, then woke up this morning, sweating.........i said ***......let me start the debuggin process with these two cigars....
dont want to get infested with these things
0
Comments
Most factories do a pretty good job of controlling beetles, but did you know that it is a very common bug? It can be found in flour, sugar, spices or even a bag of dog food! Your cigars could be beetle free, and then one tiny little bugger lands in your humidor and LOOKOUT!
Ok, now that you are scared $h*tless, there is good news.
You can find a lot of info on beetles online, but most BOTL never have to face an infestation, and prevention is the key. I don't freeze my sticks, as a rule, but I did have to freeze everything after finding 2 beetles in one of my humidors a long time ago. Never had a problem since.
I inspect my cigars once a month, which also helps to keep them rotated. That's what works for me.
First, the critters are really really small, and they are about the same brown as the inside wood of your humidor. That makes them difficult to see unless you are taking the cigars out of the humidor to inspect them.
Once you take your cigars out (carefully, of course), look to see if you have leaf litter (ie, more than usual scraps of tobacco that look like small flakes). If you think something might be going on, check over your cigars, looking for holes about the size of a pin head. They might look like black dots, but if you see round black dots, use a toothpick to poke and see if it is actually a hole in the cigar.
If you have small round holes in ANY of your cigars, it's most likely cause by beetles.
Once you find holes, dump out that 'litter' from the bottom of your humidor onto a white sheet of paper. If any of the leaf pieces have leggs, then you are headed for the freezer. Make sure to look closely, as the beetles may have died.
sorry for rambling on for so long, but now you have an idea what to look for. You can save your entire collection if you catch it early. I would throw out the sticks with holes and fridge/freeze/fridge the rest.
One last note:
While your sticks are in the freezer, wash your humi with distilled water, throw out your humidifyier and replace it and salt test the hygrometer. Let the humi dry a little and then season it as needed. Don't put the sticks back into the humi without washing it out and DON'T freeze the humi because it will make bad firewood when it thaws.
Marty
if you keep them under 70F there should be no issues at all. its all about reventative measures.
Even after that I don't freeze before hand I just make sure my humi don't get that hot again!
I don't loose any sleep over it, but I have had to freeze my sticks once and I keep an eye on them by sorting them once a month. This has worked for me, but if it was a regular problem, I would start freezing the sticks when I get them.