Home› Cigar 101

Hot ambient temperature effects?

scarlinscarlin Posts: 1,592 ✭
in Cigar 101
This thought just came to me and I found it to be an interesting one. How does the ambient temperature effect the burn and taste of a cigar? I can imagine how the burns may differ, but do you think it would affect the taste? It has been really hot and humid here and It would be intriguing if someone did a smoke in 100 degree weather and 0 degree weather. Sorry for my probable mess ups of affect/effect.

Comments

  • kuzi16kuzi16 Posts: 14,633 ✭✭✭✭
    beyond your comfort level heat isnt a big deal. humidity is the issue.

    im sure at some point heat is an issue, but it would be a situation where no reasonable human would be smoking.










    or they WOULD be smoking, because their skin hair would be on fire...
    Kuzi's Forum Links Page
  • pilgrimtexpilgrimtex Posts: 429 ✭
    scarlin:
    This thought just came to me and I found it to be an interesting one. How does the ambient temperature effect the burn and taste of a cigar? I can imagine how the burns may differ, but do you think it would affect the taste? It has been really hot and humid here and It would be intriguing if someone did a smoke in 100 degree weather and 0 degree weather. Sorry for my probable mess ups of affect/effect.

    I live in Texas. Need I say more? That's why I made a smoking lounge inside so I would have some comfort when its mid 90s as the sun is coming up. I seem to notice more wrapper splitting and peeling when the humidity is low verses high but it may be just me.
  • CigaryCigary Posts: 630 ✭
    Good questions from you guys that should keep us on our toes and I know a lot of us have dealt with these issues from time to time. Outside ambient temperature does have an effect on cigars as we want to mimic the environment they came from and as was said it's mostly about the relative humidity and keeping it stable...that means no major swings for RH from say like....69% down to 62% and then back up and down..etc. This is what causes a lot of burn issues in cigars because the tobacco will swell if RH swings from a low % up to a higher %...the swing should not be more than 2 or 3% +/- at any given time. Ambient temps can cause issues if it gets warmer than 80 degrees because in order to keep your cigars "healthy" you'd have to adjust the RH to compensate for the higher outside temps....an easy conversion is this....add the outside temp and the RH and you want to divide that by 2 and come up with 62-69....it's easier to adjust the outside temps by using your A/C or using a cooler which I advocate in the summer time. There are portable A/C's on the market that are really good and cheap to run....they have a rating that is very good for energy and only cost about 8 - 10 cents an hour to run and I have one in my study that is great. As far as smoking a cigar in those extreme conditions I know I have smoked a cigar in very hot climate here in Atlanta...it was like 100 degrees one day and I met with friends to have a cigar and once I lit it it was about 30 seconds later that the end just mushroomed..didn't explode mind you but it did split the end. I don't smoke in cold weather outside so I couldn't say what would happen but if the ambient was 0 that will mean within a minute or so that tobacco is going to freeze and that is going to have a direct effect on the smokeability of a cigar...I would think. Who wants to do this experiment and report back?
  • Lee.mcglynnLee.mcglynn Posts: 5,960 ✭✭✭✭
    scarlin:
    This thought just came to me and I found it to be an interesting one. How does the ambient temperature effect the burn and taste of a cigar? I can imagine how the burns may differ, but do you think it would affect the taste? It has been really hot and humid here and It would be intriguing if someone did a smoke in 100 degree weather and 0 degree weather. Sorry for my probable mess ups of affect/effect.
    being in Philly I'm in the same boat...IMO go to a lounge and your good lol the ac really helps keep humidity down!! But outside with the humidity around 80% around here I'd say just don't smoke a Cameroon lol
    Money can't buy taste
  • Roberto99Roberto99 Posts: 1,077 ✭
    I smoked a cigar on a walk in below zero conditions. The smoke was cool! LOL had a razor sharp burn and I really enjoyed the cigar. At least on the one I had there were no burn issues.
Sign In or Register to comment.