Box of Cigars dropped RH by 8%?
JMilby
Posts: 6 ✭
New to humidors and novice at cigars. Thanks in advance for help.
Wife bought me a humidor for my bday in May - Case Elegance Glass Top. Seasoned over the course of several weeks using jus the hydro tray and solution; held steady above 70% per instructions for 5 days before adding a few cigars I got for Fathers Day and it maintained 68-70% for over a month. New box of 24 Tabak Especial cigars arrives last week (my first box order since this is my first humidor) and put them in. RH dropped to 62% and now bounces between 60-63%.
So... what (if anything) did I do wrong? Is it normal to drop that much RH after adding a box. I will say the box is VERY full now, but I could fit a few more in there if I had to.
I am using the Case Elegance hyrdotray with gel and the CE brand solution; the gel is not at all dried out. Should I just try the hydro stick wetted down with solution? Case Elegance specifically says not to use the Boveda packs, but just don't want to screw up $180 worth of cigars!
Comments
PS - the cigars came from cigarS.com (thought I was ordering from cigar.com - doh). Figured it might be worth adding that point in case they sell sh!tty cigars and that's the problem.
You tripled or quadrupled your cigar volume all in one shot. Whenever you change your inventory this drastically, you overall RH will also change. This is probably normal unless you overpacked your box and it's not closing all the way.
Likely, the cigars you received from that website were either dry or dried out during shipment a little. Never fear, there are two pieces of good news here. First, it'll probably bounce back. Secondly, 60 to 63 is a great range!
By the way, use bovedas. Screw the instruction manual. Did you catch that? use bovedas.
Thanks VegasFrank! I'll grab some bovedas asap!
It will take about a month for it to fully settle again. And definitely use Boveda.
I'm not sure from your post, but are you mixing infused cigars with regular smokes? Infused should be in a separate humidor.
My standard advice to someone starting out, get a bigger humidor and a second job. Welcome aboard.
Thanks for the pointer! As luck would have it (and I know some would not call it luck), I have infused. I think everything is Drew's Estate. But I absolutely would have mixed if you had not mentioned this.
And I'll slowly work up to another humidor and convert this one into a non-infused. I like infused, and when people come over the infused are an easier sell to have others join in. But definitely need some more space.
Infusing is how they get rid of their poor tasting tobacco.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
You can never make a non-infused humidor out of an infused humidor. You can only infuse non-infused sticks by putting them in a converted humidor.
Maybe! But they taste good now!
Just to confirm my understanding of this, I shouldn't put non-infused cigars into a humidor that used to hold infused cigars? I don't doubt you, but can you explain why? Assume the infusion... stuff... will linger in the humidor and spoil the non-infused cigars? Like I said... very new to this. I used to just smoke cigars at a cigar shop and bring the occasional one or two home.
Yeah, some infused are strong and the lingering (juice, aroma, whatever) would probably sink into other cigars. Honestly, you could probably stuff the tabaks in a ziplock with a boveda, or just ziplock in the humi.
Its like someone with too much strong cologne leave a room. The smell is still there.....
I used to like the tabak especials for something different. I never had more than a few at any time, but I just kept em in a ziplock bag and put that in the coolidor (literally a cooler full of cigars). Didnt cause a problem. However, a full box of 24 infused in a small wood humidor is a different story.
I'll say this. I have a small desktop Case Elegance humi and it's never been as good as my larger. Took a ton of time to season, seems to fluctuate quite a bit without changing cigar volume. Plus, I do remember them saying to not use Bovedas. IMO that's nonsense. But I do only use it for infused sticks. Wondering now if it is an infused issue??
You can. I would use one that had infused sticks, though I'd stick some cofee/water slurry in there (in a cup) for a few days first to "wash it out". Separating them is best but if you only have one humi than be sure to keep the cellos on definitely. No naked comingling to be sure. Many purists simply don't smoke infused cigars so there can be a bit of biased slant. Two different humis is ideal but mixing won't "spoil" the cigars. It can influence the flavor over long periods of time though.