Humidity Level Preferences; I Like My Cigars At XX% More Than YY%

peter4jc

This came up in a different thread, but thought the discussion might warrant its own thread...

@Hobbes86 picked up some Bovedas, 65% & 69%, and I was wanting to see if he had a good way of determining why he would use which percentage.

Maybe the question should've been why do you/I/we have a preference? It's perhaps a leading question. We say "I prefer X% for my cigars"; I hear it all the time, and I don't doubt the sincerity. I just think it's half hooey and half hogwash (for the most part). If those two Bovedas are 4% different, can we assume they can actually keep every cigar in a storage box at their stated percentage, (even though we don't know that, or how long it'll take a cigar to change its moisture content once we swap Bovedas, or if it matters where in the box the cigar is)? I know I'm not familiar enough with any one cigar (even though I've smoked dozens of many) to say with any degree of certainty that I like them more at X% than Y%. There are just too many variables involved in smoking cigars to make a strong statement about humidity preferences w/o also admitting we really don't know for sure.

Y'all feel free to gang up on me. I will argue forever (unless Frank takes the opposite side; he's way too tenacious and makes long posts) that we are convincing ourselves of something we can't objectively find reasons for.

Guitarded

Should we add dry boxing to the equation? 🤔🪤

Jrflickster

I almost gave up with the length of the intro... but I agree with what you're saying. When I say a % what I'm basing it completely on is how well it burns. I have little experience overall with specific cigars to try and give advice for % in regards to flavor.

peter4jc

Good point. At both ends of the spectrum, usually driven by winter or summer, we have to (or should be) sometimes acclimate cigars to the smoking environment, which should make me even more reluctant to say I have a strong preference for any given humidity level.

@Jrflickster mentioned in that other thread about having a storage box and a smoking box. @rsherman24 does something like that too.

Jrflickster

@Guitarded said:
Should we add dry boxing to the equation? 🤔🪤

My dry box is my desktop when you compare it to my 2 Tupperware even though they all have 69s in them

Amos_Umwhat

I like my wooden humidors, that's where the cigars I'm currently smoking will reside. The bulk of the cigars remain in the cooler until it's time to move to the wooden humidors.

I use 69% Bovedas, both in the tupperware in the cooler, and in the wooden humidors. I also keep 3 black-ice bead jars in each wooden humidor, and in dry times, like now, I keep a humidifier going in the room with the humidors.

When cigars come out of the cooler, they go in the humidor on the right. From there, they'll be shifted to the one to the left, and then smoked. The 69% bovedas tend to keep the humidor itself somewhere between 61 and 65% as a general rule. This is where my cigars seem to draw best, smoke best, least burn problems. At least, as long as I'm smoking indoors, which is normal for me.

If I carry the cigar outdoors into a much higher humidity, problems sometimes develop. Otherwise great cigars sometimes act like Gurkhas and crack and swell under those conditions. If I leave them sit outdoors for an hour or so prior to smoking them in that environment, that seems, subjectively, to be less of a problem.

I used to try hard to keep the cigars at the supposedly magic numbers of 70% at 70 degrees. This seemed to result in harder draws, more burn issues, etc., especially if they'd fallen off a few percent and I'd then tried to return them to 70. Also, at 70% the tastes tended to be duller, muddied to my palate, and the cigar tended to be boggy and dank past the half-way mark. I usually go way, way past the half-way point, assuming the cigar is still smoking well and tasting good.

So, for me, roughly 63% seems to be the ideal rH in my environment to provide the maximum satisfaction.

To me.

And that's what counts. Me.

In case anyone wondered.

d_blades

As a fairly new smoker, about all I can say is I seem to enjoy my cigars at a lower humidity. Started out with 69% had a lot of the problems like those stated by @Amos_Umwhat. Went to 63% for all my storage, whether it is lower humidity or a changed palate I now find several cigars I didn't care for or had problems with are now quite acceptable.

Rdp77

I think it has a lot to do with the ring gauge of the cigars you smoke regularly. I like smaller ring gauges...often in the low 40s. I feel that rh affects smaller ring gauges more because there is a tighter area allowed for filler tobacco to swell with humidity. That swelling is why I think a lot of people have draw issues with lanceros. At 69rh I find that many of them tend to have a tighter draw due to that internal expansion. At 65rh they generally smoke perfectly for me.

silvermouse

i'll smoke anything. I keep cigars stored with 69% Bovedas but sometimes the outside ambient is 20°/20% rh and sometimes it is 90°/90% rh. By the time one smokes half a stick in those conditions who knows what the stick is at.

Hobbes86

I selected the range of 65-67% because most of what I smoke seems to burn better in that range. The burn is more even and the draw is nice and easy, most of the time anyway.

I will admit though, since we don't get super scientific about whether or not each and every cigar is perfectly within our preferred range, along the length, gauge, and the location in storage, we don't know for sure it is within our preferred range. This is where I reason that it comes down to one's peace of mind. If we believe it is within the range we like, that is all that matters.

VegasFrank

@silvermouse said:
By the time one smokes half a stick in those conditions who knows what the stick is at.

I have a cigar medic, a super inexact fun tool that measures Rh of tobacco. The RH of every single stick that I've ever measured at the halfway point is 99 percent RH at the foot. 99 percent, no deviations.

Inaccuracies aside, I attribute this to the fact that at the combustion line, the moisture of the leaf, which obviously doesn't combust, is trapped under the cherry and inside the wrapper. The only place for it to go is out the foot. Since the temperature of the tobacco (and the air surrounding the tobacco) only goes up negligibly, the added moisture spikes the humidity inside and under the burn line.

That said, moisture just before the exact point of combustion and anywhere below that will determine how fast the material will rise in temp...until it reaches combustion temps. This is why you use green or soaked woods in smokers (dry wood causes flare-ups which are too hot for smokers).

But rh is relative (hence the r), and if your Rh is 100, then all of that prep work with your Bovedas means nothing? No, not really. In my experience with the cigar medic, most sticks get to me too wet, not too dry. Therefore, the boveda is actually drying them out, especially in the case of a seldom opened cooler that isn't fighting dryer RHs outside the cooler.

All of this is mostly moot, though Most of the burn issues that users experience are with the wrapper. Uneven, canoeing, won't "stay lit" and this is where the difference between 62 and 69 comes into play for me.

At 69, my wrapper feels soggy and has trouble staying lit. At that RH, I drybox to dry out the wrapper and binder.

At 58, my wrappers are brittle and split.

I like 65 because it gives me the best performance.

rsherman24

I use 65% bovedas and then move them to a wooden humidor when I am ready to smoke them. I try to keep that around 63%, depending on the season that may mean dry box or a 69% boveda. Is there a difference, probably not but it works for me.

I think more important is to acclimate the cigar whenever you can. If you take a cigar out of a 70% humidor and smoke it on your porch which is 20% humidity, you have a better chance of it blowing up or smoking like a wet sock. I try to take them out an hour or so before if I can figure out what I want to smoke. Not sure how much it changes the humidity of the cigar, but it seems to improve the burn.

Hobbes86

This is after having two 72% Boveda in it for 3 days. I only open it to take out a cigar.

Amos_Umwhat

Something to consider is that we're usually looking for a stable moisture content within the cigar itself. Correct me if I'm wrong, but conditions that create 69% humidity at 70 degrees will read different at different temperatures. So, if your temperature drops to, say, 64 degrees, your device will now report a lower % humidity.

Just for example, let's say 61% humidity. I emphasize "just for example", because I don't know the exact scale, but I'm sure that there's a gas law in the chemistry books that would tell you if anyone's interested in looking that up.

The point is, if you chase a certain percentage reading through a varying temperature range, you're going to be constantly changing the actual moisture content of the cigar. Thus, if it's cooled off in the house, and my hygrometer now reads 61% when yesterday it read 65%, before the heat went off it was 10 degrees warmer in the house, I don't add moisture to try to return to 65%.

Make sense? Again, if I'm off base here please tell me so, and explain why.

Rdp77

And have you tested your hygrometer for % accuracy?

Hobbes86

You could be right, @Amos_Umwhat.

@Rdp77 I tested it against others I know to be accurate.

peter4jc

@Amos_Umwhat I think it's the opposite. As you say it's 'relative'; the humidity is relative to the temperature, so if the moisture content of the air is remaining the same, and the temp goes down the amount of relative humidity would go up, and visa versa. Think of a fraction with the numerator on top being the temp and the denominator on the bottom being the dew point (or actual moisture); if the number on the bottom stays the same but the number on top decreases the percentage will increase. At least that's the way I store the concept in my head.

Yakster

Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air so with the same moisture if you drop the temperature the relative humidity will rise.

VegasFrank

The boveda is designed to also work across temperature ranges. So if you had a 69% boveda at 69°, and then you took the temperature down to 61° without opening the container, the boveda would work, pulling moisture into it, until it reached 69% again.

Now when you have cigars in the box, the air reaches a relative humidity before the dampness in the cigar Works itself out of the solid materials.

Again, the boveda works to put the air into the correct rh. So if you have an environment at 69% and cigars at 63%, the cigar will soak the water vapor from the air, and then the boveda will replenish the air. The boveda does not replenish the cigar directly. Maybe if they are directly touching each other, but I would still imagine it's a much slower process.

So in the picture above, my conclusion is that Hobbs has himself some very dry cigars and they are sucking moisture out of the air that the boveda is providing. Eventually everything will reach stasis as long as he doesn't open the lid.

Amos_Umwhat

@peter4jc said:
@Amos_Umwhat I think it's the opposite. As you say it's 'relative'; the humidity is relative to the temperature, so if the moisture content of the air is remaining the same, and the temp goes down the amount of relative humidity would go up, and visa versa. Think of a fraction with the numerator on top being the temp and the denominator on the bottom being the dew point (or actual moisture); if the number on the bottom stays the same but the number on top decreases the percentage will increase. At least that's the way I store the concept in my head.

Ah. I could have it backwards. Either way, I don't mess with trying to correct the moisture just because the temperature's changed.

Hobbes86

Well, it seems the general concensus is that I am over-complicating things. Perhaps I should just stick the 65% in there and leave it. Patience will be my motto.

silvermouse

from Boveda:
"Whatever the season or condition, Boveda accounts for temp and moisture changes. As seasonal temps and humidity rise and fall, Boveda will add or remove moisture as necessary to achieve the RH level printed on its package."

I like this explanation from a guitar site:

"What is Relative Humidity?
A hygrometer measures the amount of Relative Humidity, or RH, in the air. RH is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor to the equilibrium vapor pressure of water at a given temperature. RH depends on temperature and the pressure of the system of interest. It requires less water vapor to attain high relative humidity at low temperatures; more water vapor is required to attain high relative humidity in warm or hot air.

In other words, RH is the amount of moisture in the air relative to the amount of moisture the air can hold before it reaches the saturation point. As the temperature of the air rises, so does its ability to hold additional water.

RH is normally expressed as a percentage; a higher percentage means that the air–water mixture is more humid.

In cold climates, the outdoor temperature causes lower capacity for water vapor to flow about. Therefore although it may be snowing and at high humidity relative to its temperature outdoors, once that air comes into a building and heats up its new RH is very low. This results in very dry air, which is a hostile environment for a guitar and the primary reason we created our patented ClimaStand, ClimaCases, and ClimaCabs.

The following conditions are common when heating season begins:

1.) As the temperature increases without an additional source of moisture in the house the RH drops.

2.) The air you are starting with before you heat it is very cold, meaning that it is carrying very little moisture even when the RH is very high, such as in a snowstorm. Because cold air has a very low saturation level, it will carry very little moisture. Even if the RH is high when it is cold, by the time that air is warmed up to 75 degrees, the RH will be extremely low. The saturation point of air at higher temperatures is so much higher, that the RH will be very low, unless significant moisture is added to that air.

3.) As you force more heat into your home this further dries out the air. The result is that if you live in a dry area such as the notorious Rocky Mountains, or in Acoustic Remedy's home state of Wisconsin, you will have to be careful to protect your guitar from low humidity damage."

Hobbes86

Thank you for your efforts in finding this information, @silvermouse. It is very thorough and helpful.

Bob_Luken

Vision

I chose 65 because it was between 62rh and 69rh . I personally don't care as long as it's between those levels.