Home Cigar 101

Why did it blow up?

VisionVision Posts: 7,764 ✭✭✭✭✭
So I have had a Gurkha Double Perfecto sitting in my humi for about 6 months(70-72RH). I put in in my mouth and wet it a little before I toasted the foot (no i did not wet the foot) I toasted it and put it back in my mouth to light it and rested it on my teeth. I felt the wrapper..... crunch in my teeth. I didn't think anything of it and lit it. BOOM CRACK SPLIT... The wrapper literally blew up and fell right off. Now I am guessing that the wrapper was dry. I only had it out of my humi a short time, 15 minutes tops and it wasn't that hot out. I have had other sticks from the same humi that we perfectly fine in the last few days.

I didn't wipe that humi down I just sat a bowl with dist aqua in it for 5 days. I have a 72RH gel jar in there now and it reads 72RH. Could it be that it is still "dry" and the RH reading is just the air and the wood is absorbing the moisture?
Thanks!

Comments

  • 0patience0patience Posts: 10,665 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Vision:
    So I have had a Gurkha Double Perfecto sitting in my humi for about 6 months(70-72RH). I put in in my mouth and wet it a little before I toasted the foot (no i did not wet the foot) I toasted it and put it back in my mouth to light it and rested it on my teeth. I felt the wrapper..... crunch in my teeth. I didn't think anything of it and lit it. BOOM CRACK SPLIT... The wrapper literally blew up and fell right off. Now I am guessing that the wrapper was dry. I only had it out of my humi a short time, 15 minutes tops and it wasn't that hot out. I have had other sticks from the same humi that we perfectly fine in the last few days.

    I didn't wipe that humi down I just sat a bowl with dist aqua in it for 5 days. I have a 72RH gel jar in there now and it reads 72RH. Could it be that it is still "dry" and the RH reading is just the air and the wood is absorbing the moisture?
    Thanks!
    Personally, 72 seem pretty high to me, but then again, I don't like going above 68.
    But some thin wrapper cigars (cameroons especially) don't like going from one environment to the other and have a tendency to split/blow apart when they've been at one Humidity/temp to another and lit up.

    Because I live in a high humidity area and my house is lower humidity than the outside, I have to let thin wrappers "sit" outside for a little while to acclimate to the outside, before I can light them up.

    Anyways, that's my experience with it. The others may have more insight.
    In Fumo Pax
    Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.

    Wylaff said:
    Atmospheric pressure and crap.
  • marineatbn03marineatbn03 Posts: 2,670 ✭✭✭
    Had this happen to a EP Carillo last week. And I am thinking it is along the lines of what Tony is saying. Getting acclimated so to speak. I could be horribly wrong, but mine litterally blew apart.
  • VisionVision Posts: 7,764 ✭✭✭✭✭
    SO you don't think I need to wipe the humidor down?
  • 0patience0patience Posts: 10,665 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Vision:
    SO you don't think I need to wipe the humidor down?
    Is your humi wet? If you are running at 72, then I wouldn't get it any wetter. That would drive the humidity up.
    The biggest thing is knowing what the humidity is outside and in your humi and the temps. If the humi is at 70/70% and you go to an environment that is 75/90%, the likelihood that there will be some problems will be high.

    The way I understand it is that when you light it and you heat the moisture in it, it expands. If the humidity surrounding it is a major difference high or low, the thin wrappers will try and accommodate.
    Heavier wrappers (like maduros) seem to handle it better than thinner wrappers.

    So when I am smoking something with a thin wrapper outside, I tend to let them sit out where I will be smoking for a while. Usually at least half an hour seems to cut down on the problems I have.

    Then again, I could be totally off base. Just my experience with it.
    In Fumo Pax
    Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.

    Wylaff said:
    Atmospheric pressure and crap.
  • allsmokedupallsmokedup Posts: 751 ✭✭
    I'm going to go ahead and say that it's a Centurian or something similar. Those need to be dry-boxed for a day, at least, before smoking. It will happen nearly every time if you don't dry-box with those 6x60 perfectos.
  • VisionVision Posts: 7,764 ✭✭✭✭✭
    allsmokedup:
    I'm going to go ahead and say that it's a Centurian or something similar. Those need to be dry-boxed for a day, at least, before smoking. It will happen nearly every time if you don't dry-box with those 6x60 perfectos.


    Yup. And I will do.
  • VisionVision Posts: 7,764 ✭✭✭✭✭
    0patience:
    Vision:
    SO you don't think I need to wipe the humidor down?
    Is your humi wet? If you are running at 72, then I wouldn't get it any wetter. That would drive the humidity up.
    The biggest thing is knowing what the humidity is outside and in your humi and the temps. If the humi is at 70/70% and you go to an environment that is 75/90%, the likelihood that there will be some problems will be high.

    The way I understand it is that when you light it and you heat the moisture in it, it expands. If the humidity surrounding it is a major difference high or low, the thin wrappers will try and accommodate.
    Heavier wrappers (like maduros) seem to handle it better than thinner wrappers.

    So when I am smoking something with a thin wrapper outside, I tend to let them sit out where I will be smoking for a while. Usually at least half an hour seems to cut down on the problems I have.

    Then again, I could be totally off base. Just my experience with it.


    I will keep that in mind.
  • webmostwebmost Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Same thing here this last weekend. Summer hit us like a big hammer. One day sixties, next day 90s. I brought a stick from the office where there's A/C out to the garage where it was super hot and stuffy. Soon as I lit up, the wrapper cracked. Didn't think anything of it. Figured I shocked the poor thing.
    “It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)


  • kuzi16kuzi16 Posts: 14,633 ✭✭✭✭
    Vision:
    So I have had a Gurkha Double Perfecto sitting in my humi for about 6 months(70-72RH). I put in in my mouth and wet it a little before I toasted the foot (no i did not wet the foot) I toasted it and put it back in my mouth to light it and rested it on my teeth. I felt the wrapper..... crunch in my teeth. I didn't think anything of it and lit it. BOOM CRACK SPLIT... The wrapper literally blew up and fell right off. Now I am guessing that the wrapper was dry. I only had it out of my humi a short time, 15 minutes tops and it wasn't that hot out. I have had other sticks from the same humi that we perfectly fine in the last few days.

    I didn't wipe that humi down I just sat a bowl with dist aqua in it for 5 days. I have a 72RH gel jar in there now and it reads 72RH. Could it be that it is still "dry" and the RH reading is just the air and the wood is absorbing the moisture?
    Thanks!
    well... we have a few issues going on here. in order of how you mentioned it:

    1) its a Gurkha. the brand has had a steady decline in popularity for many years now due, in part, to many construction issues. being that the double perfecto is the hardest vitola to roll, it is no shock that a company with construction issues had one that wasnt perfect.

    2) 72% is a bit high for your RH. humidity causes tobacco to expand. there is a ton of tobacco in that filler. there is one leaf (the binder) holding it together. heat exacerbates the issue. lighting that thing up sent it down hill fast.

    3) what did you wet a little? the cap? the entire cigar besides the foot?
    there is no need to wet anything beyond the small area of the head where you plan to make your cut. that is what a humidor is for.
    my father used to lick the cigar from head to foot to "make sure it was moist enough"
    this practice may have been "ok" during the cowboy days, but now, there is no point.

    4) the crak was the wrapper splitting. no doubt. was it raining out? or was the humidity outside in the 85-95% range? a huge jump up in humidity once it leaves the humidor makes the issues in #2 on this list even worse. heck, it will cause a cigar kept perfectly for years to have wrapper issues.



    it is not that your humidor is too dry. in fact, it is much more likely that it is too moist.
    get your RH down in the 68 -70 range and you should be better off.
    even then, *** happens and you could be getting a bad roll.

  • BigT06BigT06 Posts: 3,899
    kuzi16:
    Vision:
    So I have had a Gurkha Double Perfecto sitting in my humi for about 6 months(70-72RH). I put in in my mouth and wet it a little before I toasted the foot (no i did not wet the foot) I toasted it and put it back in my mouth to light it and rested it on my teeth. I felt the wrapper..... crunch in my teeth. I didn't think anything of it and lit it. BOOM CRACK SPLIT... The wrapper literally blew up and fell right off. Now I am guessing that the wrapper was dry. I only had it out of my humi a short time, 15 minutes tops and it wasn't that hot out. I have had other sticks from the same humi that we perfectly fine in the last few days.

    I didn't wipe that humi down I just sat a bowl with dist aqua in it for 5 days. I have a 72RH gel jar in there now and it reads 72RH. Could it be that it is still "dry" and the RH reading is just the air and the wood is absorbing the moisture?
    Thanks!


    1) its a Gurkha
    there. I fixed it. lol
  • The SniperThe Sniper Posts: 3,910
    Why did it blow up?

    Simple.

    ITS A GURKHA.

  • Amos_UmwhatAmos_Umwhat Posts: 8,405 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The Sniper:
    Why did it blow up?

    Simple.

    ITS A GURKHA.

    My first thought as well!
    I've had this happen more with Gurkhas than any other cigar, most recently a Gurkha Beast that was in the humi about 6 months. As mentioned above, I should have dry-boxed it, and I live in Tennessee, so the chance that it experience a 30% jump in humidity on leaving the humidor is pretty high.

    While that was disappointing enough, a few days later I tried to smoke an Armada, same d*mn thing happened. I was on the verge of suspecting the humidor, but none of the cigars that followed in the coming weeks did anything like it. I wonder if they're bunched too tight sometimes? Or, did the conditions at the factory that day have something to do with it?
    I used to have a T-Shirt that said: "If it has a skirt, or wheels, it WILL give you problems" There must be some Murphy's Law overlap into the world of cigars!
    .
    WARNING:  The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme.  Proceed at your own risk.  

    "If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed.  If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." --  Mark Twain
  • The SniperThe Sniper Posts: 3,910
    Amos Umwhat:
    I used to have a T-Shirt that said: "If it's a Gurkha, it WILL give you problems"
    Fixed it. LOL Im pretty sure "gurkha" is the Turkish word for "burn issue". LOL

  • Amos_UmwhatAmos_Umwhat Posts: 8,405 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The Sniper:
    Amos Umwhat:
    I used to have a T-Shirt that said: "If it's a Gurkha, it WILL give you problems"
    Fixed it. LOL Im pretty sure "gurkha" is the Turkish word for "burn issue". LOL

    good one! :D
    WARNING:  The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme.  Proceed at your own risk.  

    "If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed.  If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." --  Mark Twain
  • VisionVision Posts: 7,764 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Now that its in my basement it seems to be a little better... the RH that is..... it is 69RH now that it is cooler. I know Gurkha isn't the best brand ATM but for the price sometimes its to tough to pass up. I just had a Gurkha Beauty and it burned flawlessly down to the nub. For the close to $3.00 whopping dollars I spent on it is more a learning experience then anything else. I just purchased a Wicked Indie tho..... don't know why?!?!?! Just wanted to try it.
Sign In or Register to comment.