Long-term Aging in Ziplock Bags

[Smallclub]

Yorkshire nurse, in Emergency Service of Yorkshire hospital:

What's your name and what happened, sir?

Captain Q:

My name is Captain Quintero and I smoked the inside paper of one of my aged box of fine habanos...

That's worth Monthy Python...

[...]

Still remember the FOH Cohiba Siglo VI Reserva review, with the cigars smelling of glue from the two-sticks little box... Glorious cigars

[mikek]

I cant ever seem to make A box last much over A year,unless I buy A couple of the same!

[jedipastor]

Still remember the FOH Cohiba Siglo VI Reserva review, with the cigars smelling of glue from the two-sticks little box... Glorious cigars

True, but those cigars hadn't spent much time in those tainted boxes. I'd imagine that if they had, smoking one today would be a different story. Either way, I'd be happy to join that experiment, lol.

[Blace]

I just found this thread and was curious if there are any biologists on the forum that could discuss the following with me. A friend of mine is doing his phd in microbial recomposition of plant material into stable forms in soils and we were discussing what exactly is happening to our cigars when they age. Anyway, I thought this might add to the discussion in this thread.

Here is his take on what is happening when our cigars age;

"First off, let's define aging as recomposition of leaf compounds (especially polyphenolics and proteins) into chemical species conferring what we perceive as "deep" or "complex" and "tasty" flavours, i.e. the desired outcome of resting cigars over a period of years. Melanins resulting from condensation of quinones (derived from monomeric phenols derived from polyphenols) with amino compounds (peptides, amino acids and amino sugars derived from proteins), are known for imparting sophisticated flavours (used for example in tea). This process can occur abiotically, but given the rate at which aging occurs it is reasonable to hypothesize that it is predominantly biotically (enzymatically) controlled.

It is likely that hydrolytic decomposition is negligible in a rolled cigar, as the majority of labile substrate for microbes ought to be exhausted when the leaves are aged in bails and the ammonia allowed to escape. Therefore, changes in supply of fresh water beyond a minimum threshold (required to maintain any microbial activity) are unlikely to accelerate an energy-limited biotic process. Aging in this context is presumably a largely oxidative process, and thus governed by the supply of oxygen, temperature and the presence of oxidation catalysts.

Assuming that the process of aging is indeed a biotic process, the catalysts in question would be oxidative enzymes, which are largely generated by certain groups of fungi. In particular, fungi with the mycelial growth form are amongst the only organisms known to subsist on structurally-bound celluloses in the absence of any labile co-metabolite. If this line of reasoning holds, aging would be strongly governed by the composition of higher fungi present in a cigar. This potentially opens up a whole world of manipulations and inoculations with various fungal strains for various flavour outcomes. In theory, the simple addition of a small quantity of labile substrate (sucrose or glucose, for microbial co-metabolism) to a cigar might accelerate its aging by orders of magnitude, as seen in leaf litter decomposition experiments."

[oliverdst]

Very interesting, Blace.

[JackFNQ]

Anyone else got a hyperbaric chamber humidour?

By my calculations cigars will age one year for every week enclosed, but may emerge limp and soggy, or bent like a banana depending on the thickness of the wetsuit wrapper or where the decimal point was meant to go. The experience of Dr Evil has shown, don't sit in there with them out of curiosity and increase the dial like a sauna, unless they're in a closed ziplock bag.

[TonyAccardo]

After my boxes sit in a 65% rh environment for 5 to 6 months, I then wrap them in Saran Wrap really well and then tape the seam tight with some clear boxing tape and leave them in the 65% rh environment. If anything, it keeps my hands from dipping into the boxes without having to go through the pain in the ass of getting scissors out and cutting them out. It helps me to not only leave a box to age but also prevents any swings in humidity over a short period of time.

My only concern at first was that they would slowly dry out because they are really layered in Saran wrap. But then thinking about it, even though water vapor would move out of the boxed environment very, very slowly, because the outside environment is 65%, it creates a positive water vapor pressure exertion on the box, so as long as it is 65% it is not going to allow enough water vapor to escape out of the Saran wrapped box to make it any lower than maybe 63-64% rh.

Anyone have any experience with Saran wrapping boxes as opposed to wax paper, zip loccing, tin foil wrapping???

[Colt45]

Anyone have any experience with Saran wrapping boxes as opposed to wax paper, zip loccing, tin foil wrapping???

I don't personally, but Wilkey touched upon it briefly in post #31 above. I do know that he (and perhaps other members as well) has brought up the differences in various polys, and his use of foil (other than his hat) in other discussions on the topic.

[TonyAccardo]

@Wilkey, what do you think of someone wrapping their boxes, both cabinet and dress box, in Saran Wrap really well and then leaving them for years in a 65% rh and 70-72ºF environment? ?? I guess my question more pointed would be, do you think it will negatively affect them or is it very similar to vaccum sealing them?

[garbandz]

"1) My cigars do better in cedar boxes (as opposed to dress boxes, unsealed plastic baggies, etc.). By "better" I simply mean noticeably more enjoyable (I don't have a margin of error here, it's anecdotal), when I have something to compare them to. If I had to guess, I'd guess that what's happening is that they are aging a little faster, though it could be argued that they are simply aging "better." But I think it's faster, because there are a few cigars that I don't like fresh, and I've noticed that when stored in cedar they are "ready" sooner.

2) My cigars age better/faster in "coolerdors" than in traditional humidors. I have a number of desktop humis, but the majority of my stash is in large plastic bins that are not quite as airtight as a cooler, but much more so than a traditional cedar humidor. Inside the bins are cigar boxes (mostly cedar boxes) full of cigars. "

I have been doing this for 25 years or so....................Works fine for me................

[SmokenWhisky]

Just finished reading this thread. Great reading btw. Love to hear any updates from the participants in this thread as several years have passed now. 

Only thing I wonder is ziplock bags are made out of polyethylene. I come from a comic book collecting background and every collector knows that you don't store your good comics in polyethylene for the long term. Ive done it a few times with comics books and the bags yellow, get wrinkly and soft etc The white pages tend to yellow a little quicker, sometimes the comics smell a tad.  

One has to think that long term storage in polyethylene bags cant be good for cigars. Maybe replace the ziplock every few years, maybe every year. People are worried about picking up weird plastic odour from coolidors, I'd be concerned about weird ziploc smells. 

In comic collecting I used clear mylar bags from a company called E Gerber. No gassing no issues. I've had comics stored in these for about 15 years and their pages are still nice and white. 

Id be curious to try storing cigars in mylar food bags for long term storage. Maybe someone has? Definitely will be searching this forum for "mylar" in a minute.

[SMQQKIN]

I live at the beach in So Cal & balance humidity issues by storing my boxes in XL Ziplocs with boveda packs. I've been doing this for about 4 years without any issues. My stock smokes & ages just fine. No plastic odors or yellowing but find that air does leak in & the bags will inflate a little. As much as we may obsess about our storing conditions cigars aren't as delicate as we concern ourselves with.

[Philc2001]

On 9/9/2011 at 1:02 AM, shrink said:

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

I've been experimenting with this for a couple of years now. I initially got the idea from some BOTLs on another forum who were using food preparation vacuum sealers to wrap boxes in plastic bags and suck out the air. Initially I just put some naked cigars in ziplock bags inside the humidor, and noticed after about 1 year that they seemed a bit more fresh. I then started to enclose entire boxes in ziplock freezer bags. I think it makes sense to minimize the oxygen that gets to the cigars, which is effectively minimizing oxidation of the tobacco. I haven't yet unpacked any boxes I've aged this way since I've only been doing it for about a year, but I hope my results work out as good as yours, though I don't think it will be 10 years before I unpack them.   

[mt1]

16 hours ago, SMQQKIN said:

I live at the beach in So Cal & balance humidity issues by storing my boxes in XL Ziplocs with boveda packs. I've been doing this for about 4 years without any issues. My stock smokes & ages just fine. No plastic odors or yellowing but find that air does leak in & the bags will inflate a little. As much as we may obsess about our storing conditions cigars aren't as delicate as we concern ourselves with.

I do this as well and have no problems!

[BinBin]

Ive left cigars in bags and the burn and such are not the same as the cigars outside. I beat it ages slower.