Storage Temperature

[joshua84]

I've been keeping my cigars at 65% constantly rather well with the Boveda packs (+- 1%). My only concern now is the temperature as it is not in the 18 degree Celsius region as usually recommended since the room's air conditioning is not turned on constantly and temperature does rise to around 28 degrees Celsius in the coolest part of the house. I wonder what are the forumers experience in storing cigars at higher temperature. Will be considering getting a wine chiller soon if needed. Hope to hear some views on this. Where I live (in Malaysia), it's summer all year round.

[riazp]

essentially you want to keep your cigars under 70F to avoid tobacco beetles...that being said i've had my humi reach 75F and my cigars are fine...not ideal though.

[CptKloss]

ok, again it probably goes against all cigar mistique, but i have this to say from my personal experience:

when i was moving to my new house, i left one storage box full of cigars in my attic that is in not insulated. It stayed there for 4-5 years. In winter time temps here drop to -20 C quite frequently and humidity is very low, while summer temps are 30C+ quite often, with fairly high humidity.

anyways, i found these cigars, put it in my humi....after 3 months i werent able to tell the difference (taste wise) between these and the ones stored "properly" - and i mean they tasted just fine... also none of the wrappers burst ( i did keep them for a month in an intermediate humidity - of around 50%).

if i could i'd avoid that of course...but as long as you can avoid conditions favorable to developing mold (mostly factor of high humidity), you should be just fine.

[CptKloss]

Not discounting the above post, but I have had wrappers burst on me in the past due to a couple days of elevated heat followed by quick cooling by putting the cigars in a different humidor in another room. Also, like riaz mentioned, beetles, if present, need temps above 70 to hatch their eggs. Cigars do best with consistency. I like 63/63, some people prefer 70/70, whatever you choose, I suggest sticking to it as best as you can.

Bursting certainly happens, i'd attribute it to rapid change of conditions, like low to high humidity ect...mine were in a (fairly) airtight container - so humidity change was gradual...

[mnzoui]

Usually cigar smokers concern about stabilizing humidity and they overlook temperature. First, although high temperature increase the odds of getting tobacco beetles, it is not only about that. Temperature is a factor in cigar aging. High temperature means quick aging. Quick aging means less flavors.

28ºC is way too high. It can wash the flavors out of your cigars or at best it will give you one dimensional cigars.

Habanos recommendation is to store your cigars in temperature (16ºC to 18ºC) and humidity (65% to 70%). Finding the right combination of temperature and humidity within the previous ranges is not easy and not straight forward process. It depends on the climate you live in and where you want to store your cigar (desktop, fridge etc) and what you want to do with them.

I live in Riyadh. The climate here is dry all year round and temperature varies between 2C to 50C. I can control the humidity easily by beads but temperature is the hardest part. These are my storage environments:

Smoking right now 67F/68%

Mid-term aging (6 months to 3yrs) 63F/65%

Long-term aging (more than 3yrs) 57F/60%

I came to these figures by experiment and it is totally my personal taste. Correct storage is the only thing in our hands we do for our cigars after that a lot of wishes to get a great smoke not a bad one

[Colt45]

Temperature is a factor in cigar aging. High temperature means quick aging. Quick aging means less flavors.

How so? - I'd love to hear a concrete explanation.

I'm more inclined to believe that humidity would have more of an effect on accelerating or retarding the aging process (whatever that is).

But I also think that temp and humidity are tied together - I've personally yet to see higher temp with relatively low humidity.

[mnzoui]

How so? - I'd love to hear a concrete explanation.

I'm more inclined to believe that humidity would have more of an effect on accelerating or retarding the aging process (whatever that is).

But I also think that temp and humidity are tied together - I've personally yet to see higher temp with relatively low humidity.

I do not have a concrete answer. I always wish that a scientific entity will do a complete study on cigar life after it is rolled, and publish the results.

My understanding on aging came from my observations, experiments and what I hear from others.

I started to notice the temperature effect on cigar aging after seeing a local tobacconist keeping his best selling cigars in a high temperature/medium humidity environment when they are fresh. I know this guy want to change them from non-smoke-able to smoke-able (even though not beautiful) quickly to sell them. After long sessions of brainstorming I came to a conclusion, maybe the odds of getting mold by increasing the humidity is higher than getting beetles by increasing the temperature (of course in short period)so this is why he took this safe approach. Maybe

Cigars are organic products.

To demonstrate the effect of temperature on organic products aging, take two apples and put one of them in the fridge (low temperature) and the other on the shelf (high temperature). You will find that both of them will go through same stages till they rotten. However, the one in the fridge will go through these stages slowly and beautifully and will take more time to complete each stage. The transition is smooth. This is the perfect aging.

Temperature will control the speed of going through stages of the aging process and humidity will control what will happen in each stage.

Maybe

[Barteur]

Very interesting thread, heard through the years so many theory about this, curious to see what everybody thinks. I was of the 70/70 people until I start seeing well renown cigar collector drop temperature on their vintage to slow their aging. Don't know what to think anymore.

[Colt45]

I do not have a concrete answer. I always wish that a scientific entity will do a complete study on cigar life after it is rolled, and publish the results.

I am not a scientist, nor am I particularly scientifically minded, so I could not make a statement of fact either way. But I'm not sure I'd be very

comfortable keeping my cigars stored in my refrigerator. What if there was a way for me to store my apples on the shelf at 75' with a humidity

of 50%? Is it possible that exposure to air has an impact?

What would our expectations be if we found a body buried in desert sand and another frozen in glacial ice? How would either compare to a

body buried "normally" in the earth?

[Omskakas]

A quick question about the topic...

What do you think about too low temps for cigars? I have two options to store my cigars for the upcoming winter. First is in a cold storage room that will be around +5 C and another is in normal room temp +20-23 C. Where would you store and why?

[CptKloss]

I would love to see an experiment, that'd go something like this:

take a cab of 50 current run cigars, that the consensus is, smokes good, like PLPCs... smoke 2 of the cab just to confirm they're ok. Take 24 out of the cab, put them in a closed zipper bag and leave them to the elements for a year (but under a roof/no direct sun exposure, so they don't get destroyed by water or bleached by UV rays), remainder stored in "perfect" conditions. After a year gradually restore the "outdoor" cigars to 65% humidity and mail them in pairs to 24 people, who would do a standard review: construction, look, burn, taste/flavorm of course without knowing which one is which...

[#2 man]

I keep mine at 62/65 never had a problem

[brassie00]

I would love to see an experiment, that'd go something like this:

take a cab of 50 current run cigars, that the consensus is, smokes good, like PLPCs... smoke 2 of the cab just to confirm they're ok. Take 24 out of the cab, put them in a closed zipper bag and leave them to the elements for a year (but under a roof/no direct sun exposure, so they don't get destroyed by water or bleached by UV rays), remainder stored in "perfect" conditions. After a year gradually restore the "outdoor" cigars to 65% humidity and mail them in pairs to 24 people, who would do a standard review: construction, look, burn, taste/flavorm of course without knowing which one is which...

Thanks for volunteering CptKloss, I'll be your first tester when there ready ?

[joshua84]

Speak of the devil. As I just lit a RASCC, a little brown bugger dropped on my palm. First I thought it was bits of tobacco until a closer look, it's the dreaded beetle. Quickly checked my entire stock of cigar but can't seem to find any with holes in them. Anyway, I've bitten the bullet and everything is in the freezer now. I've decided to freeze everything from now on. A less flavorful cigar (if ever) is better than no cigar. What a week.

[update]

Last pic i took before bagging them again and putting it into the freezer. Hope they turn out ok.

[Ginseng]

Great thread. Three are so many things that could amend themselves to simple little controlled studies. I've long toyed with the idea of starting a series of "Cigar Science" investigation threads. Would you guys be interested in participating in a little user research to try and get at some of the long persistent, anecdotal folklore that so permeates our hobby?

Wilkey

PS. Myself and a couple of members here come from scientific research background so the likelihood that we could design a good investigation is high. Making it fun, that would involve everybody.

[joshua84]

Count me in. Lets bust some myths.

[joshua84]

I've taken the cigars out yesterday. The wrappers were all in good shape save for one or two that were already cracked before i put them there. Overall everything looks ok, no noticeable colour change or texture. Cigars are still firm (but not stiff). Apart from that, it is just that the aroma was not as strong as before. Anyway, they're back in the humidor and let's see what happens after that. Plan to smoke one of them tonight to see any change in the flavour (a trinidad reyes).

[randomhero1090]

Ok couple of thoughts....

1) Josh, you sure it was a beetle? Might have been a wood mite, esp. if you didn't find any holes in your cigars.

2) Yes, 28c/~82f is WAY too high a temp. So that would be ripe to have beetles hatch.

3) I am in total agreement with Mohammed. The longer you plan to store the cigars the colder the storage temp should be. The apple comparison Mohammed presented was a great one. 18c/65f and 65% seems to be the spot most CC collectors store. Ajay Patel was apart of a video on CA, and I believe the numbers he quoted were 62-63f and 62-63%.

4) I know this is a Habanos forum, but I can tell you this much, storing Nicaraguan and Honduran tobacco at 65/65 doesn't work for me. They get TOO dry. So my Nicaraguan, Honduran and Dominican cigars are stored at 68-70 and 67-69%.