Random cigar storage experiment

[Smooth]

I had a box of Cohiba siglo III gifted to me last December. With no room in any humidors I decided to try an experiment with the box.

Living on the Gold Coast here in aus humidity is always quite high and temperature consistantly quite high.

I have a split system aircon throughout the house which is set to keep the home automatically to 25*C and is always on dry mode which removes humidity.

I have left the box open since December in the home office on a shaded bookcase with a digital hygrometer next to it.

Min temp for 5 months 23C. Max temp 26C. Daily avg 24C.

Min humidity 54%. Max humidity 68%. Daily avg 62%.

Finished the last teo last evening and it was perfect! Does the sub tropical weather with the use of the dry and 25 setting air conditioning make for the ideal walk in home humidor?

I am stunned.

[Shikar]

Akin to the worlds largest humidor. Cuba.

Regards.

[dicko]

Cool experiment. Ballsy too.

I wouldn't try this in Perth our humidity flies around. Makes more sense on the GC.

[Fugu]

Min temp for 5 months 23C. Max temp 26C. Daily avg 24C.

Min humidity 54%. Max humidity 68%. Daily avg 62%.

Problem here is the amplitude and period and not so much the average.

[TCContender]

As Fugu mentions, I would be interested in the temp and rH swings by day/week/month, as this is what would make this a non-starter in my location. We have several months which are perfect in temp, but low humidity. When the humidity gets into the appropriate range, the temp is spiked.

Obviously, you must have a temp/rH sweet spot there if the cigars were on point. Thanks for sharing!

BTW, I wish my collection was such that the "guinea pig" box would be Cohiba Siglo III....

[oliverdst]

Akin to the worlds largest humidor. Cuba.

Regards.

I always think about that. If Cuba is a huge humidor why the internal notice recomends to keep cigars at 16-18°C?

[Pharmacovigilant]

Glad to hear it worked out. If someone gifted me a box of Siglo III with no room in my humidors, I'd be serving eviction notices to my existing stock to make room. ?

[LLumley]

Glad to hear it worked out. If someone gifted me a box of Siglo III with no room in my humidors, I'd be serving eviction notices to my existing stock to make room.

This!!!!!!!

[PigFish]

I had a box of Cohiba siglo III gifted to me last December. With no room in any humidors I decided to try an experiment with the box.

Living on the Gold Coast here in aus humidity is always quite high and temperature consistantly quite high.

I have a split system aircon throughout the house which is set to keep the home automatically to 25*C and is always on dry mode which removes humidity.

I have left the box open since December in the home office on a shaded bookcase with a digital hygrometer next to it.

Min temp for 5 months 23C. Max temp 26C. Daily avg 24C.

Min humidity 54%. Max humidity 68%. Daily avg 62%.

Finished the last teo last evening and it was perfect! Does the sub tropical weather with the use of the dry and 25 setting air conditioning make for the ideal walk in home humidor?

I am stunned.

Cigar storage is a personal choice. The question is this, would you have enjoyed the cigars more/less if you stored them in an environment that you more closely controlled?

If the answer to that is no, then frankly you have no need for a humidor!

Who can tell you with certainty that you are abusing your cigars? No one!

If I were to 'speculate,' which I think a lot of us are going to do here, I would have to say, "what are the risks?" I think then that the totality of my answer has to be framed in the form of risk and "what if?"

Is there a risk of ruining a cigar by adverse storage? The answer is definitely yes. One cannot deny mold growth, or fine losses from brittle dry tobacco. If you (anyone) is comfortable with this knowledge and risk, then there is no need to guard against it.

I have to run a humidifier in my home all the time. It is better for the comfort level of the home, my skin, my dogs skin, my furniture and my woodwork. A control on rH is something that I just believe in... I especially believe in it with cigars, but most member are well aware of my opinions here.

So, how long did it take to smoke the box? Would you feel comfortable emptying all your boxes from your humidor and keeping them out? OR, when the potential for monetary loss grows, so does your consternation over this as a storage process?

I think this is a great experiment, and I have done it many times with cigars myself. I have left whole boxes on the back seat of my truck when I knew that I would be smoking these cigars within a week or two. I used to do this all the time... I was smoking 3 cigars a day at work and the risk, even at 130F in the car, was not higher than I could tolerate. I like dryer cigars, and ultimately the risk was one I could tolerate. Ultimately, no harm is done if one enjoys the cigars.

Cheers! -Piggy

[Fugu]

I think your last para. is the essential one here, Piggy - time scale! Nothing wrong with what you said in general (of course not...), but point in fact is that Smooth's "experiment" is just too short to let us derive any meaningful conclusions from it. We are not given the date code of said Siglos, i.e. how fresh they were, but we are told he kept the box for only about four months under those conditions. Four months? - So, we cannot seriously speak of maturing let alone aging, and I expect even under less favourable conditions (large swings, comparatively high temps, high air turnover within the box), this would have only helped to let fresh cigars mellow quicker and round off their rough edges (comp. to the dry-age cheating from the food sub-forum....). Which in fact might have lead to the perceived smoking quality of these smokes. This is NO indication, however, of how it will be working out long-term.

Therefore, it is a matter of time scales, for how long one is plannig to keep them, as you already said. Smooth seems to be a long-term member, so he probably knows quite well what he is doing. But I think we should avoid any risk to be misleading to members and perhaps external readers newer to the game, and therefore better and unmistakably recommend a rather cautionary approach as a general advice.

If only for immediate consumption (and with immediate I mean one to two years), I'd also adopt a rather laissez-faire perspective. You won't kill any cigar (CC) within two years from production date, provided you'd avoid mold and avoid them drying out. Just make sure you get your moisture right when it comes to smoking.

Cheers
Paul

[Smooth]

Interesting points guys thanks!

Will have to buy a box off Prez and run a longer term experiment with pics. To me the Cigars were bang on and were smoked over a five month (nearly six) period.

They looked and smoked just as they did when opened in December. I had no problems with the temp as I think 24c average is fine however I was concerned about humidity. Liking my cigars stored at 60% rh may have played a part.

And the box was a 2013 I think.

Would I empty all my humidors and just buy a few new bookcases to leave them on? No. Absolutely not.

It was actually the gifters idea to try this and he smoked a third of the box over the time. Was a lot of fun.