FOH Mould Study

[Puros Y Vino]

Fantastic effort Rob!  Thanks for undertaking this.  I think I might have a candidate for actual plume.  I have some old HU No 4's from the Mid 70's.  No fuzzy stuff on them, but there are shiny, crystalline spots here and there.  I don't have the right camera or skills to photograph it though.  

@photorob Maybe you can take some close ups this week?

[TBird55]

So does this mean I can stop wondering what I am doing wrong, since my aged cigars (5 to 10 years) aren't producing plume?

[Puros Y Vino]

[Nguneer]

Well I guess its officially official now.

[Stump89]

Really good info on this, well done.  A dirty job, but someone had to do it. Thanks!

[Booyaa]

This is a great project Rob. I'm amazed it hasn't been done until now.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Perhaps it has but the people involved were making too much money from plumey/mouldy cigars to publish the results...

[PigFish]

Good job mates!

As I have proffered for many years. More creative terms borne out of the desire to sell a cigar from the collector and vendor community. (Present company excluded).

I was in fact hoping to find a case where there was this diffusion of glue (someone posted about)... That made some sense to me.

 

"The King is dead!" -LOL

-Piggy

[...]

Awesome work guys, we now have a credible standard to work with. 

[wabashcr]

Thanks for undertaking this and sharing the results.  Nice to put some science behind what many of us have long suspected, that it's always mold.  It was interesting to read about the different kinds of mold, but the cigars pictured all pretty clearly had mold.  I've long been of the belief that plume on a cigar is a myth.  I'd be fascinated to be proven wrong.  Hopefully the new incentive will at least produce some better candidates.

[Hayden]

I'm sure we will soon hear from vendors: Yes its mould but that doesn't mean its bad. Look at cheese and salami. It enhances the cigars taste just like those!

[Puros Y Vino]

8 minutes ago, Hayden said:

I'm sure we will soon hear from vendors: Yes its mould but that doesn't mean its bad. Look at cheese and salami. It enhances the cigars taste just like those!

Yes. I can see it now.

• The new Partagas Provolone Salamon.  
• El Rey del Moldo (new marca coming 2018)

 

[luv2fly]

I do believe this may ruffle some vendor's feathers.  One in particular comes to mind.

[TheGipper]

Great work, gents.

And someone needs to state the obvious, before any one freaks out about some of those alarming descriptions....

Mold is everywhere. Not just on your aged cigars.

If you are freaked out about smoking a cigar that has even the smallest hint of mold spores, well then, you probably have to give up the hobby altogether.

Not to mention, you will also have to give up eating pretty much all food!

Besides, I can think of no better way to destroy mold spores than setting them on fire.

[Guest photorob]

sure @bundwallah. Will bring some camera gear.

 

Also, thanks Rob + team for putting this all together. Such valuable work done here.

 

[luv2fly]

22 minutes ago, TheGipper said:

Mold is everywhere. Not just on your aged cigars

Very true.  In my former job I had to explain this to more people than I can count.  Wipe the cigar, smoke, and enjoy!

[Daz]

9 hours ago, JoeyGunz said:

But then explain this....

mo money taking the piss

[vivalanation734]

Absolutely great work! Thanks for having this done. 

[spivey6690]

I would like to verify the results.  Please mail all cigars in study to me so that I can perform my own independent research.  Disclaimer: I am a scientist; I do science stuff.  

[Fugu]

1 hour ago, luv2fly said:

1 hour ago, TheGipper said:

Mold is everywhere. Not just on your aged cigars

Very true.  In my former job I had to explain this to more people than I can count.  Wipe the cigar, smoke, and enjoy!

To be precise: Spores - yes sure, vegetative, i.e. "blooming" mould should not! That's the very matter of controlling conditions.

[luv2fly]

Spores yes! Blooming no.  Controlling conditions is paramount.  Thanks for the clarification Fugu!  I should have been more specific.

[planetary]

@Ferrero I can provide examples of well-aged (10, 15, 20 year-old) pipe tobacco with what look like crystals, if you would like.  It's long been suspected that these are neither mold nor sugar, but some other substance.  Not sure if that would be of interest in this study, since pipe tobacco is processed quite differently, but that community is quite curious, and has never done any testing, to my knowledge.

[TheMonk]

Very interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time. It's great to see a scientific approach on cigars... something that very rarely happens.

[Ferrero]

51 minutes ago, planetary said:

@Ferrero I can provide examples of well-aged (10, 15, 20 year-old) pipe tobacco with what look like crystals, if you would like.  It's long been suspected that these are neither mold nor sugar, but some other substance.  Not sure if that would be of interest in this study, since pipe tobacco is processed in wildly different ways, but that community is quite curious, and has never done any testing, to my knowledge.

You've got me very intrigued... If you are okay parting ways with a little pinch then we would love to get it tested.

[archie]

I appreciate the work on this, very interesting indeed.

So, what does it mean?  Does wiping them off make everything ok?

[El Presidente]

16 minutes ago, archie said:

I appreciate the work on this, very interesting indeed.

So, what does it mean?  Does wiping them off make everything ok?

My personal rules: 

Wipe and move on unless:

•   there is mould in the foot of the cigar. 
•   the mould is a colour other than white.