How to use a vacuum sealer??

[Shelby07]

There’s another thread about storing for several weeks without a humidor and several people have suggested using a vacuum sealer. Is to really ok to suck all of the air out or do you just use the sealing function?

[nKostyan]

Does the vacuum does not cause dryness of cigars?

[Cayman17]

You suck the air out first ?? You just need to watch dress boxes to make sure you don’t  cause them to collapse. 

[aphexafx]

You're not sucking all the air out.  You're just removing the excess air (evacuating) so that the bag collapses gently around the boxes.  The internal air pressure is no lower than the external air pressure, you've just removed the air you don't need.

You can hear the pump begin to strain slightly, when you do hit the seal button!  

The moisture content will remain stable; the cigars will stay at whatever moisture content they went in at, at least for a very long time.  Which brings up another point.  You want to acclimate the cigars in your humidor to a good storage RH before you seal them up.  If they are very wet, they will stay that way and possibly cause issues.

If you're going to put a Boveda in the bag to regulate the RH, make sure you don't evacuate the bag quite as much as you might otherwise, so that it can expand a bit if it has to.

[bsubtown]

8 minutes ago, aphexafx said:

You're not sucking all the air out.  You're just removing the excess air (evacuating) so that the bag collapses gently around the boxes.  The internal air pressure is no lower than the external air pressure, you've just removed the air you don't need.

You can hear the pump begin to strain slightly, when you do hit the seal button!  

The moisture content will remain stable; the cigars will stay at whatever moisture content they went in at, at least for a very long time.  Which brings up another point.  You want to acclimate the cigars in your humidor to a good storage RH before you seal them up.  If they are very wet, they will stay that way and possibly cause issues.

If you're going to put a Boveda in the bag to regulate the RH, make sure you don't evacuate the bag quite as much as you might otherwise, so that it can expand a bit if it has to.

Is the goal here to aid in long term storage and reduce the amount of possible fluctuations in a more open system? 

[aphexafx]

@bsubtown

Can be both but vacuum bags are probably more common for long term storage and situations where you have to leave them for some time and can't manage or check on them.  They're also handy for stints in the freezer because you minimize excess water vapor and reduce condensation when the box warms up before the cigars after you take them out.

If you're just trying to keep a micro-environment for your boxes to even out fluctuations in a larger humidor, then heavy poly bags with Boveda packs are much easier, simply because you can get into them easily.  I do exactly that with all of my boxes and it works great.  You can get heavy 6-mil commercial food grade poly bags from places like CML Supply, etc.

[Homer]

1 hour ago, Cayman17 said:

You suck the air out first ?? You just need to watch dress boxes to make sure you don’t  cause them to collapse. 

I got box of box pressed cigars when my friend vacuun sealed one box on SLR re Espana. The box collapsed. Those cigars never returned to round shape.

[Bucky McSwensen]

As others said think of it like squeezing excess air out of a ziploc bag.  When I seal boxes I dont seal them like I seal meat for the freezer.  Snug but not compressive.  Loose is fine too but then you have to pack a bunch of balloons of air wherever you keep them.

[aphexafx]

Just wanted to add, a standard Boveda pack will easily handle 3 boxes in a sealed environment.  Probably way more than that.  The 1 pack per 25 cigars guideline is targeted at unsealed containers like cabinets and desktop humidors, where they're constantly working to make up for ambient moisture loss.

[BrightonCorgi]

2 hours ago, Homer said:

I got box of box pressed cigars when my friend vacuun sealed one box on SLR re Espana. The box collapsed. Those cigars never returned to round shape.

Be careful as it is very easy to crush a dress box with a vacuum sealer.  

[earthson]

On 2/13/2019 at 9:36 AM, aphexafx said:

You're not sucking all the air out.  You're just removing the excess air (evacuating) so that the bag collapses gently around the boxes.  The internal air pressure is no lower than the external air pressure, you've just removed the air you don't need.

You can hear the pump begin to strain slightly, when you do hit the seal button!  

The moisture content will remain stable; the cigars will stay at whatever moisture content they went in at, at least for a very long time.  Which brings up another point.  You want to acclimate the cigars in your humidor to a good storage RH before you seal them up.  If they are very wet, they will stay that way and possibly cause issues.

If you're going to put a Boveda in the bag to regulate the RH, make sure you don't evacuate the bag quite as much as you might otherwise, so that it can expand a bit if it has to.

This.

On 2/13/2019 at 9:45 AM, bsubtown said:

Is the goal here to aid in long term storage and reduce the amount of possible fluctuations in a more open system? 

Yes.

[Piligrim]

vacuum is fine with varnished and laquered boxes, otherwise thise might be collapsed. I made experiments with different boxes, and broke some of those. glad cigars stayed at safe.

[komodo]

Guys, I have a strange question - has anybody tried vacuum sealing cigs for mailing across the country? I store them in a good RH, they're not wet and I would like to make a parcel for my BIL since I have a regular sealer (forgot to mention, Weston and it has something like delicate mode) at my kitchen. Would it be possible to send them without a wooden box and not to crush them to dust in process? 

[Cayman17]

1 hour ago, komodo said:

Guys, I have a strange question - has anybody tried vacuum sealing cigs for mailing across the country? I store them in a good RH, they're not wet and I would like to make a parcel for my BIL since I have a regular sealer at my kitchen. Would it be possible to send them without a wooden box and not to crush them to dust in process? 

You could do it but you’d have to be careful about how long you let the vacuum run before you hit the seal button. Personally I would just use a ziplock sandwich bag or gallon bag. 

[Yellot00tr]

I vac seal every single box I ever buy. No boveda. No air. These have been sealed for almost 7 years. They opened fine. No issues. Just opened them last week. Beautiful.

[Lunettesman]

5 hours ago, Yellot00tr said:

I vac seal every single box I ever buy. No boveda. No air. These have been sealed for almost 7 years. They opened fine. No issues. Just opened them last week. Beautiful.

You re my hero sir. Love how well you re organize

[Yellot00tr]

Yeah, I'm happy to report that it works fantastically.  I've been doing this since 2011-12 or something like that.  When I first started doing it and we were talking about it on the CA forums, it was a hot button topic.  It was not recommended and I was called every name in the book - ranging from moron, to jackass, to d-bag who was going to unseal boxes years down the road with a pile of useless crap inside. People like Simoni were waiting for $50,000 of my cigars to turn into garbage and were waiting to laugh.  Why?  For no other reason than so they were entertained and could say "I told you so-you're an ahole and you deserve it because I'm better than you."  Now, i can happily say GFY (go f yourself) to all of them.  I'm vindicated, looking at 250% gains in cigars, still under 40 yrs old, and a millionaire.  Anyways, I digress.  Basically, it works well.  You got no problems.  

[Duxnutz]

4 hours ago, Yellot00tr said:

Yeah, I'm happy to report that it works fantastically.  I've been doing this since 2011-12 or something like that.  When I first started doing it and we were talking about it on the CA forums, it was a hot button topic.  It was not recommended and I was called every name in the book - ranging from moron, to jackass, to d-bag who was going to unseal boxes years down the road with a pile of useless crap inside. People like Simoni were waiting for $50,000 of my cigars to turn into garbage and were waiting to laugh.  Why?  For no other reason than so they were entertained and could say "I told you so-you're an ahole and you deserve it because I'm better than you."  Now, i can happily say GFY (go f yourself) to all of them.  I'm vindicated, looking at 250% gains in cigars, still under 40 yrs old, and a millionaire.  Anyways, I digress.  Basically, it works well.  You got no problems.  

And humble to boot! 

[Skypilot]

12 hours ago, Yellot00tr said:

I vac seal every single box I ever buy. No boveda. No air. These have been sealed for almost 7 years. They opened fine. No issues. Just opened them last week. Beautiful.

Do you add the humidity indicator so you can monitor the cigars while sealed?

[Yellot00tr]

Humility isn’t one of my better traits. 
 

I used the indicator card, but it’s not necessary-complete overkill, but made me feel better. I do weird things sometimes just bc it makes me feel better, even when it’s pointless. Some boxes I sealed with humidity cards, others I didn’t. They all stayed inside humidors anyways. Vac sealing def works well. I’m interested though to see how cigars taste after aging for 10 yrs vac sealed compared to no vac seal. Might be my next experiment. Once the corona is over I’ll buy a few boxes of the same code and check it out with my buddies. Vac seal a box for 5 yrs, and leave one unsealed next to it in the humi. See how they compare after 5, then seal em back for another 5. 

[La_Tigre]

On 4/30/2020 at 9:00 PM, Yellot00tr said:

Humility isn’t one of my better traits. 
 

I used the indicator card, but it’s not necessary-complete overkill, but made me feel better. I do weird things sometimes just bc it makes me feel better, even when it’s pointless. Some boxes I sealed with humidity cards, others I didn’t. They all stayed inside humidors anyways. Vac sealing def works well. I’m interested though to see how cigars taste after aging for 10 yrs vac sealed compared to no vac seal. Might be my next experiment. Once the corona is over I’ll buy a few boxes of the same code and check it out with my buddies. Vac seal a box for 5 yrs, and leave one unsealed next to it in the humi. See how they compare after 5, then seal em back for another 5. 

Could we buy one on the secondary market with the same codes and pop out one from your stock. I’d like to see that research, We’d kick in to see if I could tell any difference, too. (Not that me or my wife could)?

[Yellot00tr]

I’m game. I’ll come up with a few boxes from my current inventory that I could smoke from and we’ll go from there

 

i know i have multiple boxes of ra superiores from 2011 to start with

[Bagman]

On 4/30/2020 at 7:00 PM, Yellot00tr said:

Humility isn’t one of my better traits. 
 

I used the indicator card, but it’s not necessary-complete overkill, but made me feel better. I do weird things sometimes just bc it makes me feel better, even when it’s pointless. Some boxes I sealed with humidity cards, others I didn’t. They all stayed inside humidors anyways. Vac sealing def works well. I’m interested though to see how cigars taste after aging for 10 yrs vac sealed compared to no vac seal. Might be my next experiment. Once the corona is over I’ll buy a few boxes of the same code and check it out with my buddies. Vac seal a box for 5 yrs, and leave one unsealed next to it in the humi. See how they compare after 5, then seal em back for another 5. 

There is someone here who is doing this and occasionally posts updates on how it is going.  Forgot the name, but has been doing it for many years.  Perhaps he will see this and post an update.

Edit.  Found him.  @kyee

[cbaty08]

I vacuum pack my boxes and it works great.

I toss a 67g size hydration packet (62%rh, I use BOOST brand from amazon) in with each box and they come out perfect. 

[cbaty08]

On 2/14/2019 at 9:25 PM, Piligrim said:

vacuum is fine with varnished and laquered boxes, otherwise thise might be collapsed. I made experiments with different boxes, and broke some of those. glad cigars stayed at safe.

I have a fairly cheap sealer (was from Costco for like $99), and it allows me to stop the vacuum at any point, then seal; so I suck all of the air out and stop it just prior to it putting any real pressure on the box itself.