Temperature range - which is better?

[Shelby07]

I have 2 choices. Leave my humidor upstairs with temps ranging from 68-75F or move it to my basement which ranges from about 60-65F . I keep my humidity at a steady 60 percent. It’s been upstairs for many years with no issues  

Should I move it to the lower temperature? Thanks  

 

[Burningman]

IMO go with the cooler basement. From what you state there is also less fluctuation there so I would say this is your best bet. However it sounds like you live in a very temperate climate. Either way if you end up getting a little heat wave this summer you will have piece of mind knowing your cigars are in the coolest part of your house.

Cheers!

[PigFish]

Not in my opinion. Why try to fix what is not broken?

Moving to a lower temp requires the reevaluation of known successful practices. It is a risky waste of time.

Cheers! -Piggy

[Burningman]

7 minutes ago, PigFish said:

Not in my opinion. Why try to fix what is not broken?

Moving to a lower temp requires the reevaluation of known successful practices. It is a risky waste of time.

Cheers! -Piggy

True. I'm just the paranoid type that will constantly be checking the cigars if the temps in the house reach the mid 70s Fahrenheit. I'm OK with having to possibly make adjustments to compensate for the cooler storage area.

[Monterey]

Fully disagree with the pig.  I would move it down to the basement.  Cigars sitting at 75 will eventually give your problems.

[PigFish]

Is Cuba refrigerated? Nope!

There is nothing at all wrong about storing cigars in mid-70's or even higher if you balance you rH level to achieve a desired PMC.

Refrigerating cigars is a stupid myth causing many problems like the poor member that I just answered on another thread with soaked, moldy and potentially damaged cigars.

I cool for stability because I have the skillset to pull it off. I don't store below 70F and frankly now tweak to the higher, not the lower of...

That being said, there is a range of rights and limits on that range that make 'one' wrong. The community drive to refrigerate damages more cigars than it preserves. All MHO!

Cheers! -the Pig

[Shelby07]

1 minute ago, Monterey said:

Fully disagree with the pig.  I would move it down to the basement.  Cigars sitting at 75 will eventually give your problems.

They don’t really sit at 75. They may reach that for an hour or two but then the temperature drops. It pretty much follows the ambient temperature of the house. The house has central air. 

[PigFish]

2 minutes ago, Monterey said:

Fully disagree with the pig.  I would move it down to the basement.  Cigars sitting at 75 will eventually give your problems.

... what problems? Please be specific and offer any evidence if any. (view with open eyes on education and not a gauntlet across the face please).

-tP

[99call]

I think one side consideration should be, (and I have no idea what kind of build your house is). But for instance in the UK, around 80% of brick built houses have mould spores already in existence in the basement anyway.  Regardless of the parameters of whatever someone may consider "correct" cigars storage, introducing something you don't want to get mouldy, to an already mouldy environment....is.........well........crazy.

I am just talking about places like the UK though.   I have no idea if places in the states have mouldy basements. 

Whatever happens, good luck to you

[PigFish]

Just incase I am asked the very same question about my beliefs about refrigerated space as humidors! If you don't have the knowledge and equipment to build one that works, don't do it...!

I have answered emails, and forced to leave many more unanswered with the same problem described here.

Cheers! -tP

[Shelby07]

1 minute ago, 99call said:

I think one side consideration should be, (and I have no idea what kind of build your house is). But for instance in the UK, around 80% of brick built houses have mould spores already in existence in the basement anyway.  Regardless of the parameters of whatever someone may consider "correct" cigars storage, introducing something you don't want to get mouldy, to an already mouldy environment....is.........well........crazy.

I am just talking about places like the UK though.   I have no idea if places in the states have mouldy basements. 

Whatever happens, good luck to you

Good point. I am in Colorado just north of Denver. It’s a high desert climate. 

[Monterey]

6 minutes ago, PigFish said:

Is Cuba refrigerated? Nope!

 

And that is why there are beetle problems in cuba.  Hence most of us freeze our cigars that come from the island.  Including the stuff already frozen, but then left to cross contamination.   So many people have posted pictures of cigars destroyed by beetles from cigars brought back from Cuba.  Something I rarely see for non-cubans.   And that is all I will say on this matter.  I care not to debate.  Have a wonderful cigar and wonderful weekend.

[PigFish]

Just now, Monterey said:

And that is why there are beetle problems in cuba.  Hence most of us freeze our cigars that come from the island.  Including the stuff already frozen, but then left to cross contamination.   So many people have posted pictures of cigars destroyed by beetles from cigars brought back from Cuba.  Something I rarely see for non-cubans.   And that is all I will say on this matter.  I care not to debate.  Have a wonderful cigar and wonderful weekend.

I understand your concern, the beetle issue has been litigated here quite often. Cheers, and enjoy a fine cigar yourself. Thanks for answering and not taking offense.

Forum life at its best... FoH!

-Piggy

[Shelby07]

4 minutes ago, Monterey said:

And that is why there are beetle problems in cuba.  Hence most of us freeze our cigars that come from the island.  Including the stuff already frozen, but then left to cross contamination.   So many people have posted pictures of cigars destroyed by beetles from cigars brought back from Cuba.  Something I rarely see for non-cubans.   And that is all I will say on this matter.  I care not to debate.  Have a wonderful cigar and wonderful weekend.

Yes, you are right, but my climate is very different than Cuba. Humidity can get as low as 5 percent in the winter and even with high humidity days in the summer the house rarely goes above 50 percent. 

I’ve been in the house for 15 years and haven’t had problems with mold. It’s a wood frame structure so it doesn’t tend to bake in the summer and the a/c works very well. 

I guess I should have asked if temperatures as low as 60F for extended periods can hurt the cigars. In the winter it is a fairly constant 60 degrees, but in the summer the basement stays a cool 63-65. 

[99call]

20 minutes ago, Shelby07 said:

Yes, you are right, but my climate is very different than Cuba. Humidity can get as low as 5 percent in the winter and even with high humidity days in the summer the house rarely goes above 50 percent. 

I’ve been in the house for 15 years and haven’t had problems with mold. It’s a wood frame structure so it doesn’t tend to bake in the summer and the a/c works very well. 

I guess I should have asked if temperatures as low as 60F for extended periods can hurt the cigars. In the winter it is a fairly constant 60 degrees, but in the summer the basement stays a cool 63-65. 

Watch this from the 16 min mark.   I'm not suggesting the Sahakian's know what they're doing better than anyone else.  Just it may ease your mind that what your contemplating Davidoff London have been doing since the 80's

 

[Philc2001]

If it has worked for you for several years, why mess with a good thing? What do you hope to gain by going through all the trouble of moving to your basement? 

You're overthinking the whole thing, and not enjoying it enough. Focus more on the enjoying, and less on the sweating the minor details. 

For reference I live in S. Florida, the ambient temperature in my house is 73-80 degrees year round. When we are at home it is usually set to 76-77 degrees. At bedtime my wife likes it cool so it goes down to 73 degrees. When we go away for vacation, I set the thermo to 80 degrees for weeks at a time. My office where my cigar humidor sits gets direct afternoon sunlight on two walls, so it gets a couple of degrees warmer on the hottest days. In over 17 years in this environment I have never had a problem with my cigars. Just keep the RH stable and the rest will be just fine. Be sure to keep fresh batteries in your gauges and calibrate them once per year so you know you are getting accurate readings. Then just sit back and have a smoke.

Cheers to you!

[Shelby07]

It sounds like the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies perfectly here. I was leaning that way anyway, but, like most, I always wonder if I can do something differently that would be better. 

It’s interesting that cooler temperatures slow the aging process, but being close to 70 years old I don’t think that’s the wisest path for me to pursue. Maybe I should spend more time down in the basement. ?

Thanks everyone for sharing your knowledge and opinions. 

[Philc2001]

Not to hijack this thread, but I have some thoughts on this topic.

We tend to obsess a lot on this forum about storage conditions. It is especially prevalent among members that are relatively new to the hobby and those that are busting out and are expanding their storage capacity. IMPO there seems to be far too much emphasis on temperature, and trying to keep cigars cool, which seems to stem from an overabundance of caution (or maybe fear) about tobacco beetles. 

I don't mean to offend or challenge anyone's beliefs, but from lessons learned over 20 years of experience I strongly believe these concerns are overblown. The various methods recommended and employed by some are far too complicated for the average collector/smoker that just wants to keep a few hundred cigars for their own personal enjoyment. I say this with the admission that I was in that very same clique early on, and I experimented with a lot of different approaches and spent many hours trying to solve the RH bounce problem. After several years of combatting my own impulses, I finally gave up, and I unplugged my wineador and just let nature take over. Miraculously, it all worked out perfectly, and I've had a terrific experience ever since. 

I can't stress this enough, but the best advice I can offer from 20+ years of learned lessons and personal experience in this hobby, is just keep it simple. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but I read about members obsessing and fussing all the time, and although they all mean well, it is just too stressful. Seriously, don't obsess, don't aim for perfection, don't waste your time and money on gizmos and fancy "professional" equipment. Just focus on one simple objective; keep your RH stable. Forget about temperature (I know, sacrilege, right?), don't mess with sensors and automation, just focus on the RH. If you use a relatively air tight container, and some silica beads, it should be very easy to get the RH to be steady. Once the RH is stable, you can make micro adjustments until you find the RH that best suits your taste. For me that seems to be right around 63-64RH. 

My current environment is a 32-bottle wine cooler, unplugged. The small drain hole at the back is open (I never plugged it up). The walls and back of the cooler are lined with cedar sheets I taped in place from old boxes of cigars I had laying around. The original shelves were discarded and replaced with vinyl closet shelving cut to size, this is mostly to maximize the space and to allow free airflow. I have two very small computer fans inside that are on a timer switch, and they cycle on for 30 seconds every two minutes just to equalize the RH in the interior. I have four tubes I made from flexible vinyl window screen, about 2" in diameter and 16" long, that are packed with heartfelt beads and zip-tied to the back of each shelf out of the way, and one sits on the bump out over the compressor. I have 3 glass cigar tubes filled with polymer crystals laying on the shelves uncorked, these are the only source of hydration I use. When the polymer crystals dry up and RH drops under 63, I just add a small amount of distilled water and it stabilizes again within a day or two. I keep two calibrated hygrometers, which are visible from outside the humidor. Once per year or so I replace the polymer crystals with fresh crystals, this is the only maintenance I need now. 

The capacity is about 600-700 cigars when fully stocked. I keep my unopened boxes shrink wrapped, and I stack them as tightly as possible at the bottom of the cooler. Above the unopened boxes I have a handful of cedar boxes on the upper three shelves for my smoking stock.

[oliverdst]

I can't help you because I can't read Fahrenheit.

[Colt45]

2 hours ago, Philc2001 said:

keep your RH stable. Forget about temperature

RH is tied to temp.

[ac031898]

Potential upside in moving to the basement...maybe it’s less obvious to your significant other how big that stockpile is getting...

[Akela3rd]

I can't help you because I can't read Fahrenheit.

Take off 30° and half the remainder = ℃ roughly. In the UK we still use both systems - when it's hot it's "OMG it's almost 100 (℉)" and when it's cold it's "OMG it's 0 (℃)". And we officially gave up on metric length/distance measurement because everyone still commonly uses inches/miles unless you're using metric measurement for work. Simple. Not.

Thunder & Lightening '75-'15

[oliverdst]

4 hours ago, Akela3rd said:

Take off 30° and half the remainder = ℃ roughly. In the UK we still use both systems - when it's hot it's "OMG it's almost 100 (℉)" and when it's cold it's "OMG it's 0 (℃)". And we officially gave up on metric length/distance measurement because everyone still commonly uses inches/miles unless you're using metric measurement for work. Simple. Not.

Thunder & Lightening '75-'15
 

thanks.

I just tried to point, without sucess, that this is an international forum so to have better answers it would be good to indicate temperature in both systems.

maybe it's time to use Kelvin! 

[Derboesekoenig]

10 minutes ago, oliverdst said:

thanks.

I just tried to point, without sucess, that this is an international forum so to have better answers it would be good to indicate temperature in both systems.

maybe it's time to use Kelvin! 

It still blows my mind that the whole world still cannot use one system. Metric makes perfect sense, why not use it? People are stubborn. But it would eliminate all confusion regarding any measurements. The UK still uses stones for weight right? Still have no idea what that is. Seems barbaric ?

 

[Homer]

18 hours ago, PigFish said:

Not in my opinion. Why try to fix what is not broken?

Moving to a lower temp requires the reevaluation of known successful practices. It is a risky waste of time.

Cheers! -Piggy

Question to Mr Piggy.

My humidor is cabinet without temp control. Today it was 72F/22celsius and 62% humidity. Does that sound like good enough?