Strange Plastic Taste in my Cigars

[JamieKing]

Hi Everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster. I'm a British expat living in Singapore and having spent about year getting into cigars through buying singles, I decided to make the decision to get set up with a humidor of my own and buy in bulk to save on the exorbitant cost of cigars in this fine city state.

As many of you will know, Singapore is hot and humid. A normal day is 32 degrees C with humidity levels routinely topping 90%. My house has air conditioning, however I'm not there during the working day, and can't leave my aircon running all the time, particularly not when I'm travelling. I therefore decided to get a nice Vintec 50 bottle wine fridge; for my cigars but also for my wife's wine collection. Instead of turning the entire unit into a "wineador" I elected just to take my Siglo 75 capacity humidor and place the whole thing in the fridge. Prior to doing this, I wiped the whole fridge down with water and baking soda to take away any plastic smell. The maximum temperature I can keep the fridge at is about 18.6 degrees C (65.5 F) so, based on reading a number of the threads on this forum, I went for a higher RH reading (around 74-75%) to factor in lower temperatures.

I had about 60 sticks in there (combination of H Upmann Connie As, Partagas No.4, and RYJ Dukes) and they were smoking very nicely, if not just ever so slightly on the moist side to the touch; but tasted great. Now without wanting to ignite the RH/AH/temperature relationship debate, as a newbie I started to doubt myself and took out my humidification unit and the cigar box thin cedar sheets I had in there (humidor is already spansih cedar lined) and took the RH down to a reading of 70%. Since I have done this, the cigars have taken on what I can only describe as a slightly acrid but also slightly plastic taste. I read multiple threads on this fantastic forum that address wineador problems, but didn't read of anyone reporting a plastic taste in their sticks. I checked my humidor and seal is in good working order so I'm not sure it could be the smell of the fridge seeping into the sticks. Obviously I'm fairly concerned as to why my cigars suddenly taste bad so I wanted to get some expert views on what the diagnosis might be? 

Is the problem:

• I had too low RH for the temperature and therefore the sticks dried out and tasted bitter and/or the lining of the humidor became too dry and gave the sticks a nasty taste?
• The smell of my fridge is somehow seeping into the humidor?
• I removed the cedar cigar box sheets 
• My cigars are going through a part of the ageing process where they don't taste as good? (N.B I smoked a partagas and an upmann and both had a funky taste)

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

JK 

[Fuzz]

70% RH? Most on here will say it is too high. I personally have a 100L scuba box, with a bunch of RH beads and 65% Bovedas. Plus, I prefer to dry box my cigars before smoking.

[JamieKing]

Thanks for the response Fuzz. Would the lower temperature impact how my humidor holds humidity? I reckon if i let it get to 65 they would be extremely dry based on current trends in my unit.