A WAY TO TURN YOUR UNDER FILLED WIND TUNNELS INTO NICE SMOKES

[cigaraholic]

I’ve certainly been in the front of the line complaining about all the under filled cigars we usually get in a box. For many years I’ve weighed all my cigars so I avoid smoking a disappointing hot bland stick. A member thank you bombed me a beautiful travel case and some lovely cigars. He vacuum sealed the cigars. I seal cigars when I send them but I never vacuum them to avoid crushing. As I was writing him a thank you email I started thinking what would the vacuum compressing do for the draw on a under filled cigar. It should tighten the draw making for a slower smoke and intensify the flavor. I took 7 cigars from different boxes, all the lightest in each box and vacuum sealed them. Then it occurred to me, check the cigars he sent🤪. A Mag 46 was 8.6g, 25% light, for me I taste a big drop in flavor at 20% and a fast hot burn. This cigar had a perfect Cuban draw, a little snug, and it was delicious. I would never have thought it was under filled, burned perfectly. I smoked a Lucy he sent yesterday on the back 9, 11.5g, 35% light. 2hr smoke, delicious and burned perfectly. Today I opened the cigars I had sealed for 3 days, gave them a few hours rest and lit a Punch Punch 6.7g, 40% light, the picture is 25 minutes in. 1hr 7min to the band and 1hr 20 total smoking, 2 touch ups, no relights, perfect snug draw and delicious. These cigars aren’t going to win a beauty contest, they look more like Backwoods Cubans but I can’t believe how well they smoke. He told me he didn’t mean to seal them that tight, it was a accident, but he couldn’t have made a better one! If you have a sealer and a scale I suggest you try this on the 4-5 wind tunnels lurking in most boxes, I’m amazed.

[Hammer Smokin']

hmm, interesting...thanks 

my last box of Monte MC's were 50% wind tunnels...and that isn't a good sized cigar to be a wind tunnel. burns hot and fast! 

[cigaraholic]

Firing up a Backwoods Dip 2....11.8g....after the vacuum, draw is perfect. I know it’s not pretty...but it’s how it preforms! Earthy, nice dark chocolate...you don’t get that from a wind tunnel..aka lightweight.

[RedLantern]

This is really interesting. If I ever get to the point where I'm weighing my cigars, I'll give it a whirl!

[Islandboy]

Very good info, thanks! My pet peeve is sitting down to a cigar only to have the experience devolve into a hot, charred-tasting struggle to enjoy. I have a box of BBF’s that are in desperate need of the squeeze you describe.

[teamrandr]

I like it.  

[LordAnubis]

That’s awesome! Great innovation of use of household items. I always thought a mold would be good to reduce ring gauge on wind tunnels. I often punch them super hard near the cap to add some resistance to the draw. I also find sipping a wind tunnel as you would sip a Lancero works for me. 

[cigaraholic]

I’ll brush up on my video skills....here are my sealed victims and what they look like after...just finished the Dip 2...1hr 15 min smoking time..what impressed me was it had a sweet dark chocolate flavor from beginning to end....your not going to get that from a cigar that burns hot 

[Islandboy]

31 minutes ago, Lrabold89 said:

Omg they look like raisins


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Or beef sticks...haha!

[Goodfortune]

[mprach024]

This is an awesome thread, I will try this.  I have both the Foodsaver style vacs and a chamber vac.  Nice thing with chamber vac is you don’t have the bags with hex grit side which is giving the jerky appearance.  I’ll do a couple of experiments and post.  Thanks for this idea!

[La_Tigre]

7 hours ago, cigaraholic said:

I’ll brush up on my video skills....here are my sealed victims and what they look like after...just finished the Dip 2...1hr 15 min smoking time..what impressed me was it had a sweet dark chocolate flavor from beginning to end....your not going to get that from a cigar that burns hot 

Lol, did this inadvertently the second time froze cigars and heard about the sealing method to protect them...... was disheartening to see 10 island singles looking like Han Solo beef jerky after the thaw. They did smoke fine a few months later though!

[Chibearsv]

7 hours ago, cigaraholic said:

I’ll brush up on my video skills....here are my sealed victims and what they look like after...just finished the Dip 2...1hr 15 min smoking time..what impressed me was it had a sweet dark chocolate flavor from beginning to end....your not going to get that from a cigar that burns hot 

 

Did you use your sealer as you normally would on automatic or did you shut down the vacuum a little early?

[Yellot00tr]

When i seal 5 ers, i lay em in the vac bag, use tape in between the sticks on the outside of the bag to kind of hold in place, then seal on slow. I stop it before the machine stops it. On shorter smokes, couldn’t you seal 5 finger bags?

[Chris P. Bacon]

I'm wondering if this method would apply to overfilled cigars. The gentle crushing might open up some more airways to ease the draw.

Time to experiment!

[JZBdano]

1 hour ago, Chris P. Bacon said:

I'm wondering if this method would apply to overfilled cigars. The gentle crushing might open up some more airways to ease the draw.

Time to experiment!

Need to try a vacuum chamber for the overfilled cigars and let them expand a bit.  

Anyone out there with a vacuum chamber?  Last time I've seen one was in high school science class. 

[La_Tigre]

20 hours ago, JZBdano said:

Need to try a vacuum chamber for the overfilled cigars and let them expand a bit. 

I have a bad feeling about this...

[MrBirdman]

I'll give it a shot and report back next time I get a wind tunnel.

[cigaraholic]

This morning I smoked the RG PC, entering the ring at a whopping 4.5g. The kind of cigar I avoid, if I did accidentally light it would probably last 10 minutes before I pitched it due to lack of flavor and probably a bad burn. I’m interested to see how long it lasts, 45 minutes is my usual PC smoking time. When I sealed these I sucked the hell out of them, waiting for the machine to do the sealing. I don’t think that’s really necessary, I’ll try a few that I hit the seal button when they have a good vacuum instead of letting them get to outer space mode, they might look better. Draw is again Cuban perfect, 43 minutes to the band, no touchups or relights and not bad. I’m not expecting this to turn a crap cigar into a great one, but it wasn’t unpleasant, especially for a cigar missing 47% of its tobacco. 

[SmokyFontaine]

This is a fascinating thread. I'm surprised wrappers aren't cracking. I wonder if a quick, light water spray before sealing would be better or worse. Either way, this is tremendously interesting!

[Monterey]

This is just so odd to me.  I smoke 1-3 cigars a day.  30-35 boxes a year and been doing that for a long long time.  I have yet to come across a single underfilled cigar.  A few that were a TAD loose, but that is all.  Plugs I get often.  Going thru a box of RyJ Churchills where 80% are plugged right now.

Regardless, well done!  I'll have to try it if I ever get an underfilled cigar.

[Bijan]

Yeah I've never hit a 4.5g PC! 7g maybe, and that's still smokeable if you go slow. For any given vitola no matter how big or small I've never had more than 20% underweight (17-18% probably the actual max). I've had one box almost all plugged, never had the reverse.

[Habana Mike]

25 minutes ago, Monterey said:

This is just so odd to me.  I smoke 1-3 cigars a day.  30-35 boxes a year and been doing that for a long long time.  I have yet to come across a single underfilled cigar.  A few that were a TAD loose, but that is all.  Plugs I get often.  Going thru a box of RyJ Churchills where 80% are plugged right now.

Regardless, well done!  I'll have to try it if I ever get an underfilled cigar.

Wow, you're an outlier! 90% say they've never had a plugged cigar. I tend to find a third of mine too tight on average across boxes. Of course I've gone through a box+ a week for 20 years so the odds are not with me....

[Monterey]

13 minutes ago, Habana Mike said:

Wow, you're an outlier! 90% say they've never had a plugged cigar. I tend to find a third of mine too tight on average across boxes. Of course I've gone through a box+ a week for 20 years so the odds are not with me....

Yeah, my plug rate is on the higher end.  Maybe not 1/3 but close.

On the other end, I've never had a plugged non-cuban.  But many wind tunnels.

[Nevrknow]

4 hours ago, SmokyFontaine said:

This is a fascinating thread. I'm surprised wrappers aren't cracking. I wonder if a quick, light water spray before sealing would be better or worse. Either way, this is tremendously interesting!

Or ( going for appearance only ) the quick dip, seal and then reclimatize for wrinkled wrapper. Or am I over thinking this?