Preferred rh

[Chris P. Bacon]

10 hours ago, Bijan said:

I think I use 2 x 320 size bovedas for my 120 qt coolers. I'll have to make sure it's not 3, but I'm about 90% sure I'm only using 2 per cooler. First cooler has been good since last summer.

I'm using x3 320s in my 120qt. Everything has been perfect.

[Bijan]

16 minutes ago, smbauerllc said:

Boveda says that the 320 gram ones are good for 100 Cigars, or for a space intended to hold 100 Cigars.

Their advice seems to be for desktop humidors which can leak quite a bit. For coolers and Tupperware it can be way off.

[smbauerllc]

On 5/21/2021 at 1:38 PM, mprach024 said:

65F/62-63RH is average.  I keep different shelves at different RH as there’s a few marcas I prefer at 65 (Cohiba and Trinidad)

That's interesting that you keep specific marcas at a different rh
 

13 hours ago, Bijan said:

Their advice seems to be for desktop humidors which can leak quite a bit. For coolers and Tupperware it can be way off.

I believe you are correct.
I need a 72% 320 gram in my last remaining 150ct humidor.
All my tupperdoors are perfect with 65% ones, as they have an airtight seal and only hold about 90 Cigars

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[Akela3rd]

Their advice seems to be for desktop humidors which can leak quite a bit. For coolers and Tupperware it can be way off.

This makes sense. I've a large tuppador with +/- 300 cigars at any one time and 2x320s have held it steady at for the last 3 years or so.

Sent by spooky action at a distance

[RichG]

14 hours ago, smbauerllc said:

Boveda says that the 320 gram ones are good for 100 Cigars, or for a space intended to hold 100 Cigars.

48qt is pretty large so I would think you would need several, but others with coolerdoors will hopefully chime in

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I use three 320s in a similar sized cooler. By volume I believe this matches the manufacturers recommendation...which is ultimately neither here nor there. 

[Edicion]

Found 65% works best for ready-to-smoke

[Lycosa]

Same as you (smbauerllc). I use 65% Bovedas for everything and the RH hovers stable around 62-65% (22-25c).

[smbauerllc]

I use three 320s in a similar sized cooler. By volume I believe this matches the manufacturers recommendation...which is ultimately neither here nor there. 

I really wish I could have a coolerdoor here but we aren't allowed to store anything on the floor for on case they need to bring in a stretcher

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[Mickey D]

1 hour ago, smbauerllc said:

I really wish I could have a coolerdoor here but we aren't allowed to store anything on the floor for on case they need to bring in a stretcher

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You live in a convalescent home?

[Bolismoker]

I have been keeping my cigars at 65% RH for over 20 years and they seem to be doing/aging great.  

[smbauerllc]

6 hours ago, Mickey D said:

You live in a convalescent home?

Assisted living home for disabled veterans

6 hours ago, Bolismoker said:

I have been keeping my cigars at 65% RH for over 20 years and they seem to be doing/aging great.  

Yeah, 65 has been perfect for me since I switched to it

I really need to replace my last remaining wooden humidor with a tupperdoor but just haven't done it yet. I have to use 72% bovedas to keep it at 65th

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[KnightsAnole]

I use 58 bovedas and my rh settles around 60. Don’t have NCs 

[PigFish]

I don't smoke NC cigars so I am no real help there.

Temp and rH considerations go hand-in-hand. One does not condition a cigar without the other. My good friend @NSXCIGAR pointed that out in his post. Temperature, if left out of the equation, makes an rH number useless.

For me, smoking if left to unknowns becomes a sketchy endeavor. Lets use beef as an analogy. When you order what should be a good steak, or even a burger, you specify to the cook a preferred range of temperature for the beef to be served. This gives you your beef at the taste you prefer. If you want the best from your cooked meal, the temperature, or level and extent of cooking plays a key role in taste of the finished product. When I want pancakes or waffles, I want them solidified, I don't want a plate of batter!

Cigar keeping is the same as far as preparedness. A 'raw' cigar would be one with too much water. An over cooked cigar would be one with not enough. The result, while not exactly analogous to cooking works well. To get the most from a cigar, the best you can do as the administrator of your humidor is to 'prepare' it for smoking. A well stored cigar will give the smoker the best he/she can expect from his/her cigar!

Storage then is the only variable (beyond the initial selection and choice) a cigar smoker can make that has a direct effect on his smoking experience. I say then, why leave it to chance?

Stability in storage then is the proof that one's chosen 'preparedness' is either good or bad. If one smokes enough cigars a differing levels of 'preparedness' one gets a taste (just like beef or batter) in what one likes in the 'done-ness' of the cigar.

Storage then, based on the above analogy is then a preparedness process in the consuming of cigars. For me, this starts with stability and the ability to prove your theory about storage and taste. The rest is just your taste and your ability to control the end product to get the best out of it. If you believe that a meals taste is at least some part of how it is prepared and served, then you should not be a stretch for you to believe that a properly stored cigar is a factor to your taste and satisfaction with it.

This is one of my own built humidors in action. This is how I store cigars!

Day in, day out, micro fluctuations that a cigar (when view from a perspective of migratory diffusion) will never see.

First comes the ability to store with stability. Then comes the ability to move the levels to actually notice a difference. Then the tweaking and testing. It is a life's work if you are a chef. It is no less for smoker serious about the preparedness of his cigars. All MHO...

Cheers! -Piggy

[FatPete]

On 5/23/2021 at 1:53 AM, Lrabold89 said:

Stopped using the Boveda in my tups ….rh has remained a steady 65 ….honestly don’t even think you need a humidufication device lol


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I use Tupperware to store my singles, with a 65 Boveda. These are good quality boxes and I thought airtight. I check my other cigars more regularly but I left some of the Tupperware nearly a year without checking. To my surprise the Boveda in most of them had dried out and was stiff. I now check them every 3-4 months & replace the Boveda if necessary. 

 

[smbauerllc]

I use Tupperware to store my singles, with a 65 Boveda. These are good quality boxes and I thought airtight. I check my other cigars more regularly but I left some of the Tupperware nearly a year without checking. To my surprise the Boveda in most of them had dried out and was stiff. I now check them every 3-4 months & replace the Boveda if necessary. 
 

Was your tupperdor a sistema klip it?

I have 5 of them and they are completely airtight. My 65 rh bovadas are just as plump as when I bought them after 6 months of use. The rh stays right at 65 always

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[Kevin48438]

I have tupperware that have the same plump boveda from 7 years ago.   I open those about once per year.

Ones that I open 1-4 times per month, they last 2-3 years.

Just throwing that out there so that if you aren’t getting similar performance, you may be able to upgrade the tupperware.

I also have a tupperware container that is used to recharge my bovedas.   I put them in it with one of those 70% humidity jars with distilled water.  If you let the bovedas get all the way to stiff as cardboard, they take a very long time to rebound and they don’t get to like-new condition.   If you can grab them when they have 30% or so life left; sometime before they get stiff pebbles in them, they rebound in about 3 months.

[Enduin]

2 hours ago, smbauerllc said:

Was your tupperdor a sistema klip it?

I have 5 of them and they are completely airtight. My 65 rh bovadas are just as plump as when I bought them after 6 months of use. The rh stays right at 65 always

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I have a IRIS USA/Ziplock "airtight" box that I used to think it was airtight but when the humidity in the house was more extreme (either in the summer when the A/C was running nonstop or in the past winter which was unusually chilly and humid for FL) I could see that the RH inside the box was changing pretty noticeably both up and down. Which makes sense as the box gasket is made of foam not rubber, so it can't be really airtight. 

The Sistema KlipIt boxes are the only ones that I found that have an actual rubber gasket, and they are made of good food grade materials, and they are not made in China, which for me is a plus. 

I think if the RH in your house that is not too far off from what you are looking for inside the box, probably most boxes with foam gaskets are just fine. However, if the RH inside your house is way higher or way lower than what you want for your cigars, I'd definitely recommend the Sistema boxes. 

[FatPete]

9 hours ago, Lrabold89 said:

how does that relate to my comment? politely asking, not being a jerk

Because unless I misunderstood,  I'm saying in my experience you do need to use a humidification device in a tupperdor, or at least keep an eye on them regularly.

7 hours ago, smbauerllc said:

Was your tupperdor a sistema klip it?

I have 5 of them and they are completely airtight. My 65 rh bovadas are just as plump as when I bought them after 6 months of use. The rh stays right at 65 always

Not Sistema, but a mix of brands that have the gasket system. Perhaps that was my issue. The main point I was making is that don't assume your cigars will be ok in a year or two in a tupperdor without checking.

6 hours ago, Kevin48438 said:

I have tupperware that have the same plump boveda from 7 years ago.   I open those about once per year.

Ones that I open 1-4 times per month, they last 2-3 years.

Just throwing that out there so that if you aren’t getting similar performance, you may be able to upgrade the tupperware.

I also have a tupperware container that is used to recharge my bovedas.   I put them in it with one of those 70% humidity jars with distilled water.  If you let the bovedas get all the way to stiff as cardboard, they take a very long time to rebound and they don’t get to like-new condition.   If you can grab them when they have 30% or so life left; sometime before they get stiff pebbles in them, they rebound in about 3 months.

I quite agree, once they are stiff they go in the bin as they never work properly if you try to recharge them again.

[smbauerllc]

I quite agree, once they are stiff they go in the bin as they never work properly if you try to recharge them again.

Yeah, Boveda actually states that recharged packs can potentially not work correctly and not to recharge them.
Have personally never tried, they are cheap enough to just replace, and do last years in a tupperdor as already stated.

Just about to replace my last remaining wooden humidor with the same as my 4 tupperdors.

Just too maintenance and worry free not to use tupperdors with the proper size Boveda

I honestly don't know why I even bother to have hygrometers in each one. Its really unnecessary, just habit

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[MrBirdman]

9 hours ago, Enduin said:

Sistema KlipIt boxes are the only ones that I found that have an actual rubber gasket

Agree 100%, my only issue is I couldn’t find any large enough to efficiently store all my boxes - often you could only get one or two in. So I use Sistema Klipit containers for all my singles/loose cigars. They seal extremely well. They also come without any chemical smell to remove  

My Boxes are kept in larger plastic clip containers with foam lids. While they’re definitely aren’t as well sealed as the Sistema (let alone airtight), I find my humidity is quite consistent provided I put in 3 or 4 boveda packs, although that’s partly achieved with cedar planks along the bottom to act as buffers. 

The most troublesome attribute is the odor, which is quite strong. I eventually settled on “soaking” the bottom and sides with hi-test hydrogen peroxide for several days in sunlight. This knocks out most of the smell, and with the cedar it becomes more or less undetectable. 

[Enduin]

I hear you, the Sistema are quite small and for the most part I can only fit 2 boxes of cigars per Sistema box, plus one where I have the singles. But due to the humidity extremes here in FL I find it's my only option if I want peace of mind. It also helps that I don't like big RG cigars so my boxes are not that big. 

[Kevin48438]

12 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

Agree 100%, my only issue is I couldn’t find any large enough to efficiently store all my boxes - often you could only get one or two in. So I use Sistema Klipit containers for all my singles/loose cigars. They seal extremely well. They also come without any chemical smell to remove  

My Boxes are kept in larger plastic clip containers with foam lids. While they’re definitely aren’t as well sealed as the Sistema (let alone airtight), I find my humidity is quite consistent provided I put in 3 or 4 boveda packs, although that’s partly achieved with cedar planks along the bottom to act as buffers. 

The most troublesome attribute is the odor, which is quite strong. I eventually settled on “soaking” the bottom and sides with hi-test hydrogen peroxide for several days in sunlight. This knocks out most of the smell, and with the cedar it becomes more or less undetectable. 

Any smell should be coming from the release agent, a lubricant, to make it easier for the piece to release from the mold during manufacturing.   Thoroughly wash it with ordinary dish soap (I use Dawn in the US) to remove it.  If that doesn’t work I would throw it out.

[smbauerllc]

I hear you, the Sistema are quite small and for the most part I can only fit 2 boxes of cigars per Sistema box, plus one where I have the singles. But due to the humidity extremes here in FL I find it's my only option if I want peace of mind. It also helps that I don't like big RG cigars so my boxes are not that big. 

I love the sistemas. They are incredible for loose Cigars. I currently have 4 of them and will be buying one more soon to replace my last remaining wooden humidor.

I can understand that they are not good for boxes though

I would think a coolerdor is the way to go for that

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[MrBirdman]

4 hours ago, Kevin48438 said:

Thoroughly wash it with ordinary dish soap (I use Dawn in the US) to remove it.

Should’ve added that that is my first step. There still tends to be a lingering odor the builds up when it’s closed tor long periods. 

A good deal of plastic is partially post consumer, which I suspect my bins are, and those products are notorious for creating unpleasant odors (that dissipate over time). Peroxide helps by oxidizing volatile compounds responsible for the smell remaining from the manufacturing process.