Aging of cigars in tupperdor

[Jeff B.]

Exactly how well can cigars age in a tupperware container with some cedar pieces thrown in? Let's take some Honduran bundled cigars that I have had since February. They were in my previous humidor, naked, up until a few weeks ago, when I converged all my cigars from that small humidor and a smaller tupperware container in to one big 2 gallon tupperdor with some 65% beads. Those Hondurans are in a sealed plastic bag. All of the cigars in my tupperware are either wrapped in cellophane or in plastic bags (So there are no naked cigars just sitting inside). I have some cedar pieces in there for good measure, but as far as aging goes, will the aging on those Hondurans "cease" or be hindered since they went from a real humidor to a sealed plastic bag? Or would they continue to age over time, maybe just not as quickly...? Maybe I could leave the baggies open, and cram as much cedar as possible in the container? Was reading another thread about aging and sparked my curiosity.

 

[Ginseng]

Jeff,

I've used tupperdors of various sizes since the mid 1990's and they have served me fine. Personally, I line the bottom and sides with spare pieces of box cedar and store 90% of my cigars naked either in their original boxes or adopted boxes/cabs. I would think that storing them in baggies would slow down the aging and provide a little extra protection from humidity swings which occur when opening the lid to sniff or retrieve cigars. When I am bringing in new loose smokes, I leave them in their open travel baggies for a week or so before dropping them in boxes.

As for the effects of age on cigars that benefit from it, I have found this system to be very supportive of good results. I'm about at the end of some 97 and 98 Padrons and they are stellar. I would add two pieces of related advice. To insure that the cigars at the bottom and the top are adequately humidified, I place my PG/water tubs up top near the lid. This means they can best provide make-up moisture to the relatively more vulnerable stock up top when the lid is opened. Second, I use at least two humidifying units to provide plenty of horsepower for stabilizing the RH. This is especially important in the winter when the RH in my house averages 35-40%. Also, when adding whole new boxes to the tupper, I stick in an extra, small Oasis-type element to back up the other two and remove it after a few days.

By the way, here's a picture of my 15-gallon unit. It's not pretty but it's cheap and keeps my cigars in great shape.

Cheers,
Wilkey

 

[Ginseng]

Oh, I forgot to mention. I prefer not to store any cigars long-term in polyethylene bags (most baggies are of this type). The reason is that these plastics contain varying amounts of plasticizers and lubricants as processing aids during the extrusion manufacturing process. Over time, these will tend to migrate out of the bulk and onto the surfaces which, unfortunately, directly contact the cigar. I was in plastics extrusion starting back 1989 so I'm pretty familiar with what gets put into these materials.

The comic books and magazine collectors learned this lesson years ago and store their books in polypropylene or polyester bags which can be made less contaminating.

Wilkey

 

[benjiev]

Ginseng,

Did I tell you about my new organizing service. Just send me your entire 15 gallon tupperdor and I would be glad to catelog and tidy ..... LMAO

Great advice Jeff you don't have to invest in fancy hummies to store cigars long term, you do however have to have something that has a good seal on it and establish the right environment.

When I travel I use a 3 quart square tupperdor, holds everything just fine.

 

[Jeffro600]

Tupperdor's are GREAT if you have a room that holds a consistant temperature....if not, a coolerdor, with its thicker insulation, will do a better job at keeping the temp regulated and your RH consistant(the key things to aging a cigar!)

 

[Ginseng]

benjiev,
Look for a large package on your doorstep. Seriously, keep looking. It's coming. Really it is.

Jeffro600,
Good point on temperature. I recently had a discussion with another CP botl about this exact issue. My contention is that as long as the tupper is in a conditioned space (heated in the winter, AC'd in the summer as necessary) a properly functioning humi-device should be able to maintain RH as the temperature swings. It's unlikely that the high-to-low variation would be more than 10F and that shouldn't be pose much of problem.

Wilkey

 

[Jeff B.]

My thought process on having the cigars that weren't cellophaned in baggies was that they would for the most part maintain whatever humidity they were at, going along with what you said about the humidity swings. That's my current "setup" if you will...about 75 cigars roughly. That one bead tube is keeping the container around 70 or below...to my knowledge the hyrgometer there is pretty accurate. I've salt tested it a few times and the little guy hasn't let me down yet! I've been needing to invest in a digital one with a temperature read out though.

Perhaps those cigars I want to see what they could do with some age on them (like those Hondurans, they are so big it's a cigar I rarely consider to smoke on a normal occasion, so they have been with me for about 10 months). Perhaps I can take those out of the bag have them in, and just put them naked at the bottom right on that cedar and maybe keep the aging process going. The reason I'm curious about all this is in the case of those Honduran bundled's I was talking about, I did notice a pretty significant POSITIVE taste difference since the last time I had smoked one (Which was probably 4 months).

Seems to me that the more cedar the better...?

 

[Ginseng]

I"ve seldom encountered an over-cedar'd stick. I don't think you can go wrong. Check out the digital thermometer/hygrometer at RadioShack.

Nice stash BTW.

WIlkey

 

[Jeffro600]

Some of my favorite smokes i see in there!

I wouldnt worry TOO much about the cedar as long as you have a good humidification device...and since youve got beads, i wouldnt worry about it at all. Ive never found spanish cedar to make a big impact on flavor and only find that it seems to help regulate humidity...not NEARLY as well as beads do though.

I tend to keep the cellephane on if its going to be loose in a tupperdor like that where they might be bounced around and such...it helps keep your delicate wrappers in good condition. If it was a more stationary humidor/coolerdor, id say, go ahead and remove them.

 

[hydro-terp]

My issue with tupperware is that for the price of a good size container your well on your way to the purchase price of a cooler, which would tolerate temperature swings more. Most bigger then a sandwich containers are pushing $10.

I bought a nice size cooler for coolidorification at a later date for like $12-15 from Dicks Sporting Goods. I cant recall the size (80 qt I think), but its a Coleman with a good tight seal and should hold at least 8 boxes by my measurements.

That being said I keep my ISOMs seperated in a small rubbermaid container.

So Ginsing you get a good seal with that container?

Russell

 

[Jeff B.]

Yeah my container in that picture was 10 bucks. I thought about a cooler before I bought the tupperware but my thought process was I wouldn't have enough cigars to keep it full enough for RH to stablize and maintain without having to keep an eye on it a lot and whatnot. Meh, someday I'm sure I will graduate to a cooler!

 

[Drew_Moberly]

Do it Burnett get a cooler.....my damn thing is full ot the top now thanks to Santa and all his lil elves.:sign:

 

[Jeff B.]

Yeah my container in that picture was 10 bucks. I thought about a cooler before I bought the tupperware but my thought process was I wouldn't have enough cigars to keep it full enough for RH to stablize and maintain without having to keep an eye on it a lot and whatnot. Meh, someday I'm sure I will graduate to a cooler!

EDIT: sorry for the double post fellas...

 

[Ginseng]

So Ginsing you get a good seal with that container?

Russell

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Hydro,

Let me put it this way, I feel the seal is at the right level for keeping cigars. By this, I mean that it is tight enough so that I do not have to constantly be adding distilled water to the humi-tubs. It is also "leaky" enough so that I have never had a problem with overhumidifaction, mold or staleness. There is a very small amount of air exchange and that is enough to keep it a living breathing system.

It's my contention that smaller humidors, meaning smaller than half of a phone booth, require a slight leakiness to allow the system to cope at the ends of the temperature and humidity swings. Closet size and larger containers contain a lot more thermal and moisture-mass to readily damp the effects of variations. I don't have any data to back this up other than the observation that the smaller the tuppers I've used, the more wild the temperature and humidity swings have been and the worse the effect on the smokes. Some of these were gallon-sized tight sealing Rubbermaids. Now, I would never use these except as short term travel transport.

Does that help?

Wilkey