How cold is too cold...?

[BlindedByScience]

Scratching my head a bit about some long term storage and aging for my cigars. No AC here in my home, as we've never felt we needed it. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it does get "hot" for a couple of weeks during the summer months, but it always cools off nicely at night. The wife's and my normal drill when the heat is "unbearable" to us PacNW weenies is to shut the windows in the AM, and open the house in the evening when we get home from work. Sounds like work be we actually enjoy the cool breeze of fresh air in the evening. Our home is really well insulated so it keep the inside lots cooler than the outside.

And, that's where I'm stuck; it does get 80-ish in the house on occasion.

So, I figured out we have a closet at ground level, center of the house, that stays nice and cool during the day; the hottest it got during the summer was 73F. I've been leaving my desktop and cooler in there for the summer. My concern is that it gets quite cool in there during the winter. I've thought about having a cabinet guy come in and gut the shelves in there and make me a nice in closet humidor, but my concern is - how cold is too cold? Obviously, you don't want them close to freezing, but what about 50F?

I'm going to leave a recording thermometer in there this winter and figure out how cold it gets. One option would be to leave the door open a crack when it's really cold, but the wife would likely forget and shut it when I'm not looking.

I'd like to have a nice cabinet humidor for my treasure, but I sure don't want to worry about them getting too cold.

Advice appreciated; thanks in advance - B.B.S.

 

[Gael]

Tom, Not to worry. Cigars keep fine in cooler temperature. I keep my commercial humidor at 59 degrees year round. I'm sure that mid-50s would be fine. However, keep in mind that at the lower temps it is critical to maintain a decent relative humidity, somewhere in the mid-sixties. An environment of 52-68% should be fine for long term storage.

 

[Jeffro600]

Temperature isnt nearly as important as a consistant humidty...within reason of cource. As long as your under 75 and keep at least mid 60s RH, youll be fine. When i get a new batch of cigars i usually double vaccum seal them then stick em in the freezer for a couple days to prevent and beetles or eggs from contaminating my coolerdor. I once forgot a small bundle in the freezer for 3 or so months...after a slow thaw down and a couple weeks to stabilize in the humidor, they still smoked great.

 

[AVB]

We have the heat way down when we aren't home so it gets to 60-62 in the room with my humi. Never had any problems.

 

[caudio51]

Only thing I would worry about is the RH dropping. The lower the temp, the more the RH will want to drop. If you have a good humidification device this shouldn't be a problem.

I would say build the closet humidor, take us some pics because that sounds sweet!

 

[BlindedByScience]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, guys. This will be a "long term" project, so I've got to things to do;

1 - Put one of my Little Havana hygro / thermometers in there and watch what it does between now and the first of the year.
2 - Call the local "exotic" hardwood guys and see what's up with Spanish Cedar in terms of sizes available, price, etc.
3 - Call a cabinet guy I know and ask him what he's doing right after the first of the year....

Thanks again - B.B.S.