Smooth Sailing With Seasoning My New Humidor

[Jake Bourdon]

I have managed to season my new 50 ct Humidor with the PG soloution in the credo puck and a shot glass for four days. Everything went smooth as clockwork as I managed to get the RH to stay at 68 then I put all my smokes in about 35 sticks and for the last five days the RH has been between 65 to 69 which I am happy with. I have the 65 RH beads on order from Heartfelt but the Credo puck and PG solution seems for me to be doing just fine. So I am not sure if I will need the beads but it is good to have the option to lower the RH if I find I like how my sticks smoke at that level. I was expecting a lot of hassle and it's great that everything has gone smoothly.

On another note I went into my local smoke shop and went into their walk in Humidor and out of curiosity I asked them what RH do they keep their smokes and was told 80/80 is the level they prefer as they have a lot of shelves that are made out of Cedar wood that absorb a lot of moisture. Then the assistant explained that in Cuba they like to smoke their sticks wetter as I guess the RH in the cigars dissipate quicker due to the heat and that their is nothing like smoking a CC in the motherland. lol

 

[jfields]

Congrats!

They don't have much choice in Cuba to keep them wetter. I imagine it's not really a concern of theirs like it is here. From a Cuban web site............"Average annual relative humidity: 78 percent"

 

[bluue13]

It seems like many B&Ms keep their humidity a little on the high side (at least from what I've seen) as perhaps they aren't really interested in long term storage and aging. I know mine keeps them at 70/73 I'm guessing in their mind its better to keep them a little more wet than have dried out cigars especially since they wont be sitting around in the boxes for too long. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong of course!

Congrats on the humi setup and be prepared to grab a bigger one very soon.

 

[investandprosper]

I would go with the 65% beads. After about two to three weeks at 70% RH, most all of the sticks in my humidor had an extremely tight, unsmokeable draw. Had I known at the time that it was a humidity issue and not a plug issue, I would have saved a few nice sticks. I now keep them between 63-65% and they are smoking wonderfully!