Wrappers look dry and horrible after 1 month in wineador

[backbone]

Why not set the winador to 70F instead of unplugging it.  It shouldn't cycle half as much there then at 62F.

[Cep]

the max temp it has is 64F unfortunately.  (and it goes down to 62F at that setting for some reason).

So it would require add ons of some sort.  

And its only a 12 bottle cooler.  Not really worth it to start modding it.  There is not that much room.

 

[Easttide]

One other observation. If you are buying your cigars from FOH it seems as though that beautiful PSP sheen is also due to some serious humidity. I am only insinuating but I'm guessing FOH might keep the humidity high so there's a little cushion when the cigars dry out in the long shipping process (across the world in my case) and it's no mystery that high humidity makes the wrappers look great. I have had boxes show up, mainly from FOH that go through dramatic changes in a month or so at 62%, but I'm much happier with the burn being good then the aesthetics.
 

Just a footnote- I've had orders from other vendors arrive too dry so this is a compliment to FOH's methods, not a criticism.

[Cep]

Thx @Easttide

@Fugu states that this should never happen within 1 month....    

So I really don't know what to do now.  Set everything back up as is or run it unplugged at a bit higher temp.   Sigh.   

[ChrisMG]

Thx @Easttide

@Fugu states that this should never happen within 1 month....    

So I really don't know what to do now.  Set everything back up as is or run it unplugged at a bit higher temp.   Sigh.   

Were these cigars a recent shipment? My mag 46's went through a bit of an ugly stage. This is what they looked like when they arrived in April.



This is from today. Ill try and take a picture without flash for better comparison. I find most of my cigars just need a bit of time to acclimate after shipping. I live in GTA as well so could be the hot weather while in transit.

[Cep]

Hey thx,  they were PSP D4 that I received just over 30 days ago.....  

 

I dunno,  I will probably just turn my unit back on tonight like I had it before.   Maybe I will store a box or 2 in different conditions and then look at the results in 5 years or so......  

[ChrisMG]

Hey thx,  they were PSP D4 that I received just over 30 days ago.....  

 

I dunno,  I will probably just turn my unit back on tonight like I had it before.   Maybe I will store a box or 2 in different conditions and then look at the results in 5 years or so......  

would be nice to see the difference. I keep my cigars at 68/69 RH 64 degrees. In my basement no temp control. Its all personal preference.

[Cep]

heh?

[MahDooRow]

On 8/21/2016 at 9:37 AM, Cep said:

Thx for the replies. 

Re: 70f  I'm just a tad paranoid of the beetles.  Of course I could freeze sticks first but don't really have a good way to do that where I live.   

My main concern was just the change in appearance and if it was possibly normal or not.  

Cep:  I bought a wineador a few months ago and have also been navigating similar twists and turns.  I haven't had wrappers go through any significant changes, but finding the right temp. and rH has been a process of trial and error.  After initially trying to keep my temperature in the 60F-62F range with little success due to condensation build-up in the rear of the unit, I now keep the wineador set at the highest temperature (66F).  This setting yields an actual internal temperature of 69F - 70F.  I keep the humidity level at a stable 65rH.  The cigars seem to be very happy in this environment... not too wet, not too dry.  Prior to smoking I usually move a week's supply of cigars into my desktop humidor, which I keep at a rH of 62 (temperature has been running 77-78F) and the cigars have been smoking great.  

While there is the possibility of getting cigar beetles at 70F+ I think the risk is low.  In my 15 years of storing cigars in desktop humidors at temperatures of up to 80F in the summertime, I have yet to encounter the little beasts.  My inventory is not huge, so I mitigate the risk by spot checking my boxes and my singles about once per week.

 

 

[Cep]

thx again for the replies

I havent noticed any condensation ever with the internal temp at 62F.  I guess because ambient temp is just under 70 normally.  

That is weird how yer setting at 66 results in 69-70   and my 64 results in 62

we shall see what happens

[PigFish]

I am late to this party...

First mate, your cigars have not changed, changed as in damaged, don't sweat it.

A sheen is a reflection of light. All that we see, color, texture and otherwise is a reflection of light. I suppose one has to ask if that reflection can be tasted? That debate for another day!

Like many of the posters above, I too am going to speculate. As a side note, it is interesting to count the number of posters who have finally capitulated and surrendered to an out of control wine cooler humidor and simply unplugged it. This may make you mad but I will risk it... Your project is small, difficult to control and cannot be controlled to what I believe is a reasonable level, you too should unplug it!

People get mad at me because I have a way of coming to the point about what works and what does not. Based on their own knowledge, somehow they don't appear to understand that someone can know more about something than they do. Some find the knowledge, and how I present it offensive. I hope you don't fall into that category.

The real lesson in this thread is in reading those that concluded that a project did not work! The question is, did you catch it?

I say this stuff to people, not to run someone down, but to assist them in finding a solution. Most people who tackle this type of project will fail at it. Very few people want to admit what they may perceive as failure, and all the threads that they posted to, all the ones that claim that their solution 'is rock solid' still stand long after they unplug the project... That is the life of information, including bad information on the internet!

On a different topic, one as equally as sensitive is this, I offer you this tidbit. People do, see, pretend to see and taste weird things when they get into a panic. Self confidence, or lack thereof, leaches its way into all aspects of life, not just cigars. Look at what 'confidence' in and lack thereof does to marriages! Need I say more?

In this light, when you compare cigar after cigar and see a problem, I want you to look at yourself and not the cigars for a moment. Is your confidence shaken? If yes, you need not admit it here, just to yourself and step back.

For solutions: stop storing so cold... This is a general rule. There is no need to 'refrigerate' cigars. Beetle risk exists, but frankly if you study it some, the risk falls exponentially with elapsed time. You should read up on it.

Moderate temperatures don't damage cigars (MO). While I believe that temperature fluctuations, leading to PMC fluctuations affect the smoking experience, you need not believe in that unless your tastes prove it to you. If you are attempting to follow that faith, you are failing anyway as a result of this project and for the sake of your sanity, you should abandon it, at least for now! You likely need to address other problems first, and one would be to gain confidence in your ability to store cigars once more. That should be your priority!

As far as speculation is concerned, I think some of this problem is you, yes you! I think you are looking for problems (sorry). I also think that the texture of your cigars, not really the sheen, but the texture of the wrapper, likely due to excessive water, not lack thereof is affecting you. Alas, I am guessing!

Lastly. I have not rambled on for my sheer enjoyment. I wanted to point out the lessons in the thread along with add something about the deliberate study of cigars in order to find fault. I can truly say that I know well about looking for problems and then finding them. My hunt for humidor performance enhancement (perfection) has taken me down that path. While I often feel that I give sage advice, one that leads to better smoking, I ofter turn and tell folks, 'don't follow me here.'

You see I understand contentment. And you will never find contentment from a logic controller. That comes from your heart...

Best of luck on your project. Cheers! -Piggy

[Cep]

Some very good and accurate tidbits in that post, thank you

I certainly can admit failure freely...    And I can always use my chiller for, gasp, wine.    All I really want to know is what is the best temp/rh to age cigars long term...

 

[Orion21]

Cep,

I have been a student of Ray's for years now and you know what absorbing as much knowledge as possible from him has provided me. . . .?

Peace of mind and a less frantic attitude towards my cigar storage.

You see, there is no "right rh% or temp."  Seriously, that is a fantasy sold by that little slip of parchment that comes in your box of Cuban cigars.  What Ray does with his immense knowledge and technical acumen is develop storage solutions that provide him a way to keep his cigars ready to smoke the way he likes them. Correct me if I'm wrong Ray, but that is the point of cigar storage?  

I have been smoking cigars since I was 19-20 years old and collecting cigars for almost 10 years.  It wasn't until a wineador malfunctioned and almost ruined HALF my collection that I figured out "KISS."  Keep It Simple Stupid.  We are not Ray.  I am not an engineer, I do not build humidors from scratch and if I try to reproduce what guys like Ray do with cheap alternatives my end result is almost losing thousands of dollars in cigars.

Today I use the knowledge Ray has helped me to refine to store my cigars in completely passive storage conditions, with the exception of the use of fans.  I don't sweat my temps or rh because I know the range is just "fine" for a month from now or 10 years.  So my best advice to you is to use really good equipment to measure temperature and rh.  If your temps are 75F or less you're "fine."  If you rh is between 60% and 65% you're "fine."  Beyond that it's my opinion you will become very practiced in banging your head against the wall trying to find the "perfect" numbers!

Cheers and happy smoking!

[Cep]

Thx very much.  Definitely got me thinking.  

[MahDooRow]

3 hours ago, Orion21 said:

So my best advice to you is to use really good equipment to measure temperature and rh.  If your temps are 75F or less you're "fine."  If you rh is between 60% and 65% you're "fine."  Beyond that it's my opinion you will become very practiced in banging your head against the wall trying to find the "perfect" numbers!

Cheers and happy smoking!

^ That's very helpful advice IMO.  

I think it's also important to note that wineadors are open systems (not closed) and therefore have limitations.  However, if you are aware of the limitations and don't attempt to run a wineador like a closed system they can serve as a perfectly good storage solution.      

[PigFish]

Again, I find myself somewhat ‘bailed out’ by another member. I am glad that one @Orion21 could so eloquently put to words a description of my intent… Bravo!

 

In very few cases do I preach emulation. My preachings include vigilance, patience, study and diligence, but overall, satisfaction with ones choices and ultimately contentment with those choices. There is a broad spectrum of what is and what is not optimum. We all draw those lines of distinction for ourselves and short of destruction of the medium, there is in fact no certified right or wrong! Confidence in drawing your lines for yourself is the soul of what I wish to impart.

 

A couple of further points!

 

Failure and admission to me is not important. Understanding a line exists is all that I was attempting to show. If one cannot determine between success and failure, for one’s self, one cannot find an area of contentment. Contentment is the goal… Admission of failure is not the goal! Understanding the difference gives one the ability to fight where needed and accept satisfaction when no fight is needed.

 

We all settle!

 

I don’t define or draw that line for anyone else to follow. If one is to use my line, most people will certainly find headache and not contentment. The position of my line is constantly in play for improvement. My line does not represent contentment, especially for me. Any design can be improved, but I represent a minority, an obsessed subculture. I am driven, and for those that want a peaceful hour with a cigar, my focus can be the antithesis of that!

 

I hope that the cigar aging environment question is not aimed at me. I have no answer for you! The answer requires a set of beliefs that I don’t possess. My beliefs, yes I do have them, center around smoking in the here and now. I have come to believe that the potential for a cigar is controlled by two parties; a majority party, the maker, and a minority party, the humidor administrator/smoker. I am a part of the minority party!

 

As a smoker/humidor administrator I have but one role. Proper storage and the judge of cigar acclimatization (condition). Most, especially the larger collector community don’t agree with me. You see as long as you perpetuate that “age” establishes value of a cigar, those with “old” cigars will naturally desire to protect their value. I see this as a paradox and a conflict of interest when trusting those that have a huge financial interest in separating the facts from their interests. I see a cigar as an item of potentially unlimited shelf life if properly stored. We all posses our own beliefs. Those are some of mine.

 

The same holds true for my beliefs. Do I subject people to them to sell humidor stuff? One can answer that for themselves. I try to help solve problems the simplest way possible. I tell most of the people that contact me to buy an ice chest and a desiccant buffer. To add complexity to a system that is working is folly! Complexity comes when a simple system proves to not work.

 

I have no such need or interest to ‘follow’ a belief system about aging. It cannot be quantified, so I have little interest in discussing it, beyond that of academics. It all becomes anecdotal where the evidence is destroyed in each and every test… as each cigar is smoked and judged and summarily destroyed.

 

Again, I have my own anecdotal beliefs. My belief is one of personal experience with many cigars that don’t depend on brand, age or year. It has been distilled, tested, adjusted, retested and further analyzed by me over decades now. It is the belief that water content changes cigar flavor. In my case, the less the water the better the taste (generally).

 

Without any regard to competing beliefs, what more is there to do (in my case) than to keep my cigars from damage, in the condition that I prefer to smoke them and as close to that condition as possible? There is one more desire I suppose… And that is the ability to add or subtract water from my cigars without relying on the atmosphere (the ambient), so I can continue to test my theory and adjust for taste. Therefore, for me, aging means precious little. Age is only a differential in time necessary to adjust water content. Storage and water content means everything beyond acquiring a quality cigar in the first place. Cigar size and maker quality is utmost important. I control that with vendor choice and vitola choices, cross my fingers and hope for the best. Once at my door the cigars are my children.

 

I hope others will pitch-in once more and help you with your question about aging condtions. I believe if you don’t dry your cigar to dust, or wet it and feed it to fungus, you are okay. I store to taste, so that is what I recommend. An automated system does that for me. I have no need to constantly watch it (although it is amusing at times), I test and test and test more, not out of worry but for proof. I am an egghead as well as a smoker. I pursue and test for the challenge of it… I would venture to say that very few find the enjoyment I do from the endeavor.

 

Some of the very best advice on this thread comes from this post.

 

On August 23, 2016 at 4:23 PM, Orion21 said:

Cep,

I have been a student of Ray's for years now and you know what absorbing as much knowledge as possible from him has provided me. . . .?

Peace of mind and a less frantic attitude towards my cigar storage.

You see, there is no "right rh% or temp."  Seriously, that is a fantasy sold by that little slip of parchment that comes in your box of Cuban cigars.  What Ray does with his immense knowledge and technical acumen is develop storage solutions that provide him a way to keep his cigars ready to smoke the way he likes them. Correct me if I'm wrong Ray, but that is the point of cigar storage?  

I have been smoking cigars since I was 19-20 years old and collecting cigars for almost 10 years.  It wasn't until a wineador malfunctioned and almost ruined HALF my collection that I figured out "KISS."  Keep It Simple Stupid.  We are not Ray.  I am not an engineer, I do not build humidors from scratch and if I try to reproduce what guys like Ray do with cheap alternatives my end result is almost losing thousands of dollars in cigars.

Today I use the knowledge Ray has helped me to refine to store my cigars in completely passive storage conditions, with the exception of the use of fans.  I don't sweat my temps or rh because I know the range is just "fine" for a month from now or 10 years.  So my best advice to you is to use really good equipment to measure temperature and rh.  If your temps are 75F or less you're "fine."  If you rh is between 60% and 65% you're "fine."  Beyond that it's my opinion you will become very practiced in banging your head against the wall trying to find the "perfect" numbers!

Cheers and happy smoking!

 

I enjoyed reading it and believe it to be sound advice!

 

-Piggy

 

[CaptainQuintero]

Something I'd say to consider is that being new and excited you fawn over your new cigars. I remember checking my first boxes obsessively and panicking when I saw, or imagined anything different. There is something to be said of relaxing the inspections

Short of a detailed scientific post, coolers/fridges if you have them turned on will pump in cold moist air, unless you have a dedicated system in place to remove this new excess moisture inside your unit you will run into problems with mould etc

[Cep]

I'm now more interested in the aging debate

 

[PigFish]

8 minutes ago, Cep said:

I'm now more interested in the aging debate

 

... you enjoy that! -R

[SloppyJ]

Pig, I want to run a test on my cooler to figure out the fluctuations in the RH and temp. Are there any affordable monitoring systems available? 

[PigFish]

2 hours ago, SloppyJ said:

Pig, I want to run a test on my cooler to figure out the fluctuations in the RH and temp. Are there any affordable monitoring systems available? 

Are you looking at a controller or data logger? A monitor or something analytical?

[PigFish]

... if your question is more in line with "I want a controller" you should start with reading my article on logic controllers and Understanding Activation Logic. Cheers! -Piggy

[SloppyJ]

2 hours ago, PigFish said:

Are you looking at a controller or data logger? A monitor or something analytical?

Something analytical. I don't want to polish a turd here or lose sleep over over trying to find the right balance of run time, I just want to know what the exact conditions are over a period of time. I'd like to do it in each season to see what's going on in there more accurately than looking at my digital hygrometer. Plus I know deep down you want some extra analytics too  

[LGC]

Bite the bullet and buy enough boxes to load up several marine coolers. If you don't have kids, dogs, and a house.... get some. If the kids are older, get some more. Then you'll lack the time to obsess over the small details, and just worry about how your cigars should smoke. Passive humidification in short containers, in temperature controlled rooms, are your friends.

[PigFish]

There are a lot of products out there now that I have not tested. Another member recommended these bluetooth 'tags' but I have not tried them and don't know much about their analytics. I will see if I can find the data he sent me.

I use a pretty sophisticated system that is part generic logger (Onset Computer) and partly homemade. Too much money and trouble for you to try and emulate I am sure. Onset has the best off the shelf inexpensive software package, about $100 and it is universal to their loggers, nice 2.5rH stand-alone loggers (I own about 6 of these) and a package of 1 with software is $200 to $250. Some Onsets stuff is buggy... FYI... that is why I don't wholly endorse them. Buy at your own risk! I have had to debug a lot of their stuff. Most of their tech support does not even know how the stuff works!!!

I no longer use Lascar loggers but they are pretty nice little loggers. Their software is freeware, works great on PC (not Mac, Onset works on Mac too by the way) and their loggers are pretty cool. Their weakness is in memory, logging times and analytics. Of course you can move their raw data into Excel and work it any which way but loose!

One of my issues with loggers is timing and data alignment. I am also picky about memory and log intervals. When I am looking to solve problems, I log one sample a second and need to correlate as many as a dozen data streams. It is VERY IMPORTANT TO ME to be able to do this! I use several 'event loggers' and those need to time align and correlate to sensors spread around something that I am testing. You are not going to get this with Lascar, but I have to assume that it is not what you are after.

Check out this thread: Regarding Logging

Let me know if you need further data. There are likely some more tekkie options out there but I am too entrenched to go looking for new equipment. I have what I need which means that I might not have the last word here. There is almost always something new around the corner you just have to look.

Cheers! -Piggy