Constant Air Circulation and drying out cigars

[TarzanInAJar]

I've researched this topic pretty extensively and I have yet to find a definitive answer. Of all of the forums, this one seems to be most interested in humidor "climatology" (Hello, @PigFish, I've ready many of your posts!) so I thought I'd pose this here.

I'm debating on whether or not I should keep air circulation fans running constantly in my humidor. I'm aware that some pretty much universally agreed upon potential effects/side effects of doing this are:

• Raised temperature due to heat generated by fans
• Higher electric bill
• Better distribution of temperature/humidity

However, there is one that always seems up for debate: "it will dry out your cigars".

I am going to make an educated guess that while air circulation may catalyze/exasperate an existing problem in a humidor (leaking humidity, etc), it doesn't directly "dry out" a cigar. I imagine if a fan is running and is directed at one particular cigar, that one cigar may experience changes quicker than other cigars, but whether it gets "dried out" would be a function of how much humidity is present in the humidor. Therefore, assuming a humidor is properly sealed and humidified, and the temperature is stable and within a healthy threshold, constant air circulation poses no risk of "drying out" cigars.

I suppose I could experiment and find an answer on my own, but I'm quite afraid of destroying my cigar collection ?

Thoughts?

[El Presidente]

I am sure Piggy will contribute when he can but I have always found that cigars are far tougher than people give them credit for. 

Assuming that your cigars are in boxes then I can't see why it would make any difference.  

If you have a fan running over singles, even then I could only opine that the fan is pushing humidified air onto the wrapper leaf. 

I am assuming that we are not talking about a temperature controlled unit? That would possibly bring in a new angle. 

[StewartSVT]

I have a temp controlled unit that I have been experimenting with this for the past 2 months.  I had an issue with too much humidity at the bottom and not enough at the top.  So I placed two usb powerd fans at the rear, behind the shelves to blow upwards.  I originally tried to run them on a timer for 5 min every hour, but that didn’t do the job, so now they run full time.  So far I have noticed zero heat difference between top, middle and bottom, but the humidity has stabilized across the board.  Cigars still smoke just fine.  All loose sticks are in the bottom two drawers and all boxes the rest of the way up.

[TarzanInAJar]

33 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

I am assuming that we are not talking about a temperature controlled unit? That would possibly bring in a new angle. 

For the sake of discussion, sure, we can throw in that variable... But I imagine the only difference this would make would be if there was a flaw in the temperature control system, such as one that creates unstable humidity due to a compressor cycling on and off from the heat generated by the fans. But I'm mostly interested in just the potential negative effects of constant air circulation on an unboxed cigar.

[shippers]

My experience is similar to @StewartSVT - it has helped balance out humidity but I don't think it has made a huge amount of difference. I may even remove the fan in the future and just accept that the bottom of the humidor might be a slightly different humidity to the top.

[BrightonCorgi]

I keep fans on in my wine cellar to even the humidity and Aristocrat has fans too.  I have seen a renowned store's basement storage with boxes stacked with spaces between each box (like a checker board) just to promote better air flow for long term storage.

[TarzanInAJar]

For what it's worth, I eventually stumbled across a related thread, which led me to this video:

 

 

Which answered all of my questions, and then some.

[1LegLance]

4 hours ago, TarzanInAJar said:

For what it's worth, I eventually stumbled across a related thread, which led me to this video:

 

 

Which answered all of my questions, and then some.

And there is Ray (PigFish) giving more info that you want and while I agree with everything he says in this video....

I really align more with Prez in that over the 30+ yrs of cigar smoking I have learned that MY ability to taste differences is pretty small and cigars are really able to handle alot more than people think if you are lucky like me NOT to have super sensitive taste ability.