Speed aging experiment

[Sunseeker]

Would like to start off by saying hello to everyone on this board.

I decided to take a risk and run a little experiment to see if I could possibly speed age cigars by introducing them to slightly warmer temps while maintaining a percent moisture content equivalent to 60rh @ 70f as that is where i prefer to smoke my cigars. My new set point for my experiment would be 66rh @ 87f in an insulated box kept warm by a heating mat and an oasis magna for humidification.

I've recently purchased a few boxes of cubans that were unsmokable due to how young the cigars were and couldn't wait to dig into them. Trinidad fundadores, juan lopez#2, San cristobal el principe.

It has been 2 months in the warmed box and these are the best tasting cigars I've ever had. The 2019 fundadores tasted as good as my 2014's.

Before they went into the warmed box the cigars were absolutely horrible. Harsh cardboard/Window cleaner taste that burned your nose and throat and now they taste like heaven.

Did I speed up the aging? Or simply evaporate ammonia and water? Any suggestions would be great.

 

[Bijan]

Lacking experience with the Fundadores in particular but having experience with a wide range of other younger cigars from 2019 and 2020 which I have smoked this year, I can say that cuban cigars no longer really have that sick period. I usually smoke 1 cigar from each box I receive (or at least more than half the time I will do so), I have had very few harsh cigars. Possibly only one or two. This is out of dozens of boxes.

They may be lacking in some quality or another when young in terms of flavour, but they are not particularly unpleasant. If a 2019 box of Fundadores smoked poorly 2 months ago, it was probably due to the humidity (either too high or too low) of the cigars and not due to the youth of the cigars. If I would have to guess I would say you fixed the humidity level which would have been fixed in 60 or maybe 90 days in regular storage too.

[Habana Mike]

I've found a microwave on medium for 3 minutes does the trick as well!

Actually, sounds an interesting experiment.

[NSXCIGAR]

20 minutes ago, Sunseeker said:

Trinidad fundadores, juan lopez#2, San cristobal el principe.

These are cigars I've never considered anywhere close to unsmokeable young. As @Bijan mentioned, few if any CCs are unpleasant when young anymore--especially El Principe. It's fairly common knowledge that fermentation techniques in Cuba changed around 2000, most likely fermenting at higher temps to create more approachable cigars when ROTT. IMO, it worked. 

But whatever works for you, keep at it. 

[helix]

19 hours ago, Habana Mike said:

I've found a microwave on medium for 3 minutes does the trick as well!

Actually, sounds an interesting experiment.

Wow Mike the microwave ?

HeHeHe ?

[cigaraholic]

You might consider a new place to get your cigars. 

Now your cooking your cigars, just robbing them of what flavor they have or would have had.

Leave a couple of each in your experiment and save the rest before you bake a flavorless cake.

[helix]

 A Reynaldo live at the Conde  75/75 Rolled about 4 hours before . Glorious.

[La_Tigre]

1 hour ago, Sunseeker said:

I've recently purchased a few boxes of cubans that were unsmokable due to how young the cigars were and couldn't wait to dig into them. Trinidad fundadores, juan lopez#2, San cristobal el principe.

It has been 2 months in the warmed box and these are the best tasting cigars I've ever had. The 2019 fundadores tasted as good as my 2014's.

 

We’ve certainly gotten Pine-Sol from the JL2 and year old Principes. I’d be curious to try them. 

[Sunseeker]

I purchase cigars from different vendors and have found all 2019 boxes to be very harsh with an ammonia smell to the smoke

Simply sniffing the smoke coming out of the head of the cigar makes my nose burn opposed to that sweet smell of vanilla on an aged stick.

It could be that I simply evaporated any residual ammonia and that's all I did.

One of my concerns was burning out the tobacco at higher temps long term. Reason I chose 87f is that it resembles a hot day in Cuba and thats probably what Cuban cigars were stored at pre air conditioning days.

I started this experiment expecting to ruin all 3 boxes in the name of science. So far I'm impressed with the results?

[Meklown]

Did you leave any control sticks from the same boxes that were heated?

[Bri Fi]

Haven’t seen a FOHrensics in a while. Id like to see this done. Nobody would’ve guessed dipping your cigar in water or pairing it with orange juice would be a winner. Nice job  

[Sunseeker]

24 minutes ago, Meklown said:

Did you leave any control sticks from the same boxes that were heated?

Yes I did. Left 3 out of each box. And did a side by side smoke test.

The difference is night and day

[Habana Mike]

Welcome to FOH Sunseeker! Quite the entrance.

Perhaps you could say hello here as well. https://www.friendsofhabanos.com/forum/forum/6-newbie-introductions/

Tell us a little about you. We're generally a fun bunch......

[Bijan]

15 minutes ago, Sunseeker said:

Yes I did. Left 3 out of each box. And did a side by side smoke test.

The difference is night and day

What were the temperature and humidity conditions for the control group? 60RH@70F?

[TheGipper]

1 hour ago, Sunseeker said:

I purchase cigars from different vendors and have found all 2019 boxes to be very harsh with an ammonia smell to the smoke

It's a good topic, and I'm glad you brought this up, because I have been wondering about this myself.

I also have gotten quite a few 2019 boxes with similar characteristics.  But by no means all boxes in my case.

Some of these are reminding me of boxes I got between 1997-2005.  Completely unsmokeable when young.  Haven't seen much of this in the last 15 years.

However, almost all of those unsmokeables came around after 3-5 years.  Many turned into fantastic boxes down the road.  Ask anyone who got the the 2000 Montecristo Robustos EL when released, the were Exhibit 1A of this.  Some of the worst cigars you'd ever had from Cuba when young.  7-10 years later, they were legendary in how good they were.

 

[Bijan]

56 minutes ago, TheGipper said:

I also have gotten quite a few 2019 boxes with similar characteristics.  But by no means all boxes in my case.

Was that this year/time or closer to 2019? And what was the frequency?

I am 100% on 2019 boxes I got this year being smokeable. About a third I have shared with others who said they smoked fine. Just trying to put an upper and lower bound to how common a problem this is.

The one box I had that was harsh (not ammonia though) shortly on arrival this year was a 2018 and it's likely due to humidity issues, since it is from a new vendor.

Edit: Also did this affect 2020 boxes too, or just 2019 specifically?

[mprach024]

I’ve not had any issues with 2019s myself but applaud the experiment.  Couple things come to mind while reading this:

1) essentially you rested those cigars 60 days, which to me is the most important rest for cigars, even more so than any age, could this have just been what solved the issue?  ROTT cigars I do still pick up ammonia, and the sick period is real to me, but find 45-60 days is really all I need.

2) Could it be perhaps that you just liked the cigars at a higher humidity?  You went from 60/70 to 66/87.  That’s actually backwards for the comparison. Theres actually a bunch more moisture in the air with those levels.  At 87 the air can hold a lot more moisture than at 70, so to get to 66% you need just that much more water in the air to achieve it.  Versus colder air, very little moisture can achieve same humidity levels.  For those in the North part of the world where it snows knows that we can have humidity levels of 40-50 sometimes in winter but it will still feel like a desert, with dry cracking skin, that’s because it’s 32 degrees out and the air can’t hold that much vapor.  
 

So for this to be an experiment of temperature only, you would have had to drop your humidity to 52 or something at a temperature of 87 to keep consistent water vapor levels in the air around the cigars.  There are some experts here on RELATIVE humidity and how it compares to ACTUAL humidity, especially when it comes to absorption rates in tobacco, so I’ll leave it to them.  But if I’m correct, you basically wet boxed your cigars for 2 months.  So it may not be the temp you’re enjoying, you may just need to up your humidity levels in your storage to get the results you are after.  
 

There was a thread a month or so back on different Marcas and dry boxing results.  I had mentioned Trinidad as one that I do not like to dry box below 65, as to me they lose their creaminess and become papery and harsh.  This just might be what your experiencing.  
 

Happy to be wrong here, I’m sure @PigFish and others can correct me.  Still, cool experiment and love that you tried stuff.

[Sunseeker]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

What were the temperature and humidity conditions for the control group? 60RH@70F?

The control group was kept in a seperate container with a boveda 62% between 70f and 73f. Humidity never got higher than 63% or below 60%

By no means did I start this experiment with the intention of being scientifically accurate. It was something for fun

[Sunseeker]

@mprach024 I've tested different humidy levels in the past. From 50% all the way to 75% trying to find what is it that makes a cigar so enjoyable to me. I found around the 60rh and 70f to be the sweet spot (plus or minus a few points)

Another thing I noticed with this warmed box is how fast im able to adjust the cigars moisture content up or down. They respond very fast and evenly.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, TheGipper said:

I also have gotten quite a few 2019 boxes with similar characteristics.

Hmm, no issues for me at all, 19 or any other year. Haven't had that old ammonia taste in a CC in a long time. 

[Bijan]

15 hours ago, mprach024 said:

Happy to be wrong here, I’m sure @PigFish and others can correct me.  Still, cool experiment and love that you tried stuff.

Pigfish's data I believe shows that tobacco moisture content increases at fixed relative humidity level as temperature goes down. This appears to be a function of tobacco properties and isn't due to the moisture content in the air. I don't know what happens at very low temperature as I don't think his graph goes there but 70-90 degrees was represented. For every 3 or 5 degrees increase in temperature you need 1% RH. I forget if it was 3 or 5 degrees.

Anyways for what's its worth I don't see this in going down in temperature. My cigars are now at about 54f and about 64% and smoke just as well as they did at 70f and 64%. Based on this theory they should smoke like 67% at 70f now or more.

Edit: Although maybe my cigars have a bit more moisture now, it's hard to say for sure.

15 hours ago, Sunseeker said:

By no means did I start this experiment with the intention of being scientifically accurate. It was something for fun

Well then I can't fault your lack of double blind methodology. ?

It does sound fun though.

[RDB]

Interesting and brave! I would have been worried about mould and insects. Welcome to the board @Sunseeker

The difference in temp here is about 10C. From my schoolboy chemistry, that sort of change roughly doubles the speed of many organic chemical reactions. So if chemical reactions are a proxy for ageing, that’s the difference between two and four months - which I guess most of us would think of as ‘rest’ rather than ‘age’.

It does seem likely the big increase in absolute moisture content is going to have some noticeable affect too. Really hard to say how much though!

 

[Meklown]

4 hours ago, mprach024 said:

So for this to be an experiment of temperature only, you would have had to drop your humidity to 52 or something at a temperature of 87 to keep consistent water vapor levels in the air around the cigars.

I thought there was some discussion previously (and evidence) to state that higher temperatures require higher rh to emulate the 60/60? (Or whatever the level you like to keep your cigars at). It didn't seem intuitive to me but they seem absolutely convinced and had the evidence to back it up. 

By that logic I guess op did get it right for his experiment. 

 

I'm curious as to how this experiment plays out because I don't have temperature control for my ageing stock (absolutely no space in my flat to have a temperature regulated humidor) and room temperature goes above 70f most of the year. 

[Fugu]

Whatever you (exactly) did - it has nothing to do with “aging” or, more precisely, “maturing”.

 

The two temp/humidity pairings you picked correspond to roughly the same tobacco moisture content on equilibrium.

That is then - at 60 rH and 70F (one gets a better feeling for it at around room temperature) - a comparatively low moisture, that is, dryer tobacco. And as such, likely way lower than what the boxes came at when you received them. What you essentially did with your heating experiment is bring the moisture content down more rapidly. 

[TobaccoRoad]

I applaud you for having the kahunas to try this. A bold experiment that will definitely draw some derision and skepticism, but sometimes there is a price to pay for moving the knowledge base forward. I'm certainly not qualified to even have an opinion as to the viability or the advisability of your test. But whether it succeeds or fails it may help us to understand the aging process better.

In my layman's understanding the aging process of tobacco prior to rolling is sort of like a controlled decomposition. The cell structure within the leaves begins to break down slightly to allow the flavors to emerge. But the process is not allowed to proceed to the point where the cells disintegrate, thus preserving the integrity of the leaves. After rolling the process is slowed down by stabilizing the temperature and humidity. The cellular destruction is not ever instituted again, but the essences that have been freed in the previous steps are allowed to slowly mingle/evaporate/concentrate. My gut feel is that what you've done is re-accelerated the process past what is considered aging and back into the territory of decomposition. This could improve the cigars on a short term basis but may give them a very short shelf life.

My opinion above is purely speculation and probably worth about what was paid for it. There have already been some interesting posts in response. I'm sure there are more folks that have the knowledge and experience to have a truly valid opinion. I'd love for them to chime in.