Swears by it: Using a dry ageing meat locker for cigar storage.

[El Presidente]

 

I have a South Oz mate who sent me the results of his year long experiment of using a dry aging meat locker for half his sticks and a conventional cabinet humidor for his other half.  Same boxes....just 50/50 split between the two systems. 

Dry aging meat locker set to 10 degrees celsius and 65 RH. 

Cabinet humidor averaged 65 RH using Boveda 320gm packs. Temperature unregulated but varied from 18 centigrade to 38 centigrade. 

He swears that the cigars stored in the meat locker are smoking significantly better than the cigars in the cabinet humidor. 

Can the regulation of temperature make that big a difference?

Is it simply temperature regulation or running the temp so low at 10 C?

 

 

 

[mediumstairs]

I can't imagine a happier world than one where I can dry age ribeyes and stogies on one convenient locker. Pinch me — I must be dreaming.

[Fuzz]

Do they taste meatier too?

[LordAnubis]

Doesnt Sahakian store at 12c and 65rh? blind taste here we come.. "Guess the storage conditions" 😂

[GoodStix]

3 hours ago, LordAnubis said:

Doesnt Sahakian store at 12c and 65rh?

 

Yes.  Suckling's interview of Sahakian re this (4 min):  https://www.jamessuckling.com/videos/sahakian-suckling-davidoff-shop/

[Shrimpchips]

Is this why I’ve been missing out on funk in my cigars? 

[Edicion]

Maybe I got the process all wrong but, I think the wide range from 18-38 °C will have an impact on cigars. 38 is very hot. 

My opinion is that the ones kept in the meat locker kept a consistent temp and didn't change much due to the cold nature from when they were put there. 

The cigars in the humidor went through summer and winter unprotected and that made them (maybe) lose taste / qualities compared to the ones in the meat locker. 

[Puros Y Vino]

Sounds like a more complex, but less janky wineador.  I just did a quick search on these units. Lots of specs, no pricing.  Which tells you they aren't cheap.  All you need is some cedar shelving and you probably have a perfect humidor.

[PigFish]

This has so many problems with it theoretically, I don’t really know where to start. I think perhaps… with a lot of assumptions.

·       First, I never really trust what anyone says about their storage. That it is what they claim it to be.

This is largely due to experience on my part, and largely driven by those that really don’t know what is going on in their humidors due to lack of verifiable testing. I have talked to 100s of people about their storage. Many will fight with you about it after they don't get the answer they want. A few will come back a year later and say 'you were right... I got mold...'

Lets look some at what we do know.

10C is pretty cold, 50F. Lets look at that for a moment.

·       50F/65rH air contains 35 grains of water per pound of dry air.

·       70F/60rH air contains 65 grains of water per pound of dry air.

·       Room air 75/50rH contains 65 grains of water.

So, first and foremost there is not a lot of water in the system to begin with. This should give one an indication (which is true) that not a lot of water migration is happening at 50F, or the person storing at 50F/65rH would get extremely dry cigars.

There is a reason why the cigars don’t dry…  and it is called hygroscopicity. This is where a lot of people get lost as they relate cigar EMC to rH and ignore temperature and hygroscopicity. The fact here is that there is an inverse relationship to heat in space verses heat in tobacco. EG, the more you heat space, the more you heat water in space, the more energy the water gets, the more water vapor goes into solution (meaning water vapor). The more energy it gets, the less likely the water is to condense and become liquid (bond to itself).

So water in tobacco needs to be compared to something other than rH in space to make sense. What you need to compare it to is liquid water, not gaseous water in space. The more you heat tobacco, like liquid water, the less apt water is to bond with it. Liquid water and water bonded to tobacco, heat it and the bonds break, releasing the water. Ask yourself... what is water boiling? Water bonding strength is therefore based on the energy of the bonds verses the energy of the water molecule needed to break the bond.

 

We have now looked at one side of the energy equation, this is the side where high energy breaks water bonds. How about the flip side?

If high energy breaks bonds, then low energy creates them. This is a fact.

If any of the analysis is true, which it is, this means that in the end, this person will likely end up with moldy cigars. It is only a matter of time. Here is why.

There is a caveat... read on!

 

In the bullet points above I included room air for a reason. Our first examination of room air is that there is roughly twice the amount of water in it, then there is in the 50/65 scenario. Here is why I brought it up.

Now lets look at real life! 

You might ask yourself, what is the dewpoint of the 50/65 scenario? You will be glad that you did…

The dewpoint of 50/65 is 55F. Now, why is it important? It is important because, someday, you may actually wish to open your humidor and get a cigar… The next question is, what will happen during the air exchange when you open the door???

When the warm moist room air, meets the cool inner surface of your humidor, your cigar boxes and even your open cigars, water will condense on them. Yep, you are going to get a very thin layer of liquid water all over the inside of your humidor!

In theory, as this happens over and over again, the binding qualities of tobacco and water will lock up greater and greater amounts of water in the cigars until they get capillary water and mold grows…

Now for the caveat... and why does this system appear to work? I could postulate for the next few hours about that and it is not really worth that much of my time. In short however, this system, if actively cooled is a helluva lot dryer that is being presented.

By my estimation, based on the water alone, these cigars are being stored at the equivalent of 70F/72rH. Active cooling is changing that by drying the air. Left on its own, without the active cooling to quickly strip the water exchanged water left in the humidor (over and over again), these cigars are on the way to Moldsville.

Only time will tell.

Controlled precision humidors work. I know... I make them. Ad hoc actively cooled humidors, like socialism (sorry cannot resist it...) may appear to work for awhile, until they suddenly breakdown due to lack of understanding the system as a whole.

This is what I refer to as an 'accidental humidor.' Cheers!

Dr. Piggy’s 2cts!

[Bijan]

I have stored my cigars in coolers in my cold storage room for the last 2 years. They smoke well and winter temperatures go down to 2 or 3c. The coolers are at mid 60s% RH year long. In the summer temperatures are high teens C maybe 17 or 18C I think.

The temperature only changes by 1 or 2c a week and generally 3 or 4 C in any given month.

Edit: I have records of the temperature and relative humidity in each cooler at 2 minute intervals for most of the time period.

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

I have stored my cigars in coolers in my cold storage room for the last 2 years. They smoke well and winter temperatures go down to 2 or 3c. The coolers are at mid 60s% RH year long. In the summer temperatures are high teens C maybe 17 or 18C I think.

The temperature only changes by 1 or 2c a week and generally 3 or 4 C in any given month.

Edit: I have records of the temperature and relative humidity in each cooler at 2 minute intervals for most of the time period.

2 minute intervals work just fine or passive humidors. For tuning active humidors it does not really cut it. However, 2 minutes of 30rH (for example) where an active humidor may go during a cooling cycle if it is not well engineered, quickly to recover to say 60-65 will be unseen by the cigars themselves. While I won't settle for this, a humidor that recovers from even a 50% hack in rH during a cooling recovery period of 2 minutes I would have to rate as a successful active humidor. I don't deal with that mind you, but in the early days of making humidors I did. And... since the recovery was short, I accepted it as good as i could make it at the time.

The real problem is that most folks don't circulate air around in their humidors either. This means that there are wet and dry areas (all humidors but mostly active humidors) that folks will claim as 'rock solid.' If you are building active humidors for sale, or for your own quest for perfection, you have to do better. You should be looking for problems, not discovering them by accident.

I started my work with active humidors about '07. I have been able to store cigars at 70/60 in 100F ambients. That is when you know your system is robust and works. Not everyone needs it... I get it... But my shop can heat to 100F and I know my cigars are not suffering. I like the idea, even if no one else really cares!

Cheers! -Piggy

[Bijan]

@PigFish yes definitely my setup is definitely 100% passive relying on bovedas. I wouldn't want to try an active setup with such changes in the ambient conditions.

[PigFish]

2 minutes ago, Bijan said:

@PigFish yes definitely my setup is definitely 100% passive relying on bovedas. I wouldn't want to try an active setup with such changes in the ambient conditions.

I don't blame you... Why would you? If your system works, why spend extra cash and create extra complexity and trade it for a system that works for you? I wouldn't.

[Ford2112]

I always learn a lot from your posts @PigFish

[PigFish]

Fooling with some data logs today and pulling shop temperature into a log to look a long wavelength logic shift that I need to work on. As the temp in the shop trends here from the 60s to the 80s you might notice a marked 1-2rH swing on the average. This is logic based and of course the real world on how the system swings from cooling and hydrating to heating and dehydrating.

Fun stuff!

Interesting to see the anomaly in the humidor temp line... A power outage!