Relative Humidity Sweet Spot for Cigars?

[El Presidente]

 Relative Humidity Sweet Spot for Cigars? 

Couple of questions popped up over the last week in terms of Relative Humidity/Storage for CC and NC. 

Let's see if we can bang it into one poll for a better visual summary of members thoughts. 

[Li Bai]

I don't have that much experience with NCs but the good stuff is kept in separate boxes in my cabinet around 64%, on the bottom shelf and so far, so good.

I've tried keeping NCs closer to 70% in the past but never really noticed a difference. Again, I never really cared enough about NCs to dig deeper.

But that was before the Nudies came into my life 😍

[Lucas Buck]

I don’t smoke many NC but I keep everything at 65% for long term and 60% max for smoking. I like mine dry. 

[tbelle7]

63% for CC, 68% for NC. Separate towers.

In the beginning, I watched enough YouTube videos (rolls eyes) to make me believe 70/70 was the way for CC. Later moving down to 62-63% changed the experience in a big way. Bluetooth hygrometers and their apps have made RH easy to monitor and control.

[TheFez]

I may be a strange one, but as I mentioned in the other post I prefer to store (in general, not an overall rule) Nicaraguans closer to 67, Dominicans and Hondurans closer to 65, and Cubans closer to 62. I will most of the time take a cigar out of the humidor in the morning to smoke that afternoon, and will (try to) take cubans out a few days in advance. Just my experience where I've found the flavors and performance to work best according to my preference

[JohnS]

I'm also around 62% RH for Habanos cigars and 65% RH (and above) for my New World stock. It may be 1 or 2 percent lower or higher (probably higher) but all I know is that the Boveda packs I have been working for many, many years and are still going strong.

[Ford2112]

I find cigars smoke better where I live at a lower RH so I tend to like them at 65 or below. I store everything the same. I could never get them much lower than 63% in my storage, so 65 works for me and I don't overthink things.

[BrightonCorgi]

What the Aristocrat says is it what is. I don't bother dry boxing the like. If it's too hydroscopic, I can wait years if need be, to revisit. 

[BG318]

My CC's and NC's live together. I didn't think it would make any difference, but people seem to feel differently. I'm pretty steady at 66-67 though. I have an NC every 6-7 weeks, and it's only about 6% of my stash. For me I think the more important question is what rh should Nudies be stored at?. They are 90% of my 6% NC's. They have been burning and smoking great at the 66-67 range. 

[Boxer31]

When I first got my tower - was constantly trying to tune. Did not notice a big difference between CC and NC, so I try for 65 and if it inches up or down a bit, no worries. 

[NYGuido]

5 hours ago, TheFez said:

I may be a strange one, but as I mentioned in the other post I prefer to store (in general, not an overall rule) Nicaraguans closer to 67, Dominicans and Hondurans closer to 65, and Cubans closer to 62. I will most of the time take a cigar out of the humidor in the morning to smoke that afternoon, and will (try to) take cubans out a few days in advance. Just my experience where I've found the flavors and performance to work best according to my preference

This is my exact setup. Tower has Cubans at 61-62, a cooler that stores non Cubans at 63, a desktop for my ready to smoke Nicaraguan at 67, and a desktop for my Davidoffs at 64.

[TheFez]

2 hours ago, NYGuido said:

This is my exact setup. Tower has Cubans at 61-62, a cooler that stores non Cubans at 63, a desktop for my ready to smoke Nicaraguan at 67, and a desktop for my Davidoffs at 64.

I could say wow at least I'm not crazy, or I could say wow another person just like me😅🫶🏾

[LizardGizmo]

Cubans and Honduran puros at 62rh for me. Non-Cubans at 65rh, generally. Important to also note that my temperature is room temp - around 68°F/20°C.

I like my stuff just a bit drier than the guys I am often smoking with.

[NYGuido]

1 hour ago, LizardGizmo said:

Cubans and Honduran puros at 62rh for me. Non-Cubans at 65rh, generally. Important to also note that my temperature is room temp - around 68°F/20°C.

I like my stuff just a bit drier than the guys I am often smoking with.

I’ve followed your lead on the Hondurans with fantastic results and treat my Fab5/Bond Roberts cigars like they’re Cuban. And now that my whole storage got sorted, I’m running everything at 70F and it makes a lot of difference. 

[David8406]

The Govee has made me ridiculously anal about my humidors!  I’m normally not that way, but with my humidors…jeez. Anyway, I bought a tower humidor a few months back and incorrectly assembled the part that supplies humidity. Things started going south on me yesterday and my need to check my Govees each night, paid off. I got in there and was able to see/fix my error. The humidor would have alarmed at some point. 65rh is my current setting and cigars are smoking great! My temp is set to 68f.

i keep my NW cigars in a separate humidor, mainly because they are loose singles and the humidor is designed for that scenario. 65rh for these as well, these are room temp (~72f).

[joeypots]

62% RH give or take is where Cuban cigars hit the spot for me. I like the Fabrica 5 stuff at a somewhat higher RH. 

[BG318]

After reading this thread I will start to use strictly 65% Boveda for my cooler. I'm not going to separate CC and nc but I ll try to get the cooler down to 64-65 as an acceptable midpoint for my cc and Nudies. I'm going to try the on deck desktop at 63-64 and see how it works. About the other NC I could care less because I don't have many.

I appreciate this thread, thanks all!

[griller]

I'm at 62-65% RH for both Cubans & NCs. Nudies too. Don't separate either, they all go in the same place. 

I do prefer my Cubans "dry" and like to sit them in a drybox for 2-3 days when possible before smoking. Usually don't bother with NCs or Nudies.

[LizardGizmo]

I’ve followed your lead on the Hondurans with fantastic results and treat my Fab5/Bond Roberts cigars like they’re Cuban. And now that my whole storage got sorted, I’m running everything at 70F and it makes a lot of difference. 

I will say, I have found Fab 5 to perform well (and different - in a good way) at various humidity levels. As they’re not puros, I think it’s worth choosing your favorite vitola from the line and experimenting at 62rh, 65rh and 68rh and finding what works best for you. I know Rob suggests and prefers them at ~65rh, so it’s worth running a flavor experiment. Might even be worth A/B/Cing them at the same time.

[NYGuido]

7 minutes ago, LizardGizmo said:

I will say, I have found Fab 5 to perform well (and different - in a good way) at various humidity levels. As they’re not puros, I think it’s worth choosing your favorite vitola from the line and experimenting at 62rh, 65rh and 68rh and finding what works best for you. I know Rob suggests and prefers them at ~65rh, so it’s worth running a flavor experiment. Might even be worth A/B/Cing them at the same time.

This is really great to know and advice I’ll definitely take! Might get a 5 pack of each of my faves and just let each sit for 2 months in those humidities and try them. I HAVE liked the Corta Suave at 64, so this tracks, and I’m glad to hear it from someone like you who is far more experienced with these cigars. Thanks, Giz!

[smashed]

I've found 16C (61F) and 64RH is the sweet spot.

[cnov]

62 CC 65 Non CC. Tempted to put some of the tighter rolled Fab5 at 62 to see what I think. 

In reality, I do wonder whether 2-3 Deg of rh actually matters that much. some cigars are good, others are great and some are dog rockets. We possibly think rh is the cure but they may just be shite cigars. 

[NYGuido]

37 minutes ago, cnov said:

In reality, I do wonder whether 2-3 Deg of rh actually matters that much. some cigars are good, others are great and some are dog rockets. We possibly think rh is the cure but they may just be shite cigars. 

I wonder this, too, but then again I know that 1-2 minutes cooking a steak can make the difference between delicious and wrong. Maybe we're just superstitious or anal or want to control any aspect we can when so much is out of our control (blend, rolling, QC, etc.). For me, it gives me a relatively innocuous way to release my super uptight side 😛

[MrBirdman]

I keep most CC at 65%rh but at 63-65F, which (as I have gathered from @PigFish) equates to roughly 66% at 68F. The answer for NC is the standard lawyer response: it depends. Hondurans often do better closer to 65% than 68%, and I like my aged Opus X at 65% too. Beyond that it's on a cigar by cigar basis. Most Davidoff I keep at 68%, but the Grand Cru Nos. 2 and 3 are always kept with my Cubans, as are most of my NC lanceros (all except the Davidoff Signature #1 LE). Also, any NC I have which are getting up there (over 5 years) I will typically "dry box" with my CC for a few days.

CC that are under 3 years I would normally smoke drier, like 62% rh, but most of my collection is older than that now.

[Fugu]

Sweet spot? I’ve come to understand, there isn’t any, or putting it differently - there are many.

Even for ‘Cuban’ there isn’t a one fits all approach for me. Determinant parameters, first and foremost: personal preference. Then: type of tobacco, provenance, maturity/age of tobacco, cigar format, construction/packing, but also smoking technique (quick puffer <-> slow sipper), environmental conditions and so forth.

Roughly: NC higher than CC, mature tobacco higher than young, slow smoking higher than quick smoking.

I tend to smoke dryer than what I am storing at. That being said, most of my cigars I take rather spontaneous straight from storage, and just live with minor performance shortcomings. Often it’s just a different smoking experience, not necessarily better or worse. A mater of preference. Heck, simple cigars for smoking outdoors, at work etc. may even travel for days and weeks with me, tubed (airtight) in my working-gear without much ado. Good or special cigars for smoking at home (or friend’s place, holiday travel, restaurant… you get the drift) will usually receive some preparation and a minimum of forward planning.