Best way to age tubos?

[JDoughty]

After opening and checking for unfortunate conditions like mold or damage, how do you prefer to age your tubos? Select one or let us know if you do something different. If you've tried any of these methods, how did they work for you? If you've tried more than one of these methods, how do they compare both in terms of speed of results and quality of results? 

A - Replace the cap and let it age in the closed tube in your humidor.

B - Remove the cap and leave it off, but leave the cigar inside the tube.

C - Remove the cigar completely from the tube and let it age naked in your humidor with full air flow around it.

D - Remove the cigar from the tube and put it in cello, a box or a bag in your humidor to limit air flow.

E - Put the tubo in a weird bodily orifice and hope for the best. 

[Lucas Buck]

A - slow airflow restricted aging is my jam. If I pull out a 20+ year old Tubos 95% it’s going yo be great. 

[HailState]

Combo of B then A for me. Take off the cap, inspect, let the cigar inside the tubo acclimatize for ~30 days then put the cap back on and leave it until you’re ready to torch. 

[Mike Mecklenburg]

I use method A for small packs because they are easier to fit in the humidor. I use method D for large amounts, but the cigars go into a wood slide box, then in the humidor. 

[zacca]

I’ve done/do A, B, and C…and I’ll throw in an extra, let’s call it Aa. It depends on the stick, how old it is, how long I plan to age it, and how experimental I’m feeling. Sometimes with the same box of tubos I’ll mix it up and do all 4. 

*Aa = after inspecting, I’ll put the cap on slightly - not enough to tighten it, so think like it’s just cracked open. 

[JDoughty]

Very sensible answers. No one seems to have picked option E. 😁

[dopECM]

My process for aging in tubos is fairly simple. When I buy them, I place them in my humidor at 65% RH and leave the caps fully open for a few months. The goal is to let them stabilize at my preferred humidity, avoid trapping higher RH, etc. Once I feel they’re properly acclimated, I close the tubos and let them age long term inside the humidor. Combo of B and A. 

[gormag38]

Usually when I have tubos I'll store them w/o caps for a few months. Then after they've acclimatized, I'll cap them back up. Seems to make sense to me anyways. The exception to this is when I've had/have boxes of 25 tubos (eg. Boli Tubos No.1). There's no way I'm going through and unscrewing all of those.

[Christophe]

I do C, but the most pragmatic reason for that is limited real estate. I don't have a huge tower, since I mostly buy singles, so everything goes in one humidor for smoking and two tupperdors for longer-term storage. Each of these holds about 100 sticks, when not in boxes, tubos or anything. I do save some tubes, because they're just so handy for taking a cigar along with you. 

[MrBirdman]

9 hours ago, dopECM said:

My process for aging in tubos is fairly simple. When I buy them, I place them in my humidor at 65% RH and leave the caps fully open for a few months. The goal is to let them stabilize at my preferred humidity, avoid trapping higher RH, etc. Once I feel they’re properly acclimated, I close the tubos and let them age long term inside the humidor. Combo of B and A. 

Same.

[BrightonCorgi]

I am a proponent for leaving the cigars as they are packaged.

[NYGuido]

I’m thinking of leaving them naked in a spare box for a few months and then putting them back, loosely capped, in their tubes. But maybe I’m wrong. 

[BrightonCorgi]

7 minutes ago, NYGuido said:

I’m thinking of leaving them naked in a spare box for a few months and then putting them back, loosely capped, in their tubes. But maybe I’m wrong. 

Why?

[JDoughty]

4 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Why?

They'll equalize to your humidor RH faster. This said, there's a tightrope to balance on between "age/acclimatize faster" and the long term results of doing it faster. I doubt it will make that much difference if they do a few months naked to make sure the RH is consistent throughout and to make sure you aren't seeing mold, then you age them with restricted airflow for years. 

If tubes containing cedar are left outside the humidor, the RH of the cedar will drop to whatever your ambient is in the room. Putting the cigar back in will then cause some more push-pull to happen as the total RH in the tube equalizes between cigar and wrapping. It shouldn't be too extreme with the tiny weight of a little cedar lining, but any time you have rapid changes there is at least some risk of problems like uneven expansion causing cracks. If your tube doesn't have cedar, it won't happen. This said, I'd still keep naked tubes clean and dry and stored in a closed location to avoid any potential for condensation or cross contamination by endemic microorganisms. I do a fair bit of fermenting and charcuterie, sometimes cheese making, so there's all kinds of things endemic to my home that are benign and delicious in food, but that I -probably- don't want on my cigars. I say probably because I honestly don't know what the results would be. One of these days I'm going to take some cheap cigars and see what happens if I deliberately culture them with something like koji (Aspergillus oryzae) or Bactoferm. 

[BrightonCorgi]

3 hours ago, JDoughty said:

They'll equalize to your humidor RH faster. This said, there's a tightrope to balance on between "age/acclimatize faster" and the long term results of doing it faster. I doubt it will make that much difference if they do a few months naked to make sure the RH is consistent throughout and to make sure you aren't seeing mold, then you age them with restricted airflow for years. 

I didn't know it was a race. A check for mold (on a couple from the box) and wipe if there is any is as much as I would bother.

[JDoughty]

3 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

I didn't know it was a race. A check for mold (on a couple from the box) and wipe if there is any is as much as I would bother.

I know get impatient to smoke some delicious cigars when I get some that need aging. I am almost always guilty of cracking into them early, because yum. 

[MrBirdman]

2 hours ago, NYGuido said:

I’m thinking of leaving them naked in a spare box for a few months and then putting them back, loosely capped, in their tubes. But maybe I’m wrong. 

Well there’s no wrong answer in my opinion, though if you’re looking for longevity then I suggest capping them snuggly.

Depending on the stick I might let tubed cigars “air out” for at least a day or two before smoking (as I do with loose sticks stored in cedar trays - I don’t care for a strong cedar note). 

I’ll also add here for anyone new to CC that tubed cigars are not the same as those sold in individual cardboard boxes (petacas). The latter should always be removed immediately and stored as singles in my opinion - in fact I personally avoid them entirely unless they are heavily discounted. Something about the cardboard seems to suck the life out of the cigar after a few years - it’s not clear to me why but that’s a topic for another thread. If the box date is recent then there’s much less risk. 

[Tunkat92]

I just remove caps, if cigars seem particularly wet I remove entire cigar, then place in humidor for a few months and recap. I've done this for many years with only one mold incident. That one mold incident is why I will remove entire cigar if they seem particularly wet or tight in the tubo. It was a 3 pack of P2’s and they were so tight in the tubo it was a struggle to get them out and back in. I checked on them after a year and they developed a light mold.

[NYGuido]

3 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

Well there’s no wrong answer in my opinion, though if you’re looking for longevity then I suggested capping them snuggly.

Depending on the stick I might let tubed cigars “air out” for at least a day or two before smoking (as I do with loose sticks stored in cedar trays - I don’t care for a strong cedar note). 

I’ll also add here for anyone new to CC that tubed cigars are not the same as those sold in individual cardboard boxes (petacas). The latter should always be removed immediately and stored as singles in my opinion - in fact I personally avoid them entirely unless they are heavily discounted. Something about the cardboard seems to suck the life out of the cigar after a few years - it’s not clear to me why but that’s a topic for another thread. If the box date is recent then there’s much less risk. 

I have Esplendidos in individual cardboard. Sounds like I should pull them and put them in a cedar box.

 

[yuppie]

2 hours ago, NYGuido said:

I have Esplendidos in individual cardboard. Sounds like I should pull them and put them in a cedar box.

I just did the same with all my cardboard acquisitions.

[Lucas Buck]

2 hours ago, NYGuido said:

I have Esplendidos in individual cardboard. Sounds like I should pull them and put them in a cedar box.

Yes or Tubos. The only sticks I leave in cardboard are MM or Tubos. However if you smoke them relatively fresh doesn’t make much difference. Long term aging - get them out of that cardboard!

[BrightonCorgi]

58 minutes ago, Lucas Buck said:

Yes or Tubos. The only sticks I leave in cardboard are MM or Tubos. However if you smoke them relatively fresh doesn’t make much difference. Long term aging - get them out of that cardboard!

The flavor of cardboard boxed cigars does fade over time. If you smoke under 5-7 years you should be fine. I had 15+ year old Fundadores that saw better times. I wish a Fundadores could've told me when I bought them. 😞