Aaaargh!

[toasterhead]

Hey sepp,

Sorry I haven't said hello until now; life has been crazy since time off in Vegas :cool:

I haven't personally dealt with beetles before, but have seen them blocked by cellophane around a cigar. Maybe the cedar sheet saved you!

The conventional wisdom will be "freeze everything, why take a chance", but you could consider quarantine in baggies and extended observation.

I was under the impression that regular freezers work if you leave the cigars in there long enough, but I would have to research it more or defer to others.

We are getting enough Front Range members to arrange a herf sometime. Maybe we should stalk some Democrat celebs downtown in few weeks.

Cheers,

Dave

[sepp]

» The conventional wisdom will be "freeze everything, why take a chance"

Agreed, have already made freezer space arrangements with another BOTL here in Denver. Everything goes...

» We are getting enough Front Range members to arrange a herf sometime.

» Maybe we should stalk some Democrat celebs downtown in few weeks.

We do need a get together! Let's talk. I am trying to engage a few others I know in the area in this forum so we could be bigger than we know...;-)

I was in Chicago watchin em burn cars in 68... no need to get any where near that mess this year lol :-D

[Shelby07]

Found these numbers on another forum... they are supposedly the temperatures and times you need to kill 95% of any beetle eggs.

5c (41f) requires ~12 days (275 hours)

0c (32f) requires ~9 days (220 hours)

-5c (23f) requires ~4 days (100 hours)

-10c (14f) requires less than 24 hours

-15c (5f) requires less than 24 hours

-20c (-4f) requires less than 24 hours

I've seen the -10 to -20C numbers around before (+14 to -4 F,) but haven't seen this chart. Most people say that 3-4 days in a regular freezer (usually about 0 degrees F) will do the trick. I'm assuming you know the rest of the drill (plastic bags, refrigerate after freezing, etc.)

Good luck!

[Ken Gargett]

» Found these numbers on another forum... they are supposedly the

» temperatures and times you need to kill 95% of any beetle eggs.

and the times for 100%? not sure that there is much point in leaving any of the bastards alive. i try and remember to freeze mine for several days at least, though not sure of the temp. touch wood, no problems yet tho was telling rob that as i smoked a recent hamlet, it was obvious that a bug had been in it at some stage from the telltale tunnel. there had been no external evidence and no sign of any other problems but i'll keep a close eye. in fact, i'm off to check now.

[El Presidente]

You are doing the right things Sepp

[Shelby07]

» and the times for 100%? ...

Yeah, I thought of that too. I guess the thinking is to get rid of most of them and the probability of them coming back drops proportionately... but it was an odd post.

Somebody else said to freeze them twice. I would imagine 3-4 days will do the trick, though.

[zuma]

Based on [link=http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/aez/41/1/87/_pdf]this published scientific study [/link] (brought to FoH attention by Kjellfrick, Claudius and fugwumpy), to achieve eliminate beetles in any stage of development they must be exposed to the following temperatures at the stipulated minimum times:

Storage

Temperature (C/F) -> Min time (Hours)

-20C/- 4F -> 1 hrs

-15C/+ 5F -> 6

-10C/+14F -> 24

- 5C/+23F -> 504

+0C/+32F -> 1,176

+5C/+41F -> 1,680

Note that additional time is required to ensure that the temperature has dropped to such levels at the core of the cigars.

Note: This info was brought up and discussed in [link=http://www.friendsofhabanos.com/board_entry.php?id=78501&page=0&category=Classic+Posts&order=last_answer&descasc=DESC

] > this FoH classic posts thread < [/link]

[Padrino]

» RyJ Coronitos en Cedro SEP 07 Box code

Hey Prez....

I've never seen beetle signs on anything after '02..... I was under the assumption Habanos S.A./Altadis froze their cigars. Or is this only done in their Spanish warehouse in Logroño ?

[mkz]

» I've never seen beetle signs on anything after '02..... I was under the

» assumption Habanos S.A./Altadis froze their cigars. Or is this only done

» in their Spanish warehouse in Logroño ?

More reading on the subject:

http://www.friendsofhabanos.com/board_entr...id=74544#p74544

[Padrino]

» » I've never seen beetle signs on anything after '02..... I was under the

» » assumption Habanos S.A./Altadis froze their cigars. Or is this only

» done

» » in their Spanish warehouse in Logroño ?

»

» More reading on the subject:

» http://www.friendsofhabanos.com/board_entr...id=74544#p74544

Thanks for the link. :-)

[El Presidente]

» Hey Prez....

»

» I've never seen beetle signs on anything after '02..... I was under the

» assumption Habanos S.A./Altadis froze their cigars. Or is this only done

» in their Spanish warehouse in Logroño ?

They have capacity of 80,000 cigars in the freezing chamber for 24hours at a time. It doesn't cover all cigars produced (do the math). Still, there are distributors who also freeze their cigars (Intertabak being one). Perhaps they do not freeze cigars going to distributors who freeze cigars. I have tried to find out but have hit a brick wall at this time.

Bottom line is continue to freeze if you do not have a climate controlled environment.

[jayro75]

» » Hey Prez....

» »

» » I've never seen beetle signs on anything after '02..... I was under the

» » assumption Habanos S.A./Altadis froze their cigars. Or is this only

» done

» » in their Spanish warehouse in Logroño ?

»

» They have capacity of 80,000 cigars in the freezing chamber for 24hours at

» a time. It doesn't cover all cigars produced (do the math). Still, there

» are distributors who also freeze their cigars (Intertabak being one).

» Perhaps they do not freeze cigars going to distributors who freeze cigars.

» I have tried to find out but have hit a brick wall at this time.

»

» Bottom line is continue to freeze if you do not have a climate controlled

» environment.

I'm a bit confused, and I'm sure it has to do with my newness to CC's but is freezing and beetles something I need to be concerned with when receiving my order from the Czar?

[sepp]

» You are doing the right things Sepp

First, thank you all for contributing. Here is how I have taken all of the information and thoughts out there and put into a course of action.

There is a certain amount of scientific data that tells us the entire life cycle of these pests can be stopped dead in their tracks by freezing. That being said there are a lot of ideas and opinions on just how you apply freeze/thaw procedures to get optimal kill and reconditioning of the cigars to normalized state. Here is the process I followed:

First I put aside a months worth of smokes in a separate humidor. If an outbreak occurs over the next month I will not lose a lot of product and I won’t have to go cold turkey in the mean time.

Double freezer bagged everything in their boxes removing as much air as possible

Cross stacked the boxes in a –22C freezer so that as much exposure on all sides of the boxes was created (to ensure core freeze)

Total freezer time 36 hours. Rationale: I buried the remote temp sensor in one bundle and it took less than 6 hours to drop to –20C. According to the Japanese study quoted and summarized in this and other threads, all of the beetle’s life stages will be killed in 24 hours at –10C to 1 hour at –20C. Always being one for over engineering a project, I think 30 hours at –20C should do the job, crossing my fingers anyway.

Meanwhile I vacuumed and cleaned the humidor cabinet. Dropped the RH in the cabinet to around 55% to accommodate a future gradual increase when the stock is replaced in 2-3 days.

The warm up: There are many suggestions out there on this subject; from freezer to fridge in bags, f to f out of the bags and even some that suggest straight to the bench out of the bags. I opted for a slower approach.

24 hours in 40F fridge (sorry switching to degrees F now) still in freezer bags to reduce drying and condensation

Removed the bags and detected no moisture inside any of the outer or inner bags (this has got to be good)

Placed the cigars in an igloo cooler with remote temp and a hygrometer. When the temp in the igloo reach about 55 F/56% RH (about 3 hours) I rotated the boxes to give them equal chances to warm slowly.

One more rotation about 2 hours later with the temp at 58F and the RH in the igloo was now 60%

When the temp in the igloo reached 65 F/RH still 60% (8 hours total) I reintroduced the stock to the humidor, which I had brought back up to a starting RH of 60%. I have an electronic humidifier which will allow me to bring the RH back up to 63%-65% over the next two or three days.

Now all I have to do is wait at least 30 days for the everything to stabilize. I hope to have a few pre freeze samples left at that time to be able to do some taste comparisons.

One final note, going forward since I cannot control the temp as easily as I can control RH, I will freeze all new stock prior to putting it in the premium humidor. No sense in risking premium stock again.

Later all.

sepp

[sepp]

I was down to 4 RyJ Coronitos en Cedro SEP 07 Box code (yea naive and new I have been smoking em young), to find this in one of the remaining 4:

Bit of history on this box and it's relation to other s in my humi. Purchased in March and since I did not have enough humi space was kept zip locked (with humi sticks) till approximately Fathers Day.

Box was placed in my new cabinet humidor in second week of June (out of the zip lock). About Mid July I removed the remaining dozen or so sticks and placed them in the open top rack of my humi. Temperature has been a bit of a problem hovering in the 70-71 F range, chances are that temps exceeded this range while bagged and in a closet during the spring.

Found the above this morning. I can find no evidence in any of my remaing stock or the humidor itself, no hints of flying insects, feces (as has been noted in another thread on this forum) or damage of any kind such as obvious soft spots and eat out holes (including the remaining 3 RyJ sticks).

How much trouble am I in and short of smoking everything now and starting over how quickly do I need to act? I just put two new boxes in the Humi last nite; if isolated now in Zip Locks will I need to freeze these two?

I also have zip locked the remaining loose cigars in the tray that this bug eaten stick was found. I am having trouble doing the math on the 10 week hatch cycle to figure out when my next attck might be. Or even figure out when this stick was infected and hatched.

Last note of help: Anybody in the Denver area know of a commercial deep freeze I can rent some time in?

Thansk all for any opinions and direction above and beyond what I have been able to figure out on the threads here.

sepp :-(