Sweet Smelling Humidor

Alright, I have a few problems.
My biggest concern is the smell I get when I open my humidor. Instead of that nice rich humidor smell, I have this kind of sickly sweet syrupy (well, not really so sugary, just sweet) smell, which is really concerning me. I don't like it. I want to get rid of it and have that beautiful smell again. I used Cigar Juice from CI like it said, for my humidifier and the humidity is holding nicely at about 68 percent. Whats going on!?

Other problem is temperature, I can't find a place in my room with a constant temperature of about 70 or 71. On my desk it gets too high, on the floor beside my desk it gets to about 68 or so degrees, but only when the room is cold. How can I try to keep the temperature a little lower.

Thats about it. First post for me on here, I finally got fed up with answers from ineffective sources and came to a place where there should be knowledgeable people.

Thanks
(I like the smilies on here, they're impressive)

hey, where did you purchase the humidor from? it might not be made from spanish cedar if it's not from a reliable source.

tell us a little about yourself, what you like to smoke and what not.

First course of action is to remove the flavored cigars. :smiley2: :smiley8: :smiley4:

If the RH is holding constant, room temp should suffice, it doesnt hurt to fluctuate a couple degrees. Just my $.02.


Goody

How long have you had the humidor? Try to isolote the cause of the odor. I would recomend ditching the floral foam and replacing it with some beads. Once you get the beads move the cigars into a tupperware container while you sort out the odor. While I've never had to do this, I've heard that you can lightly sand the inside of the humidor to help with removing the odor. Unfortunately your cigars may have taken on the odor as well.

Try to keep your humidor in a cool place. The temp in mine stays around 66 degrees and rh ranges from 63 - 66%.

Whats the highest/lowest temperatures I should watch for? I assume between 70 and 75 degrees?

I definitely don't have any flavored sticks in there, not a huge fan.

I got the humi from cbid, where I get a lot of my cigars cause I'm a cheap sob. Its advertised as spanish cedar, I'll try to find the brand or any more information, but I think it is what it is supposed to be.

As for myself, I've only been really smoking about 3 or 4 months, and just upgraded my humidor to the new one to hold an ever growing collection. I just started really paying attention to what I've been smoking and cataloging and tasting and such. I like to try around, and then I'll find out what I really like. So far, my favorite is the CAO Black, although I scored a collection of Gurkhas that are pretty good. I'm open to suggestions, but right now I have a full humidor and no cash, so I'll have to make a to-do list.

If someone knows where my screenname comes from, I'll be really happy.
Thanks

I take it your a Hemingway fan, not the cigar. :smiley2: Why Francis Macomber?

I would recomend keeping the temp under 70 but 70-75 should not hurt anything as long as you are keeping the rh in check. If you are going to keep the temp around 75 degrees I would go with the 65% rh beads from heartfelt or cigarmony. Do a search on here for the guide to setting up a humidor. That has some very good info in it.

my money is on the cigar juice... I know antifreeze can smell kinda sickly sweet... and a lot of the humidification fluids have the same main ingredient, propylene glycol or something like that... least thats where my money would be


get some humidification beads, and move everything into a tupperware for a few weeks and leave your humidor open somewhere with good airflow to air it out and hopefully get rid of the smell

and as for your name...
well "You've gotten awfully brave, awfully suddenly." for posting on here :smiley2:

:smiley41:



ahhh WOXOF beat me by just a couple minutes, while I was looking up the exact wording of the quote...

Haha, thanks all. I'll order some 65 beads asap then shift my collection to my old humidor and some tuperware as the new humi airs out. It makes sense that the smell is the propalyne glycol a bit.

Indeed, Francis Macomber from Hemingway's short story. There's no real deep reason for the choice. I like Hemingway and it was better than Nick or Jim. Plus I like the change Macomber goes through combined with his end. True to Hemingway, all I want to do now is go on safari, hunt, fish, shoot, smoke, drink, have sex, and thats about it. Real man stuff. Sadly, the Seattle nights (heck, days almost) are too cold to enjoy a smoke, and I have yet to find a place I can smoke inside; I even have trouble getting out of the rain.

Once I get the cash I'll have to try to score a Hemingway cigar, just so I can. That and an OpusX... and so on and so on.

Thanks

Welcome to the boards. I don't have much to add on advice WOXOF and JStrider have covered it for the most part. Good Luck!

-W.

Welcome to the board.

Welcome.

I agree with saying no to the juice. I ruined alot of cigars when I got my first humidor using that crap.

Get beads. I did and never been happier.

Bah, it takes forever for my posts to be approved or something?
I wrote responses last night, but they don't seem to have gotten through.
In short:
Thank you all, and I'll get beads today and when they come I'll move my collection and get rid of the humidifier. After I leave the humidor open for a while, will I want to re-season it?
Indeed I'm a Hemingway fan, I like the changeover Macomber had and his abrupt ending, plus the name beat Nick or Jim. I'll have to get my hands on a Hemingway cigar just for kicks.
Thanks again

after letting your humidor air out for that long you will want to reseason it, all the humidity that was in the wood will have dried up.

welcome to the board from iowa, its a good place here, hope you enjoy

Quick question, if I get a tube from heartfelt, will it come with the beads themselves? Should I get the tube or the square type, the tube is much cheaper.
Thanks.

Question - was it smelling normal before?

Separately - I think there's a thread somewhere on the board about it - some humidors don't use spanish cedar - they use aromatic cedar (the stuff you like your closet). Makes a big difference. Does the cedar look red?

That aside, the smell could be from the glue that holds the humi together. Just my thoughts.

What you might consider doing (and I don't necessarily recommend it) - is getting one of those air neutralizers that absorbs smell without putting any fragrance in there.

Welcome to the forum.

Quote:

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Quick question, if I get a tube from heartfelt, will it come with the beads themselves? Should I get the tube or the square type, the tube is much cheaper.
Thanks.

---

they have deals for just the tubes and also deals with filled tubes, just read the descriptions

Wow, y'all move fast around here. I just figured out the difference between the empty and full tubes, and ordered a full one, should be here Saturday or Monday.
I'm going to move my sticks to an un-smelly container and see what happens.
Wish me luck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Francis Macomber

Wow, y'all move fast around here. I just figured out the difference between the empty and full tubes, and ordered a full one, should be here Saturday or Monday.
I'm going to move my sticks to an un-smelly container and see what happens.
Wish me luck!

---

Good Luck! :smiley2:

-W.

Figured I'd keep this updated with my progress.
I ordered the heartfelt beads, and I'm in the process of transferring cigars to old humidors, but gluttony is the bane of mine existence and I don't have enough room in old humidors, so for my remaining 20 sticks I'll have to make a tupperdor, something I've never before attempted.
I'm happy to say that as far as I can tell the smell has not really transfered to the cigars in the humi, neither in taste or smell, but as I take sticks out, the smell seems to grow stronger. Some kind of evil Stephen King type smell demon sensing its demise maybe.
Anyway, thats the scoop so far, hopefully by the end of the day I'll have all the sticks removed so I can start to air it out. My plan is air out for a few days, re-wet the inside with distilled water and instead of closing, just let that air out too. If the smell is gone I'll start the seasoning process right as I get the beads.
Any better ideas?
Thanks for the help.

I may have missed it somewhere along the thread but where did you buy the humidor? You need to make sure you have spanish ceder in there and not another type. Welcome to the board and good luck.

Sounds good. Just see if you can identify the location of the smell if it is the humidifier or possibly as people mentioned the liquid then ditch the humidifier/foam if you haven't already.

-W.

Alright, I got the heartfelt beads a little while ago, seasoned my humi, and threw in the sticks. 24 hours later the smell (which was not present in the other storage setups) returned. It seems to not be transfering to the cigars, as far as I can tell, but is still incredibly annoying. It must be the cedar or something itself as far as I can tell, which means I have to get rid of the humidor basically. I guess I'll thin out my number of smokes until I can be back down to one humi, or buy another cheap little small capacity one.
Bah.
Any ideas for temperature control. My both boxes are in the shade away from heaters and direct light and all that jazz, but the temperature is still approaching that nasty 75 mark. How could I cool them out a little?
Thanks

Don't know what to do about the odor. If the odor isn't transferring to the cigars, you might want to see if the cedar will absorb the cigar odor after a while. But that's your decision.

As for temperature you can

1. Get creative with an old NON-DEFROSTING (to keep the air from drying out too much) refrigerator or freezer and one of these

http://ceisites.com/9025.html or

2. Turn your heat down.

You might be better off taking the cigars out moving them back to the tupperdor and leaving the desk top open for a couple of weeks, then re-season without wiping the wood down. There could be something funky growing between the cedar and the outer casing of the humi.

Get a cooler - search "coolidor" - will be cheaper than a replacement humi, fit more, and you wont' have to worry about the heat as much.

The smell you have could be from two sources....

First... the wood itself. Do you see any sap weeping from the wood ?... That could be the sweet smell you are getting.

My bet would be #2.... that crap, PG solution. All that shit is, is anti-freeze. You are on the right track. Empty the humidor, let it air out for a week or 2. and then close it overnight. See if the smell is still there. If it is I would see if you could send it back. If not.... throw that crap PG solution away and use the beads....


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