small beetle problem

[ReV]

make sure you check the boxes good though. i have heard of them eating through wooden boxes.

Good call, I found this out earlier tonight. No more damage, but I did find two dead beetles that I somehow missed in yesterday's inventory. Luckily, I also remembered that I have this lovely little mini fridge from my dorm that use to freeze my soft drinks solid and is now being used to keep my beers frosty cold. Long story short, I did a container switch and my igloo is being used for its original purpose of keeping my beers cold and the mini fridge is freezing my cigars solid. It took all night and every damn freezer bag in the house, but every one of my cigars from my cooler is now in deep freeze. Now I just gotta hope that my triple bagging methods and transition periods keep my cigars from splitting open. I now have two questions for anyone who may know the answers....

a) My cigars are in large chunks, all packed together (probably 25 to a 1gallon freezer bag). How much extra freeze time should I count on to make sure everything gets down to the correct temp?

b) when everything is ready to go back in the cooler; the cooler is cleaned out, the cigars are treated, what about the boxes? Should I scrap the old boxes just in case there are more beetles lurking (they evaded my inspection last night somehow) or will the boxes be safe to use after sitting out while the cigars are in freeze?

[DeeDubya]

http://www.cgarsltd.co.uk/document.p...Tobacco+Beetle

One of the best articles I have read on the "Beetle Plague".

[CAJUNBLAZE]

That was a good article. I wouldn't think it would take 4 days in deep freeze to kill the beetles and larvae.

I guess if you wanted to keep the boxes, the only safe way would be to freeze them.

Rich

[Shelby07]

I read an article some time back on a "taste test" done on previously frozen vs non-frozen cigars. The result was that the effect was minimal to non-existent. In fact, there are lots of smokers who freeze everything before they go into their humidor. Just be sure to move them from the freezer into the fridge for a day before they go back so they don't crack or split.


...and I'd freeze the boxes, too.