Why are my cigars dry?

[primus67]

after getting and calibrating a digital hygrometer, i believe the humidity in my humidor to be 75%. it's a new madelaine humidor and it was seasoned. this was around a week after christmas. i ordered 60 cigars from jr cigars in early january. they've been in there since then. today, 2/15/09, my brother in law and i had the first cigars from the humidor. we cut the tips of and they were crumbly. the wrapper started coming off of mine. the draw was loose at first. they burned fine and the ash was very even. i squeezed a few other cigars in the humidor and i could hear a little crackling in them.

why would this be happening when the humidity is at 75%?

[bigwhiteash]

What kind of humidifier are you using? Is your humidor placed in an area with a lot of air movement? (heater vent, or fan). Were the cigars dry-ish when you received them? Usually cigars from are delivered in an over-humidified state, but it's possible they were dry when they arrived. That much time in 75% should have resolved that though.

Try moistening the cap in your mouth prior to cutting, that may help, but it sounds like something is leaching humidity from your box. How often do you open it to look at your goodies?

[primus67]

i'm using th madelaine executive 100 humidifier filled with madelaine's solution. i fill the thing once a week as it seems to need it.

i have the humidor in my den where it's usually 70-74 degrees. not near any heat or air.

i open it once a day for about 2 seconds just to check humidity. and even then i only open the lis about a third of the way.

when i got the cigars, they seemed fine. they came in pretty cold weather at the time nut they got here in like 3 days. as soon as i got them, i let the box acclimate to room temp, opened the sealed box, removed the cigars from the cellophabe wrappers and right into my humidor.

yesterday i added a shot glass filled about halfway with distilled water as well as an old small credo humidifier. humidity this morning is at 75%.

i'll check the cigars for softness in a few days again.

[mrtr33]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....................

What kind of humidor are you using? How big is this humidor? What kind of cigars did you get from JR? I second the moistening of the cap before cutting.

[primus67]

it's a madelaine monet. holds 75 cigars. i have 23 coronas. 25 lonsdales. 11 churchills. 3 torpedos. so 63 cigars in all.

[cinda]

I thought most people try to run the humidor at 68 and then dry box the cigar a day before your going to smoke ...maybe I am not getting it.

[mrtr33]

Is it one like this? Looks pretty good. I don't see any problems there. I guess when I was asking what kinds of cigars, I was looking for brand names, instead of vitolas.

I was also thinking about the calibration of the hygrometer. Last I saw you posted, it was this:

it WAS in a double bag! it seemed ok till i moved it, then my ocd DID kick in! forget it, i'm gonna go play some video games!

Did you get that fixed? The other thing is, you might want to go with beads instead of foam. Almost eliminates the need for a hygrometer at all, in some people's opinion. You buy the beads to keep your humidor at a certain humidity level, then just make sure they are kept moist.

Let us know.

[597]

Wild guess here but if the cigar when you cut it was "crumbly" it may be the cigar (I believe you mentioned you bought from JRs).

The humidity shouldn't be a problem (assuming the humidity reading is correct). You may be using to much force to "squeeze the cigar" when you hear "crackling". Your only suppose to lightly squeeze it with minimal force and see a slight sponge movement on the tip of the cigar.


The only other explanation of the loss of humidity is that the seal on the humidor may be bad and humidity may be lost at the higher temps (you mentioned I believe 74-75 F, most recommendations are to keep cigars around 70f at 70% humidity).

If your still having problems after verifying the above I'm not sure what the problem is.

[primus67]

25 partagas no.1
23 partagas no.2
10 partagas no. 10

as far as i can tell, leaving the hygrometer for a while in the same place where my humidor is at kept it at 75% at 73 degrees.

i have a foam humidor and the people at madelaine suggested this one:

http://madelaine.com/products_detail...30&category=10

don't know if it will really make a difference or not.

and yes, the cigars came from jr. is that a problem? i've never ordered from jr before.

[kevin7]

No ,JRs is a good place to buy cigars.