How Does Humidity Affect Cigars?

It is interesting to note that both cigars and humidors are crafted from organic materials that react to environmental conditions. For example, the cigar is full of cut tobacco leaves and wrapped up with a full leaf as well. The cigar humidor is built from decorative wood, and lined with soft cedar. The cedar and the tobacco leaves will both lose their moisture if the right level of humidity is not available. This means that properly using humidors requires them to first be balanced and completely humidified before any cigars can be safely added.

People who use humidors will usually have a few that are not in active service. This means that they are empty and are not being monitored for their levels of humidity. Before putting such a box back into service, the owner is going to have to re-season it and ensure that the wood lining the box is in good condition. It is significant to note that the cedar wood lining the humidor is very soft and prone to losing its moisture rapidly. If you place cigars into a humidor which has not been in use, the wood is likely to pull some moisture out of the cigars, and a balanced environment will be very hard to obtain.

Interestingly enough the humidors are the same because they are made from soft, cedar woods that can lose their moisture if not taken care of properly. This means that there are some challenges to creating the right conditions for storing cigars in their special containers. The first thing to do, before adding cigars to long-term storage containers, is to ensure that they are fully seasoned or humidified. This is a very simple process that involves the boxes, a device known as a hygrometer, and a small humidifier for each.

To resolve this issue the owner must leave the box empty of cigars, but put the hygrometer and the humidifier inside of it. They must then leave the box closed for several days and make periodic checks on the hygrometer reading. If it is unchanged after a day or two they may need to rebalance the mixture in the humidifier to allow evaporation to happen a bit more rapidly. This is done by changing the percentage of the PG (Propylene Glycol) to distilled water by small increments. Usually it is a 50/50 mixture for ongoing hydration, but if the wood is completely dried out, this mixture could be shifted to a bit less PG to allow more water to escape.

If a hygrometer is brand new it might take a full week to stabilize and get an accurate reading. Additionally, if the humidifier is not allowing enough water to evaporate this might slow down the seasoning process. It is important to check the levels daily within the first week, and if no changes occur the humidifier solution may need to be changed to a 40% PG level to allow the humidity to increase.