Expert: James Yee - 7/5/2007

Question
Dear James.
How are you doing?  I have a question which is need for your advise.  before my humidor has 75% RH then you advised me to move the humidor to the cool place and use more PG. I did followed your advise then the humidity was dropped to 68%.  Unfortunately, the humidor did not maintain that level as long as expected. After few days the humidity increased to 85% even It was keep in the cool place.  Then some cigar stick has a whole which was eaten by the bugs as I found some tobacco bugs in the humidor.  I removed the cigar ruined already.  Now I removed all cigar out the humidor and keep them in the normal cigar box then open the humidor lid to dry them out, Please advise me to maintain the humidity level for keeping cigar in the good condition as long as possible.  Thank you very much for your advise

Answer
Hi Andy,

After adding PG to your humidor, you will need at least 1 to 2 weeks for the humidity to stabilize and return to 70%.  During this time, it is not uncommon for the humidity to be as high as 80+ percent.  What you should do now is keep your cigars separate from your humidor and allow your humidor’s humidity to return to normal.  If after two weeks, the humidity still does not return to normal, check the humidity and temperature of the room you are keeping your humidor in.  The room’s temperature and humidity should not exceed 70% humidity and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next important step is to visually inspect your cigars for mold or tobacco beetles.  Any tobacco beetle holes in your cigar(s) would mean that the temperature in your humidor is greater than 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  Carefully examine all your cigars and any more cigars with tobacco beetle holes must be thrown away as they cannot be smoked now.  Cigars that do not have any visible holes can still be saved.  Take all your cigars without bug holes and put them in a plastic Tupperware container.  Place the container in your freezer and freeze the cigars for 48 hours.  This will kill any beetles or beetle eggs that may still be inside your cigars.  After 48 hours, your cigars will be safe again and you can return them to your humidor (after the humidity has stabilized).

Mold can form when the humidity exceeds 80% humidity for a long period of time so you must now carefully examine your cigars for mold.  Mold is usually white, grey, blue, green, light blue, light green in colour and appears fuzzy in texture.  Cigars with a light to medium formation of mold can be saved.  What you would need to do is gently wipe the mold off your cigars with a piece of paper towel gently soaked in distilled water.  When wiping the mold, do not rub the cigars too hard or you may damage the cigars.  After the mold has been removed, carefully and gently wipe the cigars with a bit of isopropyl alcohol.  This will kill off any mold spores that may remain on the cigars.  After using isopropyl alcohol, you can gently wipe the cigars again with more distilled water before they are safe to be returned to your humidor.

After the PG in your humidor stabilizes the humidity back to 70%, it will be safe to store your cigars in your humidor again.

Regards,
James