Expert: Bill Finck Jr. - 6/1/2007

Question
Hi, I smoke only cubans and have several quality humidors.  All have both analog, and digital hygrometers, and all are calibrated using the salt method. The humidity and temp both hover are 70*, and sometimes the cigars smoke perfectly with a beautiful, even burning light gray ash. Other times, however, it seems the inside of the cigar burns faster, and the wrapper burns darker, and not gray?  At first, I assumed this was from a rapid increase in humidity, but the room is fairly constant,and I have added no more distilled water.  Normally, I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about cigars, but frankly, I am stumped on this.  Any suggestions?   Thanks.  Paul

Answer
Paul,
Lots of things other than humidity affect the way cigars burn. The quality of the wrapper (oil, cure...) definitely have the most affect. Some wrappers characteristically burn a nice white ash, and some don't. Often when you have a cigar that burns faster on the inside than the outside the cause is the binder. Even with a good quality wrapper a binder that burns slowly/unevenly will cause this problem. Since tobacco is a natural product, there is no way to guarantee that every leaf will be the same, and sometimes you'll have issues like these even with great quality cigars. I think you just have to accept that some variation is going to occur. This probably isn't the answer you are looking for, but its the best I have for you.

Thanks,
Bill