Being a cigar lover and a bit of a perfectionist and egghead I've arrived at the following question: has anyone ever heard of and can source me a hygrometer with a long very thin needle like probe I could insert into the foot of a cigar to test the exact moisture level of my cigar (without messing It up) ? Not surprisingly, I've googled and come up with nothing.
The reason for this is I find an incredible amount of performance diversity in the same cigar based on where it is dryness wise at the time of smoking. As most of you know, the 70/70 (or 65/65 depending on which school you come from) rule of thumb is useful as a general rule for storing and aging but woefully innacurate when it comes to optimal smoking humidity level for individual sticks. Ring gauge, leaf type, ligero/nicotine content, etc all dictate different optimal dry box levels for each - meaning we are relegated to a lot trial and error and guess work until we come up with what we prefer for each cigar we enjoy. There's got to be a better way. I'd love to be able to test the actual humidity of a stick using said probe, note that, then smoke it, noting its performance arriving at the answer much quicker (with fewer bad smoking sessions in the process).
If such a thing doesn't exist (or is prohibitively expensive) sounds like something someone be needs to invent. Any engineers reading this who have knowledge on how a hygrometer works? Could the sensor part of a hygrometer even be crafted into a thin needle? If that is impossible based on the physics of it all, would be great to know that so I can end the search.
Xikar? Bill Nye the Science Guy? are you reading this?
The reason for this is I find an incredible amount of performance diversity in the same cigar based on where it is dryness wise at the time of smoking. As most of you know, the 70/70 (or 65/65 depending on which school you come from) rule of thumb is useful as a general rule for storing and aging but woefully innacurate when it comes to optimal smoking humidity level for individual sticks. Ring gauge, leaf type, ligero/nicotine content, etc all dictate different optimal dry box levels for each - meaning we are relegated to a lot trial and error and guess work until we come up with what we prefer for each cigar we enjoy. There's got to be a better way. I'd love to be able to test the actual humidity of a stick using said probe, note that, then smoke it, noting its performance arriving at the answer much quicker (with fewer bad smoking sessions in the process).
If such a thing doesn't exist (or is prohibitively expensive) sounds like something someone be needs to invent. Any engineers reading this who have knowledge on how a hygrometer works? Could the sensor part of a hygrometer even be crafted into a thin needle? If that is impossible based on the physics of it all, would be great to know that so I can end the search.
Xikar? Bill Nye the Science Guy? are you reading this?
Last edited:
