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Had my first beattle

CigarSaint

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That SOB got to one of my cigars. I went into my stash last night and I noticed one of my cigars had a pin whole so I took it out and checked the rest. There was no sign of any more, but as a precaution I took my desktop humidor with about a 100 or so sticks and put it into my spare freezer last night. I was thinking of taking it out on Sunday evening then putting it into the fridge for 5 days or so.

What say you? Do you agree with what I've done?

Kill them all!!:gangfire::gangfire:
 

PLUSH

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Wonder if it was Ringo, Paul, or George. Or course it could have been John. :headroll:
 
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Sounds like a good plan of action to me. I do fridge for 12 hours, freezer for days, fridge for 24 hours. Everyone has a different process though but main point is to freeze IMHO though there is a huge debate surrounding loss of flavor etc. But I have not found that to be true.
 

Jfire

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That SOB got to one of my cigars. I went into my stash last night and I noticed one of my cigars had a pin whole so I took it out and checked the rest. There was no sign of any more, but as a precaution I took my desktop humidor with about a 100 or so sticks and put it into my spare freezer last night. I was thinking of taking it out on Sunday evening then putting it into the fridge for 5 days or so.

What say you? Do you agree with what I've done?

Kill them all!!:gangfire::gangfire:
I would never put a desktop actually into a freezer. Only its contents and hoping thats what you actually did. Let us know.
 

CigarSaint

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The loss of flavor is a chance I'm willing to take.... I've decided that I'm not going to put any more sticks in my desktop until I buy an avallo in the fall. I will just keep my new sticks at my B&M and grab one's from there for the weekend at my house.

The way I see it is the summers are so hot here in Louisiana that I want to conserve energy by putting my AC up to 78 during the day. We went on a 10 day vacation in early august and I completely forgot about my sticks.

My question is.... by purchasing the avallo 2000 do you think I will be OK in the future with setting my temperature to 78? Or should I keep it at 75?

I would use fans in the avallo.
 

Jfire

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I would take it out immediately. Empty contents of humi. Place them in a Gallon freezer bag or two. The problem is the wood in the humi expands and contracts with rh%. Drastically lowering the temp of wood that fast can make it crack. A very high possibility. Place the humi back in the fridge for a day then take it back out and start over again by placing the cigars in the freezer bags in the fridge for a day then the freezer for 2 days then the fridge for the last day. As far as the humi goes just vacuum it out and it will be fine. Hopefully the wood has not cracked from being in the freezer.
Edit:
Unless it was today just take the humi out of the freezer all together. If longer place it in the fridge for a day then back out.
 

twenty5

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Put cigars into Freezer bag
Put that Freezer Bag into another Freezer Bag
Put that into Fridge for a day
Put into Freezer for 2 days
Put into Fridge for a day
Vacuum out humidor
Put cigars back into humi
 

CigarSaint

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Alright.. I had the wife put all the cigars into two large freezer zip locks. I had her put the empty humidor in the fridge and the two zip locks in the fridge. So tomorrow morning I will transfer the cigars to the freezer for two days and then back to the fridge for a day.

Correct??
 
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The beetles can't live in wood to my knowledge so like they said just vacuum it out. My freezing process which I think I mentioned before is to double bag the cigars in gallon size baggies then put them in the fridge for 12 hours, freezer for 3-4 days and then fridge for 24 hours. I then let them sit in the baggies for 12 hours outside of the humi to getback to room temp and then put them in the humi. I go a bit long in the freezer though but that is partly due to my paranoia of ever getting beetles. I have all of my stash in one place so beetles would ruin me completely.

Edit: I am posting from my phone so I didn't see the above posts until after I did this one. I am still going to leave it though.
 

Jfire

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My post was confusing I know but thats cause I wanted you to place the cigars and humi into the fridge first then take the cigars out tommorrow once the humi and cigars came up above freezing. Now thats its done it doesnt matter. Your still on the road to recovery.
 
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I had an outbreak last summer. I did basically what everyone said but I used several freezer bags and only put several sticks in each to try and quarantine the beetles. I did fridge for 24 hours, freezer for 3 days, fridge for 24 hours then let them sit at room temp for half a day. Then, since I'm an anal Beotch I bought a new humi. Sorry to hear brother, at least you only lost one stick. I lost almost a dozen.
 
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Here is my method:

Triple Freezer Bag all cigars (suck out air with a straw).

Fridge for 24 hours
Deep Freeze 10 Degree F for 2 days
Fridge for 24 hours

Room Temp for 12 hours (before back in the humidor)
 
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I had a minor case like this earlier this summer. Picked up some stogies from an non-usual place, noticed a day later my Tat SW next to the "foreigner" in my humi had a "pin" hole. Immediately took out all my stogies and inspected them all for holes. Further, take your stogies and hold them above a white piece of paper with the foot pointed down, then give them a little tap like you're knocking off ash. If a good amount of black dust falls out, even if there's no holes visible, that's a sign of a beetle. The black dust is actually their feces. I then separate all my stogies by degrees of infestation. Any cigars with holes were immediately incinerated in a little bon-fire. Then I separated the ones with "evidence of fecal matter" into two bags; sticks with fecal matter, and sticks with only trace signs of it. All other sticks with no signs of holes, black dust (beetle $#*t) or any beetle contact were then bagged a 5er at a time and then bagged together in a bigger bag and placed in the fridge with the "black dust" bags separately too. 24hrs in the fridge, 48-72hrs in the freezer, another 36hrs in the fridge, then I set them out on my wine rack in my cellar (65F@62%RH) in the bags still with small Boveda Humi-packs in each smaller bag for a week. During this time, take your humidor outside and blow it out with compressed air, then go back inside, vacuum it out, wipe the insides down with a rag like you're seasoning it lightly again to collect any remaining "dust" or eggs left in the humidor. I then took a clean rag and repeated the process again, then set my humidor on my wine rack in the cellar as well until the sticks were ready again.

Even then, all stogies with any signs of fecal matter (black dust) were never returned to my Diamond Crown humi. Only sticks with zero signs of beetle contact were returned to the humidor. All sticks with signs of beetle contact were kept separate, in bags with humi-packs and inspected before any smoking. I ended up throwing out a handful of the moderate signs of fecal matter, the Tat SW with the hole and the three "foreign" sticks. A total loss of less than 10 stogies, and only about 5-6 have experienced any wrapper issues as a result of the deep freeze. I actually additionally let all clean sticks sit in the humidor for another week or so while I went through the "black dust" cigars. Not bad smokes still, didn't taste like $#*t at all.

Haven't had a problem ever before or since, and all things considered, I feel like I got lucky. The loss could have been far greater. Now, any sticks that aren't from my B&M never see my humidor. Foreigners get stuck in bags with humi-packs, just to be safe.
 
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