Trouble keeping my cigars lit - humidity?

[derwood]

Feeling newbie-ish and thought I'd get some advice from everyone. I've been having a hard time keeping my cigars lit. I'll cut, light, they'll be doing fine. I'll puff probably about every minute or so. Seems like after about 5-10 minutes, they'll go out. Then not want to stay lit. I've had the issue consistently, with well made sticks, Undercrown, Oliva, LFD, etc... Today's Undercrown cracked something fierce after about 20 minutes as well.

I finally just got my coolidor dialed in humidity wise about 2 weeks ago. Before it had been sitting around 70% and maybe a little more and finally got it stable at 65-66%. (Man are those good numbers to see!) Also re-calibrated my hygrometers. Is it a case of the sticks just needing more time at 65-66% ??

 

[sean]

I think you are headed in the right direction... it is going to take a little while for those sticks to mellow out. The hygrometers are reading the air's RH and the sticks are going to be a little higher than that for a little while... What's the ambient RH out there in Indiana these days? You might try dry-boxing your sticks to egg them along before you light them.

 

[StogieNinja]

Yep, just needs some time. THe sticks you mentioned especially do well at sub-65% rh imho, so I'd give them a good four weeks or so to acclimate to the new lower rH before trying them again, or dry box for a good 2-3 days.

 

[derwood]

Thanks guys. Sean - just looked up humidity today.. 96% holy #$@%! It feels humid, but didn't realize that high.

 

[sean]

Whoa!! That can also hinder things... I've heard about ambient rh messing with burns. I'm not even sure you can dry box in those conditions.

We don't have those problems here in San Diego. Usually the relative humidity is somewhere below 50 unless it's raining.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[StogieNinja]

You can dry box in high rH... just put completely dry kitty litter in there, et voila.

You might have to bake the KL a bit to dry it out, and once you put it in with the cigar, leave it shut so it doesn't acclimate to the exterior rH.

 

[thedismaltrade]

I am having the same issue right now in Illinois-- high humidity is causing it. My humidor is 65% consistently and I still dry box my smokes for a couple days prior to smoking them. But, right now, it's a battle to smoke one outside on the porch.

 

[Heath]

I was having the same issue not to long ago and it was because of the weather. It didnt matter what i was smoking it would burn out after about 5 minutes than consistently burn out the rest of the way through the cigar. Once I got my Air Conditioners put in and got the temp in my Humi down I didn't have any problems. I also got a empty cedar box to dry box before hand.