Humidor Care - The Accuracy of Hygrometers

I am willing to bet that just about everyone who smokes cigars on a daily basis has a humidor in their house. Some people, as I was told today, have several. I received a humidor as a gift for being best man in a wedding. Up until this point I smoked cigars often but never thought about spending the money on one. Now that I had it I was pretty excited. I followed the instructions, got it up to the recommended 65% - 70% and started smokin'. Well fast forward to the present... I stopped smoking cigars for a little while and therefore my beautiful humidor just became a show piece on my entertainment center. When I started back up again, a little more educated now on cigars than I was back then, I noticed a few things not quite right.

After my last post I purchased a few sticks to have on hand. Two of which were the Cusano M1s and one was a Rocky Patel Vintage. I placed them in my Humidor, smoked one of the M1s and left the rest to burn another day. When I came home the following day I grabbed the Rocky Patel Vintage ($11.99), lit up and sat out on my porch. I immediately noticed that the draw was awful. I began to think that it was the cigar. I pulled hard and got barely a mouthful of hot nasty tasting smoke. Then I noticed the cigar was burning in weird patches and canoeing like mad. I began to get really disappointed. I love Rocky Patel cigars. I felt like I was let down by an old friend. How could they do this to me? I tossed it into my ashtray and went back in for the reliable, cheap M1 ($3.39). I sat down and lit up. I was just about to swear off Rockys for good when I noticed the same hot nasty taste coming out of the M1. I looked at the end to see the same patchy burn.

I started to investigate a little further. I started to examine the cigar to see if anything was different. I noticed that it seemed a little more "squishy" for lack of a better word. I pulled the Rocky Patel out of the ashtray and found similar squishyness. Finding the common factors I immediately went for the humidor. I noticed the hygrometer was dead center in the middle of the clearly marked "ideal" range. These results were anything but ideal. I pulled the hygrometer out to see that it has a screw in the back of it. This led me to believe that these things are not an exact science.

I turned to Google for my answers and I quickly found a way to test your hygrometer. Take a bottle cap and fill it with salt. Then drop some water on the salt (only enough to saturate, not enough to dissolve the salt). Then place your hygrometer and the bottle cap in a plastic bag. Leave it for 6 hours. The reading should be 75%. If your hygrometer is not at 75% use the screw on the back to adjust the reading accordingly. If you are in some kind of humidor emergency and need it to be perfect right now there is a less accurate but faster way to test. Remove your hygrometer and place it in the middle of a very damp paper towel. If your hygrometer is not reading 100% use the screw to adjust accordingly. After you return the hygrometer to your humidor you should be able to rest assured that your cigars are safe.

I tested mine using the salt method. The hygrometer was at 70% but dropped once it was in the plastic bag with the salt. My hygrometer was reading about 10% or more lower than it should have been. So my cigars were at 80% - 85% when they should have been at 70%. Just for reference mold is pretty much guaranteed at 90%+. So for those of you keeping track my faulty hygrometer cost me $15.38 plus tax by ruining two cigars. Now imagine if I had just bought that box of Rocky Vintage for $120+.

Now I'm left with a humidor that is at 80%. What do I do? It may take some time to get your humidor back down to an ideal reading. I left mine open for a little while to let it drop. How fast it drops depends on the environment. After it drops theres no guarantee that it wont go farther up or down. Keep an eye on it for a few days. You may have to repeat the initial humidor setup tasks.

The moral of the story is test your hygrometer before you put any cigars in your humidor. This goes double if you just bought your first humidor. If your cigars don't burn right or they taste awful this may be your problem.