Humidor Tips - Tips for Humidor Care and Maintenance

The most important part of having a cigar humidor is learning how to use it to properly store your favourite cigars. In order for your favorite cigars to maintain their best flavour and age properly you need to be able to store them in a carefully maintained atmosphere with the right level of humidity. For the best conditions your humidor needs to keep the humidity level at between 68 and 72%. Here are some tips on humidor construction and maintenance that will help you store your cigars properly.

To understand this better when the relative cigar humidity of the air is 70% at a temperature of 64F (18˚C) it contains about 10 grams of water per cubic meter of air, in these ideal conditions the cigar should absorb 14% of its own weight in humidity. These conditions will give you the ultimate flavour from your cigars and should allow you to store them for long periods of time without affecting the taste. If you allow your cigars to dry out they will burn too fast and taste somewhat bitter, if you allow the humidity to go over 80% for a long time they will rot or mold and have a heavy acidic flavor if they are even smokeable.

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While there is a choice in solutions for you to use in your humidifier you should weigh your options carefully, before choosing which one is best for your humidor and cigars. While you could just choose to use tap water, there are a couple of good reasons why you should not. Tap water contains many things besides just water; it contains trace minerals that will eventually clog the pores of your sponge making it far less effective than it needs to be to maintain your humidity level and tap water may contain bacteria and other chemicals that can affect the flavour of your cigars or lead to mold growth.

Don't Use Tap Water for you Humidor

Instead of using tap water, you should use distilled water, that way you know you are getting nothing but pure water and thus no chance of ruining your humidifier or cigars. The best solution for a sponge however, is a 50/50 mixture of distilled water and propylene glycol.
Propylene glycol is an odorless, colorless liquid that has two important properties that make it perfect for use in a cigar humidor.

First it drastically reduces the formation of bacteria inside your humidor. Secondly over time it forms a thin layer that covers every surface of the inside of your humidifier and absorbs excess humidity over 70% and releases moisture when the humidity level falls below 70% to keep a far more stable humidity level.

One of the last tips on humidors is how often you will need to refill your humidifier in order to maintain the optimum level of humidity inside. If you are using an acryl polymer humidifier material you will most likely need to refill it with distilled water approximately once a month. Never use anything else in these types of Humidors especially not propylene glycol.

When using a sponge the process is a little more complex, you will need to fill up the sponge with the mixed solution the first time and then once a month or so top it off with distilled water only as the water will evaporate faster than the propylene glycol. If the humidity in your humidor should suddenly drop you should go ahead and fill your sponge back up with the mix. Of course all of this also depends on how many cigars you are storing, the ambient temperature and how often you open your humidor.