You’ve a humidor full of quality, premium cigars. Some of them you might be aging, others are just waiting for you to smoke. Sound about right? If you’ve more than one layer in your box, have you given any thought to how you’re stacking them? If not, you might want to start, because you could be harming those wonderful cigars and not even know it.
One of the first things you need to consider is if you’re stacking the stogies while they’re still wrapped in the cellophane they came in or not. If your answer is “yes”, others naked, then you could be damaging some of the wrapper leaves on the naked ones. Consider stacking cellos and nudes together to prevent any kind of damage like that. In addition, you want to make sure to handle your nudes carefully if you’re moving them about, as some of the wrappers could be more delicate than others.
Next, you need to consider airflow. You want to make sure that the cigars are able to have air inside the humidor move about them freely so they can get the humidity they need. This also begs the question of if you’re storing wrapped or not. Nudes will have less of a problem with this unless you’re stacking 4 or 5 high. Cellos might have a little harder time. Some Smokers recommend cutting the other end of the wrapper (one should already be open, if not cut both) so that air cam move through the cigar at both ends. This’ll ensure proper airflow and humidity.
Finally, are you opening your box enough, and are you rotating? Believe it or not, with some kinds of humidors, you need to open them once a week or so to make sure you’re not having a buildup of Ammonia. This isn’t a bad habit to get into, as you should be inspecting your humidor about once a week anyway to check for mold, scale buildup, etc. You also need to make sure you’re rotating your cigars from bottom to top about every month or so to ensure that all the cigars are getting the humidity they need to stay fresh.
To wrap up, make sure you treat your cigars correctly when they’re sitting in your humidor. Failure to do so could turn a great stick into a sub par or lousy one. You should keep wrapped separate from unwrapped, make sure they can get the air they need, and rotate the cigars when they need to be. If aging is your game, you might want to keep similar flavors/brands stacked together and separate from others, to minimize the (small) risk of flavor transfer.
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