Found my old cigar stash

[ElReyDel757]

I switched exclusively to Cubans in 2016. Today, I found a 5-10 year old stash of about 25 Nicaraguan sticks, mainly Opus X. They are in a basic Tupperware (pictured below) with 2-3 brick hard, completely dried up 69 RH Boveda packs. The Bovedas are at least 5-6 years old, so who knows how long they have been completely dried up. The thing is, the sticks seem to be in prime condition. They seem silky, with no mold, and no dry or brittle sticks. 

Obviously, I will know their true condition when I smoke them, but how have they remained in great condition? I live in a humid area (Mid-Atlantic/Southeast US), and in the summer, it can get up to over 100-110 Fahrenheit outside and up to 74 or so Fahrenheit in the house. Is this simple Tupperdor maintaining them even without a functioning Boveda?

[Nevrknow]

Lightem up and let us know! 🤙

[JohnS]

1 hour ago, ElReyDel757 said:

The thing is, the sticks seem to be in prime condition. They seem silky, with no mold, and no dry or brittle sticks. 

Obviously, I will know their true condition when I smoke them, but how have they remained in great condition?

It's a real testament to the oft-quoted and believed maxim, within our hobby, that cigars are much more resilient then what we give them credit for. 😉

[WABOOM]

 

5 hours ago, ElReyDel757 said:

Is this simple Tupperdor maintaining them even without a functioning Boveda?

 

Yes.

 

[RDB]

Locking tupperware type boxes are incredibly good at maintaining the humidity. I use them for all my storage except dry boxing, and basically never have to replace the bovedas.

In this case just spark one up and see how it is! If it’s a bit dry, put some fresh bovedas in there and leave it all alone for a couple of months to stabilise at a slightly higher humidity level.

[ElReyDel757]

10 hours ago, RDB said:

Locking tupperware type boxes are incredibly good at maintaining the humidity. I use them for all my storage except dry boxing, and basically never have to replace the bovedas.

In this case just spark one up and see how it is! If it’s a bit dry, put some fresh bovedas in there and leave it all alone for a couple of months to stabilise at a slightly higher humidity level.

Yes I just put a couple fresh Bovedas in there. I guess my room temperature has kept them good all these years, as the Bovedas could have been dried out for years. I just assumed no Boveda = bad news.

Strange thing is, I did have a mold issue in my pre-Cuban days with a very similar setup. Perhaps I was using a different Tupperdor, I cannot recall.

My coolidor has about 30 full boxes of Cubans and I haven’t had to change the Bovedas in 5 years. 

 

14 hours ago, JohnS said:

It's a real testament to the oft-quoted and believed maxim, within our hobby, that cigars are much more resilient then what we give them credit for. 😉

Many have said that, but I am an over thinker/constantly worrying. Especially since I had a mold issue in my pre-Cuban days with a very similar setup. Perhaps I was using a different Tupperdor, I cannot recall.

[smbauerllc]

14 hours ago, JohnS said:

It's a real testament to the oft-quoted and believed maxim, within our hobby, that cigars are much more resilient then what we give them credit for.

Very true.
We all love them to the point of paranoia about everything regarding storage, treatment, etc.
 

8 hours ago, ElReyDel757 said:

Yes I just put a couple fresh Bovedas in there. I guess my room temperature has kept them good all these years, as the Bovedas could have been dried out for years. I just assumed no Boveda = bad news.
Strange thing is, I did have a mold issue in my pre-Cuban days with a very similar setup. Perhaps I was using a different Tupperdor, I cannot recall.
My coolidor has about 30 full boxes of Cubans and I haven’t had to change the Bovedas in 5 years. 

Yeah, good tupperdoors and coolerdors with gaskets and locking clips seal incredibly well. Bovedas will last an eternity.

Just got into tupperdoors about a year ago myself, but the bovedas in all of them are still as plump as the day I bought them.

Same with my 74qt container, except it also has Heartfelt beads along with some bovedas, and after about 6 months, they too are nice and plump and the beads haven't needed any water.

Am considering switching to bovedas exclusively in it though as they seem to react quicker to getting the rh back up after opening than the beads alone did, but I'm in no rush to do it. Have the needed (I believe) 2, 320gr bovedas on my Christmas list.

This certainly wasn't the case with my wooden humidors where I had to use 75% bovedas to maintain 64% rh, and they only lasted about 6 months at most.

Glad I was tipped off to usung good Sistema tupperdoors on the forums instead. WAY better setup, just not as pretty

 

8 hours ago, ElReyDel757 said:

Yes I just put a couple fresh Bovedas in there. I guess my room temperature has kept them good all these years, as the Bovedas could have been dried out for years. I just assumed no Boveda = bad news.
Strange thing is, I did have a mold issue in my pre-Cuban days with a very similar setup. Perhaps I was using a different Tupperdor, I cannot recall.
My coolidor has about 30 full boxes of Cubans and I haven’t had to change the Bovedas in 5 years. 

Even if they were very dried out, they can be rehydrated with enough time, but may or may not taste the same if a lot of the oils have evaporated.

A CNA here gave me 6 very dried out Acids to try, and after a few months they were completely rehydrated and while disgusting, they certainly didn't seem to have lost any flavor. Still tasted strongly like smoking potpourri, lol

[Bijan]

That the bovedas are dried up simply means that the relative humidity in the container is somewhere below 69% (since they are 69 bovedas) and has been that way for a while. Could be 62% or 65% though which would still be fine.

Edit: as evidence of this I have stored some of the small bovedas that came with packages of cigars in my coolers that have large 65 bovedas. The 65 small ones from foh are fine but the 68 or 69 from other vendors became hard pretty quickly. (I didn't realize they weren't 65 when I put them in).

[smbauerllc]

5 hours ago, Bijan said:

That the bovedas are dried up simply means that the relative humidity in the container is somewhere below 69% (since they are 69 bovedas) and has been that way for a while. Could be 62% or 65% though which would still be fine.
Edit: as evidence of this I have stored some of the small bovedas that came with packages of cigars in my coolers that have large 65 bovedas. The 65 small ones from foh are fine but the 68 or 69 from other vendors became hard pretty quickly. (I didn't realize they weren't 65 when I put them in).

I keep all the bovedas I receive, in a small ziploc and they are a variety of all rh's and all stay nice and plump this way and I use them for whenever I send someone Cigars

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 

[prshah25]

Those opus X’s will taste phenomenal given the age in them.. 🤞 

[ElReyDel757]

4 hours ago, prshah25 said:

Those opus X’s will taste phenomenal given the age in them.. 🤞 

I hope so mi amigo, years ago I found them too strong and to be pepper bombs. 

 

5 hours ago, Bijan said:

That the bovedas are dried up simply means that the relative humidity in the container is somewhere below 69% (since they are 69 bovedas) and has been that way for a while. Could be 62% or 65% though which would still be fine.

Edit: as evidence of this I have stored some of the small bovedas that came with packages of cigars in my coolers that have large 65 bovedas. The 65 small ones from foh are fine but the 68 or 69 from other vendors became hard pretty quickly. (I didn't realize they weren't 65 when I put them in).

I guess this is what I’m not understanding. My coolidor Boveda packs are 5-6 years old and still perfect. My tupperdor packs are all bricks, which means it isn’t perfectly airtight. If not perfectly airtight, how are they maintaining RH?

[Bijan]

4 hours ago, ElReyDel757 said:

I guess this is what I’m not understanding. My coolidor Boveda packs are 5-6 years old and still perfect. My tupperdor packs are all bricks, which means it isn’t perfectly airtight. If not perfectly airtight, how are they maintaining RH?

Either two things. 1. It isn't airtight and is slowly dropping from 69% down to the humidity of the room. Depends on how fast it drops/how tight the seal is and the humidity of the room and how long it has been.

2. It is relatively airtight but the cigars were dryer and sucked all the humidity out of the boveda and now the bovedas are dry but the system will maintain humidity as long as not opened.

 

It also depends on how much boveda you have as I don't think most containers are perfectly airtight.

[ElReyDel757]

2 hours ago, Bijan said:

It also depends on how much boveda you have as I don't think most containers are perfectly airtight.

The small tuperdor with about 25 sticks had 2 Boveda 69 packs. My coolidor with roughly 30 full boxes has 4 Boveda 62 packs and they are perfect 5.5 years later.

[Bijan]

16 minutes ago, ElReyDel757 said:

The small tuperdor with about 25 sticks had 2 Boveda 69 packs. My coolidor with roughly 30 full boxes has 4 Boveda 62 packs and they are perfect 5.5 years later.

Most likely the cooler is more airtight but also 62 is lower than 69.

If the cigars are alright, the tupperdors must likely be at 60+% anyways now without the boveda. Which means if they contained 62 bovedas instead of 69 they would likely not have dried out.

Edit: either that or you got to them in time before the humidity dropped any further.

[Doctorossi]

Here he comes... that guy...

 

Opus X are 100% Dominican.

[Cairo]

23 hours ago, ElReyDel757 said:

23 hours ago, prshah25 said:

Those opus X’s will taste phenomenal given the age in them.. 🤞 

I hope so mi amigo, years ago I found them too strong and to be pepper bombs. 

I have several ten year plus old Opus Xs, and they are still strong pepper bombs--way over-hyped and overrated imho--especially after you get in the habit of regularly smoking Cubans.    If I (rarely) smoke a Fuente my choice would be any Anejo or the Sun Grown Cuban Belicoso.

[ElReyDel757]

13 minutes ago, Cairo said:

I have several ten year plus old Opus Xs, and they are still strong pepper bombs--way over-hyped and overrated imho--especially after you get in the habit of regularly smoking Cubans.    If I (rarely) smoke a Fuente my choice would be any Anejo or the Sun Grown Cuban Belicoso.

Yeah the pepper bombs basically forced me to Cubans exclusively. Make no mistake, there are plenty of outstanding non-Cubans, but most I think are pepper bombs. I can definitely dig Padrons and many others, but nearly all Cubans are much more palatable, smooth, complex, etc.

[jonahs_whale]

That's a hell of a stash to dig up! I've been using an old pelican case style Durabox as my humidor. After calibrating my hygrometer, I'm finding that my humidor is always running a few points higher than the Boveda RH. I had 69s in for a while and that would run around 72%. Swapped em out for some 65s and now getting right around 69%.