My Science project!

[DrBob]

Cigar #3 Humidity: ? 72% revealed after test

Nose: Sweet hay

Appearance: Slight oily sheen, minor toothiness

Cold Draw: tobacco, and a hint of hay

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First 1/3:

Initial puffs have a bit of cream, twang, and light leather. Settles pretty quickly into just leather with a slightly bitter after note. Plenty of smoke but very monochromatic flavorin the first third. Slightly uneven burn, and the white flakey ash held about 1.5 inches.

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Second 1/3

Cigar remains predominantly leathery and the smoke is somewhat harsh starting the second third. Occasional sweet notes kick in but overall very monochromatic in flavor, though that single flavor is getting a little richer. Smoke seems a little hot on the draw.

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Last 1/3

A bit hot and dry. Leather dominates, big volumes of smoke, but still off putting bitter after tones. Smoke is notably hot, towards the nub more earthy and tarry and even hotter.

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Overall notes: Very simple in flavors, overall burned well, but had hot smoke throughout and disappointing bitter flavor notes. The cigar lasted about an hour and twenty minutes which was plenty long enough, though i put it down not very satisfied.

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[DrBob]

Cigar #4 Humidity: ?

Nose: Sweet tobacco, hint of hay

Appearance: Shiny, smooth, took a punch well.

Cold draw: Hay and sweet tobacco. Cigar very firm, but decent draw.

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First 1/3:

Cream and mild twang, tasty mild leather with hints of sweetness. Decent amount of smoke, burn slightly uneven to start. Cigar settles into light leather and subtle sweetness at about the 1 inch mark. Lots of fragrant smoke, cigar is tending towards a pretty well developed lopsided burn which i tried to fix with a touch up.

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Second 1/3

Ash held over 2 inches and just into the second third of the cigar. Partly because of the canoe support. After the ash fell the cigar attempted to go out, and I had burn issues throughout the second third, which was a bit frustrating due to the good volumes of fragrant rich mildly leathery smoke. Frequent double puffs and touch ups in the middle third, and cigar had a hard ash on the canoe Side.

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Last 1/3

At the start of the last third I cut the canoe off and gave the cigar a re-light. It finally began to behave better, and had a decent burn through the rest of the cigar. Flavors are leather and sweet spices, delivered through large volumes of flavorful smoke, and towards the middle of the third some pepper and earth began to kick in. A few minor wrapper issues, mainly due to the fresh cut, but the cigar ended well.

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Overall notes:

This cigar had good flavor, but the burn issues, extra puffing, and general maintenance detracted from its overall score. I think this was just a cigar with some construction issues, and the other two smokers did not have the same sort of issues I did, and reported decent flavor as well. Smoked about an hour and 22 minutes.

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[DrBob]

So the experiment is done, and the results tallied.

Based on flavor I rated the cigars from best to worst as: 1, 4, 2, 3. For burn and general construction: 1, 2, 4, 3. I also received ratings from the other two smokers and have tabulated the results below:

......Dr. Bob......John......Kris
Best:.....1...........2.........1
Next:.....2...........4.........2
Thrd:.....4...........1.........4
Wrst:.....3...........3.........3

John is the longest time smoker and is in his late fifties. Generally keeps his cigars about 70%, but when he lived in the south said often they were much higher. Kris is the second longest cigar smoker and is in his mid thirties. Kris likes to keep his cigars at 72% using a bovedas in a small wineador because he thinks that that humidity brings out more surface oils. I like to keep mine at 69% and also use a wineador with bovedas. 69% i came at through trial and error about a year ago, and I am late forties and have been smoking cigars for just under 2 years.

After we rated them my lovely assistant (AKA wife) revealed the humidities of each cigar to us. Prior to that point we had blindly smoked and rated them.

Humidities:

Cigar 1: 62%
Cigar 2: 69%
Cigar 3: 72%
Cigar 4: 65%

General observations: Overall we all liked cigar 3 (72%) the least. Two of us ranked cigar 1 (62%) the best and all of us had cigar 2 (69%) in our top two. Overall cigar 2 slightly edges out cigar 1 but its close in the numbers.

John most liked cigars in the range of 65-69% so slightly drier than he has been smoking them. Both Kris and I jumped from 62% to 69% for our top 2 cigars, but if based purely in flavor my personal ranking went 62%, 65%. 69%, 72%. Kris noted that all the cigars were fairly close in his ranking, though cigar 3, at his preferred humidity was clearly the least favorite...

So to summarize: We all preferred the flavor of drier cigars than we expected. I am somewhat concerned that storing cigars long term at 62% might deplete them of essential oils, but am considering keeping my main stock (>500 cigars) at the current 69%, and getting a secondary up on deck humidor to try some cigars at 65% and 62%.

Stay tuned for cigar experiment #2!

[Zeede]

I wish I could give you a dozen Thanks and Ring Gauge bumps for this!

It gets warm here, and I don't have a wineador, so I'm thinking I should go to a lower % RH for my next order of Bovedas for sure. Higher temps mean I need a lower RH%, since the moisture capacity of air increases with temp.

[Demuths1770]

when i started i was in the % of people that went with the 70% RH. as i got more into the forum and cigar smoking i was given 65% boveda. i will admit i was scared to store my cigars at this RH (even though many experienced smokers have been storing at 65 and below) my fear in the back of my head was it would be too dry. boy oh boy was i wrong!!! my sticks smokes so much better i didn't have burn issues and i started tasting flavors i didnt taste before! i have since dropped own to 62% and am still in love. i can tell a difference between one of my favorite sticks thats was resting at 62% and one that i grab at my B&M and light up right away which probably rested at 70-72%

[rodwha]

*Bad manners. Hijack averted. Sorry.*

[DrBob]

when i started i was in the % of people that went with the 70% RH. as i got more into the forum and cigar smoking i was given 65% boveda. i will admit i was scared to store my cigars at this RH (even though many experienced smokers have been storing at 65 and below) my fear in the back of my head was it would be too dry. boy oh boy was i wrong!!! my sticks smokes so much better i didn't have burn issues and i started tasting flavors i didnt taste before! i have since dropped own to 62% and am still in love. i can tell a difference between one of my favorite sticks thats was resting at 62% and one that i grab at my B&M and light up right away which probably rested at 70-72%

Definitely going to set up a second test, non-blind, where i compare several different cigars at 65 and 69%, and may takje a few more down to 62%. Having information I am now posed with what to do with it!

[droy1958]

I've never had a problem storing at 70 RH, the problem has been smoking at 70 RH. Thanks for your time and input....

[six10]

... but am considering keeping my main stock (>500 cigars) at the current 69%, and getting a secondary up on deck humidor to try some cigars at 65% and 62%.

FWIW this is what I do. Also with Boveda 69's. The 69's sometimes work in my ready to smoke 100 ct. wooden humidor too, depending on season. I just put less of them in.

Thanks for the experiment.

[Puros Abroad]

Great stuff, encouraging me to try it out on my own..