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Todays post by Aussiewazz has once again brought to mind the question of freezing cigars.
I have only once had an incidence of beetle infestation and fortunately it was only in a few cigars which by luck were still in the tupperdor and had never been relocated to my main humi. The two that were holed were binned and the remainder smoked, beasties intact.
My question is this, is freezing the best/only safe way to deal with new stock, and does it affect the cigars adversely? I discussed this a few years ago with a, sadly now deceased cigar smoker and collecter I knew over in Hong Kong and his opinion was that it was detrimental to the taste. He had smoked and collected cigars for over 30 years and at that time had, wait for it, around 3500 cigars in his humi. He always bought by the box and all were kept in their original boxes in his humi and all were regularly and meticulously checked by him. He reckoned that he had only ever had to discard about 2 to 3 boxes worth and if he ever found a beetle he would remove the affected individual cigars, place the rest in a tupperdor, freeze the empty box to kill anything in it then replace the cigars in it and keep a closer watch for a while and 9 times out of 10 the problem was solved.
Now I am sadly not in a position to buy by the box and don't think freezing my Humi would do it much good so once again the question arises. To freeze or not to freeze.
Your comments appreciated.
I have only once had an incidence of beetle infestation and fortunately it was only in a few cigars which by luck were still in the tupperdor and had never been relocated to my main humi. The two that were holed were binned and the remainder smoked, beasties intact.
My question is this, is freezing the best/only safe way to deal with new stock, and does it affect the cigars adversely? I discussed this a few years ago with a, sadly now deceased cigar smoker and collecter I knew over in Hong Kong and his opinion was that it was detrimental to the taste. He had smoked and collected cigars for over 30 years and at that time had, wait for it, around 3500 cigars in his humi. He always bought by the box and all were kept in their original boxes in his humi and all were regularly and meticulously checked by him. He reckoned that he had only ever had to discard about 2 to 3 boxes worth and if he ever found a beetle he would remove the affected individual cigars, place the rest in a tupperdor, freeze the empty box to kill anything in it then replace the cigars in it and keep a closer watch for a while and 9 times out of 10 the problem was solved.
Now I am sadly not in a position to buy by the box and don't think freezing my Humi would do it much good so once again the question arises. To freeze or not to freeze.
Your comments appreciated.
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