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Freezing Concerns

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I noticed a couple tiny perfect circle holes in my Short Story cigars in my dry box. I had never looked for beetle holes so could be that I'm only noticing them now b/c I was searching for them. Could be they happened before being frozen by manufacturer and I have no problems. Could be tiny imperfections and not beetle holes. That being known, I am seasoning my wineador now for a deep storage solution. So figure I should freeze any cigars from my dry box before putting them into the wineador for deep storage. The cigars are very nicely aged already so dont want to screw this up. Figure I can put them in a ziplock and then seal another bag around that (basically a vacum seal bag without the vacum so I dont suck the moist air out). Toss it in fridge for a day, freezer 2 days, back to fridge for a day, then to final home in winador.

Please correct me if any of the above sounds wrong.

My lingering concern is if freezing causes any harm at all to finely aged cigars. I've put years into keeping them well aged with humidity control and dont want my Opus X BBMF to get screwed up just because I'm freezing it out of paranoia. I'm fishing for a confidence boost or alternative opinion :)
 
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I think you have a pretty good understanding of what you are doing. Normally I thought it was more like 2 in fridge 3 in freezer and one or two back in fridge. I normally just double zip lock them but tI only freeze Cubans. Very rare to have beetle problems with NCs Freezing won't hurt but it's important to go ahead and isolate them now if it is beetles you don't want them taking over. If you will sleep better freeze the Hemingways

I hate messing with cigars I've spent time aging but it is your call. Maybe a close eye on the others is all that's required at this point, not knowing for sure what the problems are.
 
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Great feedback!! I’ll adjust my fridge/freezer time per above.
 

IronW

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I freeze 90% of the cigars i buy and have no issues. My freezer gets down to about 5 degrees so 48 hours is sufficient, though I frequently do 72 hours to be safe. Then the fridge for 12 to 24 hours and into the humidor. Here is some info on freezing temperatures and time:

The figures below are time to kill 95% (abbreviated LT95) of eggs exposed to the environment. Keep this in mind when applying these figures to cigars because 1) we want to kill 100% of eggs and 2) any eggs inside our cigars have a thick layer of insulating tobacco that must be cooled before the eggs will reach that temperature.

5c (41f) requires ~12 days (275 hours)
0c (32f) requires ~9 days (220 hours)
-5c (23f) requires ~4 days (100 hours)
-10c (14f) requires less than 24 hours
-15c (5f) requires less than 24 hours
-20c (-4f) requires less than 24 hours
 
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Nice table!! I’ll have to check My freezer temp to find out # days.
 
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I think most non-commercial freezers run around 0 degrees so maybe I have to check mine and keep them in a lot longer then I have been
 

StogieNinja

Derek | BoM June 2014
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Very rare to have beetle problems with NCs
The only beetle evidence I’ve ever found was in cigars from the My Father factory and the Fuente factory. And I mostly buy Cubans.

That tells me beetles can happen anywhere.

My understanding is that time to freeze directly correlates to time you need to freeze the cigars.
My understanding is that the times listed are times to death “at temp” so I always allow an extra 12hrs to ensure they get down to temp.
 
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Ok, so in a standard non-commercial freezer at 0 degrees F you need less then 24 hours of freeze time more time for the cigars to come to temp so say 2 days in the freezer. A day in fridge before and after freezing. Basically what I do but I do err on longer times more often then not. I've never frozen NCs received from a reliable vendor but it wouldn't be bad practice. Cigars I get from shops or friends seldom see my long term storage, I'll keep them in traveldors until I smoke them.

This thread was a good reminder that it's time to do another storage check.
 
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Fuentes don’t age well

Just smoke it

People overthink the whole freezing thing too. If it’s only a Short Story where you see holes, cut it open and find out
While I agree that Fuentes with Cameroon wrappers lose something after a few years, have a totally different thought about CBL and Sungrown wrappers. Those age marvelously well. In my experience Rosado wrapped cigars start to shine after 2 years and peak at about 5. Of course palates are all different so ymmv.
 
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Once the sticks are frozen, nothing bad will happen to them as long as they are in a Ziploc so keep them frozen longer just to be safe.
I freeze 100% of my cigars before they are allowed into my humidor. I freeze for 4 days. Never had a problem (knock on wood).
 
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Once the sticks are frozen, nothing bad will happen to them as long as they are in a Ziploc so keep them frozen longer just to be safe.
I freeze 100% of my cigars before they are allowed into my humidor. I freeze for 4 days. Never had a problem (knock on wood).
Is there a limit on how long to can freeze cigars with it having some type of effect on them? As in if i had a cigar I did not want smoke for awhile could i just toss the buddy in the freezer and not be worried?
 
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Is there a limit on how long to can freeze cigars with it having some type of effect on them? As in if i had a cigar I did not want smoke for awhile could i just toss the buddy in the freezer and not be worried?
I don't know the answer. I was referring to an extra day or two as not being a problem.
I suspect two issues with long-term freezing. One is that the cigars will dry out unless there is a perfect seal on the air tight plastic bag. Second is that it defeats the concept of cigars getting better with age.
 
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I don't know the answer. I was referring to an extra day or two as not being a problem.
I suspect two issues with long-term freezing. One is that the cigars will dry out unless there is a perfect seal on the air tight plastic bag. Second is that it defeats the concept of cigars getting better with age.
Ah makes sense. I am not familiar with aging cigars at all. I didn't even know it was a thing until recently
 
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I freeze 90% of the cigars i buy and have no issues. My freezer gets down to about 5 degrees so 48 hours is sufficient, though I frequently do 72 hours to be safe. Then the fridge for 12 to 24 hours and into the humidor. Here is some info on freezing temperatures and time:

The figures below are time to kill 95% (abbreviated LT95) of eggs exposed to the environment. Keep this in mind when applying these figures to cigars because 1) we want to kill 100% of eggs and 2) any eggs inside our cigars have a thick layer of insulating tobacco that must be cooled before the eggs will reach that temperature.

5c (41f) requires ~12 days (275 hours)
0c (32f) requires ~9 days (220 hours)
-5c (23f) requires ~4 days (100 hours)
-10c (14f) requires less than 24 hours
-15c (5f) requires less than 24 hours
-20c (-4f) requires less than 24 hours
Using the table above worked like a charm. Have migrated nearly 100 sticks from old humidor / new buys through this process since the post. Used a surface thermo to check freezer temp. Seemed to work well also.
 
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