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How to keep your stash from drying out

Bruce T.

Bruce T.

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I am an infrequent roller. I will sometime go months between sessions. I found it takes too much work to keep my leaf stash in case so I let it dry out and then a few days before rolling I spray it and bring it back to a workable level. I always thought that this was somehow detrimental to the leaf but I'm not sure. For those of you with lots of leaf (Webmost) how do you handle long term storage?
 
webmost

webmost

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Bruce T. said:
I am an infrequent roller. I will sometime go months between sessions. I found it takes too much work to keep my leaf stash in case so I let it dry out and then a few days before rolling I spray it and bring it back to a workable level. I always thought that this was somehow detrimental to the leaf but I'm not sure. For those of you with lots of leaf (Webmost) how do you handle long term storage?
Click to expand...
Simple...

Full bags from WLT stay in the bag they came in. They live in an open storage tub. No prob. Those vacuum packed hermetically sealed impermeable bags are good for years. Not making that up. Have some, years old, good condition.

Open bags go in coolers -- filler bags in one chest, wrapper in another. I've put wireless remote humidibbidditymeters in each chest and I can confidently report that those things stay as stable as a crocodile's crypt down deep in a pyramid. Never wavers. Nunzoid.

Any bags from LO are treated as open bags. Not worth crap.

Key, of course, to keeping the long term coolers stable is don't go opening them all the damn time. I only open my storage bins when I am ready to stock my working bins. These are Coleman 24 can stackable coolers. There's a brown stacker holds filler I am using just now, a blue one holds wrapper and binder I am using just now. I keep them separate so that the drier filler doesn't leech damp out of wrapper. I may have to put some big Bovedas in these from time to time, or spritz the insides of the lids. Someone gave me a huge supply of used 84% bovedas once. I still have a big batch of these. I used to use crystals in a short nylon stocking. That worked.

Screw distilled water by the way. That's too obsessive. When you consider the cigar factory uses giardia water in an old barrel, from a tap you would never consider drinking out of, well... just use water.

Last, to condition wrapper, I have recently added a third stacker to the mix. This one has a faux tupperware tray from the dollar store holding a shallow pool of water, a mini fridge grate over that so leaf doesn't fall in. That FX shade for example comes dry as aboriginal dust. I set a hand in there on that rack for a few days to let it gently come to terms with its new life. I haven't tried it yet on a whole lot of other wrappers; but I did try it on four wrappers from the wrapper bin which were not flat enough for my liking. Stretched 'em out, set them in there, stretched again in a couple hours, let 'em set... worked great. Really made them lay limp.

But this type of elaborate arrangement prolly makes more sense when you have a whole schidtpile of leaf; not so much when you have just a few pounds. The bare essentials would prolly be buy from WLT, put them in an ice chest, save those bags so you can put your LO into WLT bags. Seal them up with packing tape when done.

Here's an old pic of my stash two years ago... prolly twice that now ... need to take another ... but if I tried to take a pic of the whole pile I wouldn't have room to stand back and capture it all:


Those two top right are what's called stackers. They're only about 15 bucks from Amazon.
 
Bruce T.

Bruce T.

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Thanks for the quick reply Webmost. I think I'll bring what I have up to case and stick it in a cooler. If nothing else it will stop me from having to plan my rolling a week in advance.
I like your comment about distilled water. I use that on my KL in my humidor but I agree about the leaves. This hobby gets more enjoyable when you can stop obsessing about stuff.
How about opinions on letting leaves completely dry out. Does this damage their flavor or other attributes? People say that a dried out cigar has lost its oils and can never be fully restored to its former glory. If that is true then it must be true for the leaves themselves ????
 
blisscigarco

blisscigarco

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