Day to day cigar maintenance unlike cigar aging is much easier and less time consuming. Most seasoned cigar smoker will have two humidors, a aging humidor and a smoking humidor. The process of the aging humidor is covered in the “aging your cigar” section. The smoking humidor is typically kept at humidity between 65 and 70% and kept in a fairly cool environment. One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make when they don’t own a humidor is to place cigars within the refrigerator, not realizing that the fridge does the opposite and removes humidity from within the cigar. The suggested solutions that can be used for the humidifier is either distilled water “not filtered water” or special care solution.
The distilled water is more useful for the seasoned connoisseurs, it takes a lot more precision and needs to be constantly attended to. Reasons for this is because humidifiers meant for 50 cigars in a humidor with 5 cigars in them cannot be filled up or else it will release too much humidity and drench the cigars. So the amount of distilled water you pour in your humidifier is based on the size of your humidor, general room temperature and number of cigars within your humidor. The benefit of using distilled water is that if done properly one can “ sweat “ the cigar to fast forward through the aging process.
The special care solution also known as “propylene glycol” is a moisturizer that keeps the environment which it’s in at a constant 68 – 70% humidity. The benefit is even if a large humidification device is put within a little humidor with a small amount of cigars it will self sustain the environment at the right humidity without drenching your cigars. This system is highly advantages for people who cannot attend to their humidor on a daily bases, many people will use a very large humidifier in a fairly small sized humidor to prolong the time period in which the humidor care solution lasts.
When it comes to day to day care usually it comes down to a persons schedule and how often they can attend to the humidor. So based on your needs choose the right system for your cigars.