Hello and welcome to the second article in a series devoted to your cigar-related questions. Whether you be a rookie smoker or an old veteran, everyone has questions. In this group of articles, I will attempt to answer question from both. So if you need to know simple etiquette rules or how to handle infestations, be sure to drop by for a spell. You might just learn something you didn’t know.

 

Before you start reading any further, I would like to mention the format of this article. I will do a rotation of a beginner question, followed by a question from a more seasoned smoker. I’ll continue this patter throughout this entire series.

 

Question: When should I tap the ash off of my cigar? How much is too much?

Answer: Cigar ash is pretty strong and can last longer than you might suspect. Part of the answer to this question is environmental: what is the weather like? If it is too windy, you might not even have an opportunity to tap the cigar. But the real answer to this question is that you can probably wait until the ash is an inch long. Maybe a little less. At the very least you will want to wait until you have about a half inch of ash built up. There are two reasons for this: first, it would get tiresome to tap the ash every time some appeared. And second, tapping the cigar too much can actually damage it.

 

 

Question: Should I freeze my cigars?

Answer: I touched upon this in the previous article. If you just bought a batch of cigars from the store, you might want to consider freezing them prior to adding them to you humidor. This solves two problems: first, it ensures that your cigars do not hatch beetle eggs if they are infested. And second, it ensures that if you do have beetles in those cigars, they do not spread to your existing cigar stash.

 

For a full explanation of how to freeze and defrost your cigars, check out the previous article in this series. If it seems like a hassle, imagine the hassle of having to replace your cigar stash!