Turning Your Cooler Into a Coolerdor

Now that you have purchased and cleaned your cooler, it is time for cooler to become a man. The first step will be to line the sides of your cooler with some cedar. A good source for cedar are old cigar boxes. You may have some in your collection, or ask some friends for some. If all else fails, your local tobacco shop should be more than willing to drop a few freebies on you.

Note that this does not have to be perfect. No need to nail them on (do not, in fact) or certainly do not glue them (unless you like glue flavored cigars). Just set the wood against the wall. The reason we do this is to help the aging process of the cigars, help maintain the relative humidity, and to add that coveted Spanish cedar flavor to our stogies.

Next, figure out where you will want your hygrometer and humidifiers to go. Historically, the door works best for your hygrometer, either on the opening end or the center of it, and you will want around four humidifiers, if you go with the 150 quart cooler. How many ever you go with, remember to divide the space you have to work in by the number of humidifiers, and place accordingly.

As far as what to use for humidity, I would say to use silica beads, as they are effective, and cheaper than active humidifiers, and less messy than foam.

Creating a Good Environment for Your Cigars

Now that you have everything installed and set up, its time to create a positive environment. Fortunately, doing this is pretty simple now that everything is in place. Close your door, making sure the seal is tight, and put your coolerdor in its final resting place. Check on the humidity level every so often, and once it reaches 60-65% RH, it is safe to store your cigars.

You will want to keep checking on your RH for the first few days until everything stabilizes (and technically, checking RH is something you will always want to do, just less frequently). If the RH should ever fall below that 60-65% line, drop a damp sponge in the box; if it gets too high, take some cedar divides or a cedar block, pop it in the oven for five minutes, then freeze it until it is cool, and plop it in your box.

If those methods do not fix your problem, chances are you have too much empty space in your coolerdor. The goal is to keep your cooler half-full (at least). You can do this by buying more cigars or adding more cedar.

Summary

Well that is it for this episode. There are more tricks and tips to keeping up with your Coolerdor, but a lot of that is hands-on, trial and error business. Which of course, is part of the fun.

Enjoy, and let us know how it works out!

Comments (2)

Drop a damn sponge in the vox?
written by orca17, June 25, 2009

I assume you meant damp sponge.

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oops
written by Jon Caputo, June 26, 2009

fixed the typo - sorry!
thanks for catching it!

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