Vacu Sealer - Use With Caution

[j6ppc]

If you use a vacu sealer take care that you stop the vacuum prior to ruining the cigars. Trust me on this it can get pretty ugly. I pretty much trashed two packages that way; one has been made good the other will be taken care of as soon as I get the replacement smokes.

Stronger setting + full vacu cycle =

Perhaps Darrel could share pics as he was the "lucky" recipient of a dozen "box press from hell" cigars.


Yeah I'm an Idiot.

[montecristo#2]

Originally Posted by j6ppc

If you use a vacu sealer take care that you stop the vacuum prior to ruining the cigars. Trust me on this it can get pretty ugly. I pretty much trashed two packages that way; one has been made good the other will be taken care of as soon as I get the replacement smokes.

Stronger setting + full vacu cycle =

Perhaps Darrel could share pics as he was the "lucky" recipient of a dozen "box press from hell" cigars.


Yeah I'm an Idiot.

I definitely use the manual vacuum and seal buttons when I am vacuum sealing. Were you vacuum sealing the cigars naked or inside a box? I always vacuum seal cigars in a box, not free sticks. I would think a ziplock bag would be fine, since you would have to stop the vacuum seal well before all the air was gone anyway or you would crush the cigars, which from the looks of it you have experienced (which sucks, sorry to hear about that).

Normally when I am vacuum sealing a box, I stop at soon as the vacuum seal bag is 90% against the box. After I seal there is still a small amount of space when I pull the bag.

[RJT]

I would say vacu seal would be over kill for a package unless you were vac/sealing a whole box. I simply fold the loose bag tight and tape it down so the cigars cant move around inside the bag. Then I wrap the bag in bubble wrap and tape the bubble wrap down. Then I pack the box so the cigars cant move around in the box with news paper or packing peanuts and I have never had a problem. The biggets thing espically shipping non celo cigars is to eliminate movement of the cigars so they dont rub and damage the wrappers. Depending on the time of year and distance I might throw in a water pillow but I would never put the water pillow inside the bag with the cigars. I would simply put it in the box. I would not want it to leak out onto the cigars. I have seen a Humidi Pak bust open in shipment.

Sorry to hear about your cigars. RJT

[j6ppc]

Originally Posted by montecristo#2

I definitely use the manual vacuum and seal buttons when I am vacuum sealing. Were you vacuum sealing the cigars naked or inside a box? I always vacuum seal cigars in a box, not free sticks. I would think a ziplock bag would be fine...

Naked. Like I said, a mental lapse .

[opus]

Alas, I made this mistake in the beginning also. I rarely vaccuum seal smokes I am sending now. It can be done correctly though.

[The Professor]

I want to start by saying that I have no ill feelings about this at all. Jon is a good friend, it was an honest mistake, and he has been insistent about "making good" on it. We'll look back on this and laugh some day. In fact, "box press from hell" has become a bit of running joke. Anyway, Jon asked for pics; so here they are (in a box I put them in for storage):







Like I said before, there's no hard feelings here at all and I wouldn't have even posted pics if Jon hadn't asked me to. Seems like others have done this before, too; so hopefully this thread and the pics can be instructional as to what you want to avoid.

~Darrel

[KyLongbeard]

Good to hear there are no hard feelings about it. Sure did a number on 'em though.

[Da Klugs]

Putting them in a baggie first helps immensely. Bubblewrapping the baggie gets it even better. Using the "Instant seal" is the poo.

A former scruncher.

[montecristo#2]

Damn, that is a lot of good smokes as well.

Why couldn't it be the package of cremosas?

[muziq]

God, that's hard to look at. Makes me wanna heavily. Thanks for posting this info, though...very helpful to a newbie like me who is just getting started in trading, etc...

[catfishm2]

My expensive vacuum sealer:




Insert the straw into the bag and seal the opening up tight to the straw. Suck the air out as you withdraw the straw and then seal shut as the straw comes out. Works every time as long as the bag doesn't have a tiny hole.

I know what you mean though. I received some cigars that had been sealed to tight by a mechanical sealer once. They had the nicest little diamond tread on the wrapper. Strange looking, but they smoked fine.

[Twill413]

I hope you still plan on smoking those Darrel...just not in public. I am getting a vacu sealer for Xmas. May have to practice on some Phillies. See they are good for something.

[omowasu]

+1, I would still attempt to smoke them. Who knows, they could be phenomenal after the "vacu-press"! No sense in letting them go to waste, and they may loosen up a bit after a month in the humi.

And, Jon, I think you have found a new solution to Habanos SA's elimination of smaller RG sticks!

Thanks for the words of warning Jon, I was mulling over a shrink-wrap purchase today and would have never thought of this. I have heard of actual boxes being crushed as well though.

[decesaro]

[SIZE="4"]They look more like beef sticks than cigars now ,pull the labels off and give them a try... LOL [/SIZE]

[RPB67]

Vacuum sealing is good.

But obviously it needs a lot of attention as we can see by the photos above. I just started sealing a few boxes for long term storage and it seems to work out great.

Vacuum sealing is great for shipping. Just pay attention or you will have cigar jerky.