How to Store Cigars in the UK: Humidors, Boveda Packs and Central Heating
British houses go desert dry once the heating comes on. How to stop that wrecking your cigars, and whether you need 65% or 69% Boveda packs.
What humidity and temperature should cigars be stored at in the UK?
Store cigars between 65% and 69% relative humidity at 16°C to 20°C. Above about 72% you risk mould and tobacco beetles hatching; below about 62% the wrapper dries and the cigar burns hot. The British problem is not damp weather outside but central heating indoors, which drops a room to 25-30% humidity.
- 65-69% relative humidity, 16-20°C. Stability matters more than hitting an exact number
- A centrally heated British room sits at 25-30% humidity — drier than most deserts
- An airtight box with a Boveda pack works nearly as well as a humidor and costs a tenth as much
- Boveda 69% for wooden humidors that leak slightly; 65% for genuinely airtight containers
- Season a new humidor before you put a single cigar in it
The British problem is indoors, not outdoors
People assume a damp climate is good for cigars. It is not the outdoor weather that matters, though — it is the air in the room they are sitting in.
Central heating and double glazing between them produce remarkably dry indoor air. A heated living room in January commonly measures 25 to 30 per cent relative humidity. The Sahara averages around 25 per cent. A cigar left on a table in those conditions loses its oils and starts to go brittle within a few days, and a week is enough to ruin it.
Summer brings the opposite problem in some houses: a warm, still room in August can push a humidor above 24°C, which is the point at which dormant tobacco beetle eggs start to hatch.
So the job is not to add moisture. It is to hold a stable environment against a room that is working against you in both directions.
The numbers, and why stability beats precision
Aim for 65 to 69 per cent relative humidity at 16 to 20°C.
Below roughly 62 per cent the wrapper contracts, the leaf turns brittle and the cigar burns hot and tastes papery. Cracks along the wrapper are the visible sign.
Above roughly 72 per cent the cigar will not draw properly, the burn goes uneven, and mould becomes a real possibility. Above 24°C, beetles.
What matters more than the exact figure is that it stays put. A humidor holding a steady 66 per cent is in better shape than one swinging between 62 and 72 every fortnight, even though the second one averages the same. Every swing makes the wrapper expand and contract, and eventually it splits.
This is also why you should not chase the reading. Open the lid, the humidity drops, and you panic and add water. Two days later it is at 75 per cent. Leave it alone and let the system settle.
What to keep them in
A zip-lock freezer bag with a Boveda pack. Costs almost nothing, holds a handful of cigars for months, and is what most people should use for a week's supply or for travelling.
An airtight food container with a Boveda pack — a tupperdor. This is the honest answer for anyone with fewer than two or three boxes. It holds humidity better than most cheap wooden humidors because the seal is genuinely airtight, and it costs about five pounds. It looks like nothing, which is the only argument against it.
A Spanish cedar humidor. Worth it once you are keeping boxes, and worth it for a reason beyond humidity: cedar contributes to how cigars age and helps deter beetles. Buy on the quality of the seal, not the veneer. A humidor whose lid does not close with a soft thud is a box with a hygrometer in it.
Electric or cabinet humidors make sense above roughly five hundred cigars and not really before.
What not to use: the fridge, which is dry and full of food smells, and any container that is not airtight.
Boveda packs: 65 or 69?
Boveda packs are two-way. They release moisture when the air around them is too dry and absorb it when too damp, holding whatever number is printed on the pack. That two-way behaviour is why they are more forgiving than a sponge-type humidifier, which can only add.
Use 69 per cent in a wooden humidor. Wooden boxes leak a little, and the cedar itself takes up moisture, so a 69 per cent pack typically settles the interior around 66 or 67.
Use 65 per cent in a genuinely airtight plastic container. Nothing escapes, so a 69 per cent pack will hold the box at 69 per cent, which is at the top of the sensible range.
Replace a pack when it goes hard and stiff. A pack that still gives when you squeeze it is still working. In a decent humidor one pack per twenty-five cigars lasts somewhere between two and six months, less in winter when the room is drier.
Never let a humidification device touch the cigars directly.
Seasoning a new humidor
A new humidor is bone-dry cedar. Put cigars straight into it and the wood pulls moisture out of them for weeks. This is the single most common way people ruin their first box.
The straightforward method: put a Boveda seasoning pack — 84 per cent, sold for exactly this — inside with the lid closed, and leave it for two weeks. No cigars. Then swap it for your normal 69 per cent pack and give it another day or two before loading.
The older method is to wipe the interior with a cloth dampened with distilled water. It works, but it is easy to overdo, and warping the cedar is a real risk. If you do it, damp not wet, and never use tap water: the minerals in it encourage mould.
Either way, do not rush it. Two weeks of patience against a box of cigars is not a close contest.
Reading the hygrometer, and when not to believe it
Most hygrometers, including the ones bundled with humidors, are wrong out of the box. A new digital unit is commonly three to five per cent out, and the analogue needle type can be ten or more.
That matters because you act on the reading. A hygrometer reading five per cent high has you running a humidor at 60 per cent while believing it is at 65, and your cigars dry out slowly over months with no obvious cause.
Calibrate it before you trust it, and again every six to twelve months. There is a full walkthrough of the salt test and the Boveda method on the calibration page.
Put the hygrometer in the middle of the humidor rather than in the lid, where it will read the air by the seal rather than the air around the cigars.
What goes wrong, and what to do
Cigars have dried out. Bring them back slowly — lower the humidity target and raise it over a couple of weeks, or simply put them in a correctly humidified box and wait. Never rush it; a dry wrapper that rehydrates quickly splits. A recovered cigar rarely tastes like it should, but it is smokeable.
Something white on the wrapper. Plume is flat, dry and brushes off cleanly. Mould is fuzzy, usually blue-green or grey, smells musty and leaves a stain. If in doubt, treat it as mould: isolate the cigar and check every other one in the box.
Small round holes and dust in the box. Tobacco beetles. Seal the affected cigars, freeze for 72 hours, then move to the fridge for a day before returning them to room temperature so the wrappers do not crack.
Humidity will not come down. Take the humidification device out entirely for a day or two and let it settle. Over-humidified is easier to fix than mouldy.