I Picked up a couple of fiver's of RP Renaissance about three weeks ago. I lit one the next morning and the wrapper started to peel and flake. I let them sit for about one and a half weeks and had the same results. I've never had this with any others from the same retailer. Any suggestions ?
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I had the same issue. Weird thing is its not on all of them or just specific to one type. The cigars I have were mostly gifted to me. Maybe there was damage in shipping? Maybe drop in humidity while being shipped, not sure. But you can use Pectin to repair them, or just leave them.
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Just this one batch. ordered on Tue. was on porch Fri. wrapped bubble wrap. There not unraveling but flaking in spots.They look and feel fine until you light them. Humidors at 67%.
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Way too soon to smoke those. It takes two weeks or more for a cigar to acclimate. Most vendors ship wet, 70% or higher. If you are gonna smoke them ROTT you can expect burn or flavor problems. :-)
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:-)
You are a wise man, Bob.
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IME, I've had more wrapper issues with high-end cigars. They tend to use nicer-looking, but more delicate wrappers. I've also noticed that with those higher-end cigars, though, that a wrapper issue is often minor and will not make the cigar fall apart like can happen with budget smokes.
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Joe, I make habit of letting all my online purchases sit for at least a month.
Most online retailers keep their smokes around 70%. Rapid shifts in humidty do all sorts of strange things to smokes.
I think most times the "issues" stem from me putting my 70% RH smokes in my 65% humidors. The wrapper gets a lot of action in a real short period of time. It dries quickly and then all the water inside the cigar has to pass through it, and the cigars tend to become hard.
After they sit about a month, they tame down and become supple again.
If I want to smoke them quickly, I take a few out of their cello and lay them out naked in the humi. I can usually smoke them in a couple weeks, although they could use a little more time.
If I want to be more patient, I'll just open the end of the cello so all the extra water in the cigar leaves via the foot. It usually makes the foot all crunchy and the first half inch is pretty horrid, but the wrappers don't suffer so much. It takes about a month that way.
The best way I've found to pull them down is to put all the smokes in a humi jar with a little 2oz. bag of beads and put the closed jar in my humi.
It takes 6 or 8 months for them to settle that way, but they're perfect when I deal with bundles or fivers that way.
The slower I'm willing to bring their RH down, the higher quality the final product is.
I've been able to make some really crappy cigars really good with the humi jars. :-)

By far, in my experience, the best way to make any of my smokes good is to leave them cello'd, throw the whole box in the humi, and forget they're there for a year. :-)
I know that's not always an option or even desirable, but it works best.
I take care of all my Oliva stuff that way, and it really pays off.
Conversely, I like all my Fuente stuff (coming through Tampa Sweethearts) ROTT.
They keep there stuff perfect and its always ready to smoke when it arrives.
Another thing I try to do, and succeed pretty well, is to get most of my smokes from the WTS board here. The guys do a tremendous job keeping their smokes, and they're almost always ready to go as soon as they arrive. :-)
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Bob's right.
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I'll let them sit a couple more weeks or longer( been in for three weeks now) and try one again. Oldest ones I have are from 4/09 and thats only about a dozen. I only had a small desk top hopfully that'll change monday......come on fedex:-). I never thought about a cooler until I started looking around on line......thats how I found my new friends :-). I envey you guy that have some that are years old. This was the first ones I've had this happen to.
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