Beetles are not exclusive to Cuba.
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Beetles are not exclusive to tobacco. :-)
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Freeze everything you get from online vendors. I do not freeze sticks that I recieve from other BOTLs here.
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I personally do not freeze. I have a vino to keep the temp down. I think you should be safe ok especially since we are heading into some colder monthes.
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what if you don't have room in humi to leave sealed?? will it hurt to just open and put them in the humi?
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Wow, that beetle looks amazingly a lot like these little beetles that my parents had a problem with proliferating in their cereals. They were very persistent and would do crazy things like chew neat little holes right through aluminized plastic pouches! Similar to the cigar treatment, freezing does kill them (they threw out the infested food though).


Not to hijack this thread, but I've been having a persistent problem with what I don't think are beetles... unless they are *extremely* young beetles, and it's related to the topic of freezing. I have a little box of Davidoff cigarillos that I noticed had very tiny white bugs crawling in it one day. Not very many, just a few in one corner over a couple of the sticks. This followed a problem I had with over-humidifying them temporarily. I froze the box for almost a week, and now a few weeks later I find them again.

Both times I checked to see if they had spread outside that box to anywhere else, and they hadn't. For lack of a better idea I put the box back in the freezer a few days ago, where it is right now.

I might do a few freeze/thaw cycles and see if that kills them, but does anyone know what these critters are and how to kill them? They are almost microscopic in size, like little white/cream coloured grains of fine sand or salt that move. I can't even make out what shape they are, they're so small, and I haven't seen any larger ones or even holes in the cigars. :-)

Does wiping it down with alcohol (like cheap vodka) kill insect eggs?
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After having an outbreak of those dreaded little creatures that took out some nice sticks a couple years ago, I freeze all of my smokes. Knock on wood, haven't had an outbreak since.
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I can put all the cigars on my balcony now to freeze them, brrrrrr, it's cold outside.
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I personally will not freeze my cigars unless I receive an order from a retailor I have not done business with before ( haven't done that in years ) and for the most part I do my business with about 4 different places and all very reputable and never had a problem. I do buy cigars when the wife and I travel but I will smoke them before the week is done so if there are beetles or larvae inside of them they go up in smoke.

Having seen some of the pics and the devastation makes my head spin. I did have this problem about 7 years ago when I bought cigars outside of the USA and brought them home and put them into my humi,,,and lo and behold I started seeing the holes in my cigars. Total panic because I had some great sticks,,,was able to save them but I never wanted to go thru that experience again.
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I've done that as well in the past, you should be good... :-)
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I've frozen cigars in the past and didn't feel that I lost any flavor. I know I should probably freeze everything that comes in for safety's sake, but I almost never do unless I see a beetle hole in one of the cigars.
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Just a few notes for thought -

Freezing cigars is just insurance - sometimes you need it, sometimes you don't.

The actual time in the freezer depends on how cold your freezer actual gets. So just sticking them in a freezer for three days does not guarantee anything. You might need 7 days or you might only need 2.

The time in the refrigerator: it's a leaf - once it's cold it's cold - being in the frig for 24 hours does not make it any colder than after 6. In addition - what exactly is the purpose? To slowly bring the temp down? It's not like they are going to flash freeze once placed in the freezer.

Just because you froze your cigars does not mean you won't get beetles in those same smokes - they are certainly susceptible to infestation again, just not from eggs laid in them.

You don't want your cigars frozen? Too bad and too late. Even money says they were already frozen either at the factory or in storage. Sorry.

You don't want to freeze because you can taste a difference? Hold on - have to stop laughing so I can finish typing. Okay - I will send three cigars to anyone and dare that person to tell me which ones were frozen. I have done this before and no one could tell with certainty. In addition - see the note before this one - so yeah, too late.

And while I'm thinking about it - two zip lock bags? Why? Nothing is trying to get in nor out. Your enemy during freezing is the air-moisture condensation. And you can't get all the air out using a zip lock bag anyway. Best deal is to use a food sealer to suck out as much air as possible without crushing them. Do you think when they are frozen at the factory or storage facility that they double bag them?

Don't freeze cigars that you got from someone you know - or your local B&M? Really - those people and/or business don't have any more of a clue than you do if those smokes have beetles in them. Basing what to freeze and what not to freeze on "trusted" sources is bad practice. You either freeze everything or you don't. Half and half and then placing the smokes in the same humidor is just a waste of time. Again - previously frozen cigars can and will become lunch for beetles - they don't care cause they can't taste the difference.


Anyway - In over 40 years of smoking I have never had any beetles. Do I freeze? Use to. Use to freeze every single thing. Don't anymore as I have a freezer that I added a Johnson Controller on - and that's my humidor. Can keep it as cold as I like - normally set at 60 degrees.

So - just some food for thought -


Ron
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:-)....I like Ron
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I just wish he would say whats on his mind!!!
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That middle picture, that's ganja right? That must make the beetles even hungrier.
I'm with the group that don't freeze, did it once with half my sticks and they tasted flat, never came back.
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from this website: http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/6-m....htm#Factories

so it can be pretty much guaranteed that boxcodes after 2005 have been frozen
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I respect your opinions and experience greatly. However, I know of a good number of PSHC members that may disagree with you on the above.
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RGD: One real quick point. As you said the chances are that the cigar, or the tobacco has been frozen at least once in its journey to your humidor The greater likelyhood is that it has been frozen perhaps multiple times...

Now here comes the sticky point. If the tobacco has been frozen, wouldn't the water crystals forming in the tobacco do something to displace the oils and change the balance of the taste of the tobacco? Water and oil don't mix, and I am guessing that freezing probabally does change the taste of tobacco to some extent, but that we will probabally never know. My line of reasoning is below.

It would be well nigh impossible to prove or disprove your point that the taste of a cigar changes when it's frozen, as ALL tobacco has been frozen a number of times... I would guess the tobacco farmers, cigar factory, distributor and wholesaler would all want to protect their intrests

This then leads to the conclusion that it would indeed take a developed palate to tell the difference between the fifth and sixth freezings and thereby unless you roll a cigar fresh off the fields, you will never be able to tell the difference between fresh tobacco and frozen, because it's all been frozen.

I dunno, if anyone can spot a hole in my logic, they are free to correct me.
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It's good to disagree and have varying opinions - be a boring world with out.

This subject comes up frequently and has done so for years. Several years ago I gave four friends three cigars each who stated without a doubt they could pick out the frozen smokes.

I sent person #
1) 3 non-frozen
2) 3 all frozen
3) 2 frozen and 1 non-frozen
4) 1 frozen and 2 non-frozen

Person #
1) said 2 were frozen when none were frozen
2) said 1 was frozen although all were frozen
3) said 1 was frozen and selected a correct one
4) said 1 was frozen and selected a non-frozen one

The cigars were Fuente 8-9-8, readily available damn near anywhere - without the labels. I did not have/smoke Cubans at the time - hence the use of Fuente's.

Soooo - you know, what can I say. Be glad to repeat my non-scientific study.
Of course I'm sure that there are guys out there who can discern 7 year old burnt Madagascar vanilla with a hint of German truffle - I just don't know any of them.

:-)

Ron
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Exactly - :-)

Ron
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