Keeping Your Cigars Safe.
If you smoke cigars and keep them in a humidor, you probably feel that they are pretty safe. You adjust the humidity, rotate your cigars regularly, and add additional fluids when needed. However, there are times when many cigar aficionados and have been shocked, amazed, and even repulsed when they find that there are Lasioderma Serricorne or also known as tobacco beetles that have infested their prized cigars. Inside the humidor and everything, the beetles do not care if they are dollar cigars from a drugstore or two hundred dollar cigars that have been imported. They will feast on either.
If you have not heard of tobacco beetles before and where they come from, they are beetles that are found in any and every country where tobacco is grown and produced. Tobacco beetles actually feed on any type of tobacco plant and they can infest their leaves before they are even processed. These tobacco beetles actually do much better in hot climates and in the warmer countries such as the Caribbean which is also where most of the world’s tobacco is produced. These tobacco beetles lay their larvas that are small, white, and around 4 mm long in the leaves. Then when these larva hatch, they produce moths that are very hungry and proceed to eat all the way through the tobacco leaves. Unfortunately, the tobacco beetle can survive the process of fermentation and the production that the tobacco leaves all go through prior to becoming cigars. The tobacco beetle is also highly resistant to pest sprays and gases used on most crops, so even though all countries that grown and produce tobacco have tried to rid their crops of these pests, the beetles are resistant and nothing seems to prove fatal.
Then if the tobacco beetles have survived through the entire process and have made their way into the finished product, someone opening a box of their cigars may find that their cigars have been completely eaten through. You can tell if your box of cigars has been infected by the very small presence of puncture holes all over the wrapper. Your cigars themselves will look like swiss cheese when the tobacco beetles are done with them.
Now, if you do find out that your cigars are infested with tobacco beetles there has been some research that has shown that microwaving your cigars may be the best way to get rid of the tobacco beetles larva. However, the cigars that already have holes in them just get rid of. There is no saving them now, so do not microwave those, dispose of them. With the remaining cigars, microwave them together, not individually, for about three minutes. Now that they are warmed up, immediately place them in the freezer for no less than 24 hours. After 24 hours remove them and let them thaw to remove temperature, then once thawed place them in your humidor. Utilizing this treatment has proven effective in removing the presence of tobacco beetles. You will still want to examine your cigars before smoking them to make sure there are no holes, if there are none than you know for sure that it is safe to smoke.
Darren Williger is a guitar playing, tea drinking, meditating, low carbohydrate eating, wine making sales maker who writes for CigarMaven.com, SmokersWebsite.com, and SavoryTea.com.
