Let me rephrase and bring the topic back to my original question.
So so as to not cause mold to grow, how long should I dry my cigars by letting them sit out before placing them in my humidor if I wish to smoke them at a later time and not within the next few weeks. I just squired a great antique drying rack and now have reason to use it for its intended purpose.
I just found mold in my scrap bag and it got me thinking about putting the wet wrapper/binder into a closed system before the leaf dries out. A rolling buddy of mine who started when I did has rolled about 6 sticks and put them directly into his humidor. After a few days he said he needed to air it out a bit to release some humidity because of the new sticks. This is why I am asking about time before humidor storage. I would hate to ruin some sticks because unsealed them up too soon.
And...... To add another question. What do people think about using a food dehydrator to bring high case wrapper that ended up not being used down to low case to be stored for a later time?
Thanks
I live not that far from you in Newark Dull-Aware. Air is in high case here in summer. I roll in my home office upstairs. I have a window air conditioner up there to save on the central air. Cools the office and the air falls down the stairs and makes life much easier on the central unit. Central air does not kick on until afternoon.
Anyhoo...
A/C blows right on the rolling table. A/C air is in low case. That really helps dry out fresh rolls. No matter how damp the wrapper, just a day or a day and night is most always enough to dry them out enough to box. I don't have a drying rack. I just leave them on top of a fine looking old humidor. I might roll them over once. Or not. Never had an ammonia prob that way.
In Winter, of course, with heat going, it's always pretty low case inside the house. In fact, we have a high-case-ifier that we spark up in Winter, sits right outside the office. Sucks up a couple gallons a day, once it gets good and cold out.
You can smoke one of my cigars right away. I just think they are tastier given a couple moons. Unrelated to any question of ammonia.
Now, when the filler itself is too damp, then that's another story. I do have a dry box where I can keep them critters separate for a month or so. Ammonia smell gives me a headache, so I don't let that happen. A packet of those drying crystals helps... but it takes some time to get things dry to the center. I never dampen filler Don sends me. It's always just right as is. Had some sticks get too damp when it cased cats and dogs two weeks straight riding out to Minnesota and back. They got white mold spots. I kept them apart from the others and smoked them up.
As for mold in the scrap bag, try this: My only scrap (which is not bloody much at all) is a few bits of left over wrapper. That becomes binder next time I roll. These are the bits cut out from the inner part of the wrapper leaf. I set these aside until I am done fooling round in the office. By then, they are dry enough to set in an ersatz tupperware from the dollar store. I'd say this unit is about maybe 14" long, 6" wide, and 2" deep. The lid is nowhere near airtight. So there is room inside for air, and I suppose slight air can get in and out. This is my binder bin. It lives inside the stackable cooler that I use for a ready supply of leaves. Nothing damp ever gets stored inside a bag. I never dampen any more wrapper than I am about to use right away. Have not had things go south doing this.
Now and then, I pinch some left-over binder to serve as organic natural humi-pak when sending out a package.
Let's say I am working to fill a box with a blend which I figure is boxworthy. In that case (no, not that other "case"), I'll roll most every day. Here's the routine:
I'll grab two new wrapper leaves from Don's bag, de-stem them, stretch them, and lay them between wet towel folds for a bit, to dampen. Next, I'll take four perfectos out of the mold. These are the sticks which I bunched and bound the day before. I never rotate my sticks in the mold. Sometimes I get a crease... mostly the crease rolls out. I set these molded blanks aside to expand a bit, so they aren't so tight. I'll bunch four more perfectos using the binder I cut last time and stored in the ersatz tupperware, stick these new bound bunches in the mold, and set it aside for next day. That just takes maybe 15-20 minutes, depending how engrossing the DVR'd MMA bout is that I am watching on the toob at the time. If it's Rhonda Rousey, I may have to stop what I'm doing and don't blink... then re-wind the thing six times to marvel. She is killa. Time now to remove my damp wrappers from the towel, cut the centers out for binders next time, setting those centers aside to dry out before putting them in the ersatz tupp, roll my four bound bunches from the day before on the board to easy the crease, wrap them, then set those aside to dry. That's apt to take 20-30 minutes. So when I am working to fill a box with a blend I have found boxworthy, I am typically working on bunching what I will wrap tomorrow, and wrapping what I bunched yesterday. Seems to work out. Takes about an hour all told. In climate very similar to yours, with a window A/C to help dry, I have had neither mold nor ammonia.
On a completely unrelated note, the name Tupperware comes from old man Tupper, of course. How he inherited his name is the mystery. Tupp is a word from animal husbandry. A bull is said to service a cow, a stallion to cover a mare, a boar screws cause there's a corkscrew shaped bone in his doodle, deer rut, dogs breed, cats caterwaul ... but a ram is said to tupp a ewe. You could make the case that Tupper's thrice great grandpa was a lonely shepherd. We don't know.
