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Little bit of mold

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crowdawg

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I left my cigar leaves with too much humidity for a couple days and notice just a tiny bit of mold. 2-3 spots on a few leaves. Specifically my binder and wrapper. Can I just wipe it off and still use the leaves just fine?
 

ChinaVoodoo

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Yeah, if you can't taste it, or can't hardly taste it, and you're smoking it rather than eating it, no worries. Don't let the Lysol and bleach generation make you afraid of it.
 

ras_oscar

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Try to identify why the mold has formed and eliminate the conditions to prevent reoccurrence. The easiest way is usually to reduce moisture. I have a 1 gallon ziplock bag I use to store wrapper scraps. After a rolling session, I lay the contents of the entire bag on my rolling table and visually examine it, discarding and portions that have signs of mold. I then spread it out on the rolling board and leave it for a few days. I return it to the bag and give it one squirt of DW before sealing it up. Also, after I have finished a rolling session and returned unused binder, filler and wrapper to its delivery bag, I hang the casing bags upside down and open them to allow air circulation, eliminate residual moisture and greatly reduce the likelihood of mold spores establishing a beachhead in the bag. My kins tell me my rolling station looks like Dexter's kill room. :)
 

deluxestogie

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I agree. Mold spores are everywhere. They're everywhere already. You control it by regulating the moisture. Tobacco molds less easily than bread, and maybe about as easily as cheddar cheese. Tobacco that is stored dry but pliable usually won't mold.

Stems are more hygroscopic than lamina, so they tend to mold more easily. I never worry about using leaf with a moldy stem. I just rip out the icky stem, and use the leaf. Scant mold on the leaf is, like MarcL has stated, inconsequential. If a stemmed leaf smells moldy, I always toss it.

Since everybody's storage and usage environment is different, you just have to experiment. My usual goal is to store leaf or leaf scraps as dry as possible while still being flexible.

Bob
 

Garlisk

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Piggybacking on this thread since its similar to the problem I am having.
I have a bunch of WLT I stored in a rubbermaid tote bin. Some packages were open, some were not. They've been in there now for the better part of a year, as I haven't rolled any cigars since June last year. A few of the packages I can see fuzzy white cotton candy mold inside (both open and unopened packages). It doesn't look crazy bad in any of them, and my initial thought was to toss the leaves that have mold and use the rest. I can easily keep any sticks made with these leaves separate from my other cigars, so I'd probably do that. I tend not to worry too hard about stuff like this, but its so easy to get answers from people with more experience I figured why not ask. :)
 

Garlisk

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Unopened bag of PA Oscuro Binder. This one looks pretty bad...its all over the inside of the bag.

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Opened VA Flue Cured Red Tips...just a couple small spots like that.

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Unopened Criollo 98 Viso. Something different going on in here. Pretty localized to this part of the bad.

I have probably 15 or so bags of tobacco in my tote, and these were the only ones that had a visible issue...so that's nice.
 

FmGrowit

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White mold is known as "storage mold". It can grow on tobacco that is bone-dry. Best way to correct it is to use a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution and a soft bristle brush to remove it. You can also just use a dry brush to remove it, but the peroxide prevents it from coming back.
 

deluxestogie

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I'll add that storing these sealed bags in an area significantly cooler than how they first arrived may condense moisture that otherwise just would not be a problem. A tub stored for a long time in a location that episodically gets 10 or 20° F cooler than the rest of the house may cause this condensation problem more in bags that were nearest the exterior walls of the tub.

Bob
 

Garlisk

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I'll add that storing these sealed bags in an area significantly cooler than how they first arrived may condense moisture that otherwise just would not be a problem. A tub stored for a long time in a location that episodically gets 10 or 20° F cooler than the rest of the house may cause this condensation problem more in bags that were nearest the exterior walls of the tub.
Bob

I think you're on to something here. I kept them in my closet which is on the ouside of the house and gets significantly cooler over the winter. I'll move my tobacco back into proper living spaces.
 

deluxestogie

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With the same quantity of water in the air of a sealed container, the relative humidity at 60°F is nearly double the RH at 80°F.

Bob
 
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