How Does Boveda Work?
When it comes to humidification, Boveda is the top choice of the Cigora staff. But if you haven’t heard of this fantastic humidification option then you may be wondering just how they work. Today, we’re going to take a quick look at what makes Boveda so unique, some of the science behind it, and why our staff swears by the brand.
Why Does Humidification Matter for Cigars?
To start us off at the most basic level, let’s quickly cover why you should care about your cigars’ humidity levels. To deliver the best performance and flavor, cigars need to be kept in certain conditions. Just like you keep fresh meat in a refrigerator, and store bottles of wine in a cool, dark place, you need to keep your cigars in an airtight, temperature and humidity-controlled environment.
The tobacco that makes up any cigar is very sensitive to humidity and will react to the environment around it. If you keep your cigars in an area that is too dry then they will contract and shrivel up. In addition to this making it very difficult to light and smoke the cigar, you’ll also lose a lot of the oils that give the cigar its natural aroma and flavor. By contrast, if you keep your cigars at too high of a humidification level, they will expand, possibly cracking or causing the draw to be way too loose. And with the deadly combination of high heat and high humidity you may find your cigars getting moldy, rotten, or infested with tobacco beetles. Not a pretty picture.
Boveda exists to solve that problem. By utilizing the right amount of Bovedas, you can dial in your cigar storage to the exact humidity that you prefer.
What Makes Boveda Different?
The simple answer to this is that Boveda is the only patented product to offer 2-way humidity control. This means that your Boveda pack will continually respond to ambient conditions by adding or removing moisture to the environment to meet the relative humidity (RH) level printed on the outside of the pack.
Most humidification options are one-way. Take for instance many cigar beads or crystals. These products work by creating dry crystals from a propylene glycol solution. The beads come to you shrunken and small, and after adding distilled water, they’ll slowly release humidity into the air until they shrink back down to their original size.
But when you’re using these beads, they are not responding to the environment around them. For instance, if your humidor is already too humid and you add beads, you’re just going to raise the humidity even more.
Because Boveda offers 2-way humidity control, you won’t run into that scenario with a Boveda pack. In fact, it’s impossible for Boevda to over-humidify beyond the RH printed on the outside of the pack. You can never add “too many” Bovedas to a humidor.
How Does it All Work?
With science! It’s been a well-known fact in the scientific community that certain salts mixed with water will naturally regulate humidity levels. What Boveda did was patent that fact into practical, useful packaging. Other packaging options either add moisture or remove moisture – only Boveda does both.
To use a Boveda, simply select the pack size and humidity level that you want, remove the outer cellophane on your pack if there is any, and place it inside your cigar storage container. You can place these directly on top of your cigars – because Boveda utilizes FDA-compliant ingredients they will not damage your cigars with direct contact.
Why Does the Cigora Staff Use Boveda?
Because it’s easy, and because it works. We’ve tried countless humidification products over the years and it’s always come back to Boveda. There is a consistency, dependability, and ease of use that simply cannot be beat with this product in our minds.
Since switching to Boveda, we no longer worry about our cigars’ humidity. All we do is replace the packs in our humidors and coolers if the existing ones are dry, and Boveda does the rest.
Interested? Check out our full range of humidification options from Boveda here. And if you have questions about your humidor or humidification problems, feel free to let us know in the comments.
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