Watch this step-by-step guide to learn how to set up a new humidor. With Boveda, seasoning a cigar humidor is easy, mess-free, and requires no extra work on your part!
Learn How to Season Your Humidor the Right Way
Overview: Seasoning Your Humidor with B84 Packets
- Remove any cigars from your humidor and store them in a Boveda Humidor Bag or plastic container or cooler with Boveda B69 packets.
- With the humidor completely empty—no cigars inside—remove the clear overwrap from the Boveda B84 packets and place them anywhere inside.
- Close the lid and let the packets season your humidor for 14 days.
This period is crucial for allowing the wood the fully absorb the moisture it needs. Don’t open the humidor for 14 days—no matter what your hygrometer readings are. - After 14 days, lift the lid, remove the Boveda B84 seasoning packets, and discard them—they aren’t reusable.
- Move your cigars back into your well-seasoned humidor and add Boveda B69 packets to your humidor to maintain the ideal humidity for your cigars for three months.
Tip: All You Need is a Humidor Starter Kit
Boveda Humidor Starter Kits come with everything you need to season your humidor then maintain humidity for months!
Provides moisture directly to the wood, creates a better seal, and prevents the wood from robbing moisture from your cigars.
Starter Kits for Humidors are available for 50-count humidors and 100-count humidors. Bigger humidor? Double up on a kit. (Sorry, humidor not included.)
Why season your humidor with Boveda
A 100-count wood humidor needs about 100 grams of moisture to be fully seasoned. Each Size 60 B84 seasoning packet can release 35 grams of moisture into your humidor. (We recommend using four packets to season a 100-count humidor.) Setting up your humidor is easy and mess-free.
Setting up a humidor with Boveda is easy and mess-free:
- Eliminates seasoning with messy sponges and distilled water.
- Works in 14 days with nothing else to add (or manage).
- Releases only pure water vapor, which won’t contaminate your cigar storage.
- Prevents shocking, warping, or molding the wood.
Why are Boveda seasoning packets 84% RH? Isn’t that too high for cigars?
You ARE an aficionado! Normally, you’d never store cigars at 84% RH. But remember, your cigars aren’t inside your humidor while you season it with Boveda.
As you season, you’re filling the environment inside the empty humidor with water vapor. Most of the water vapor is released within the first week. The rest of the time, the cell structure of the wood slowly absorbs the moisture it needs, based on your specific humidor. In the end, those 84% packets will have raised the RH in your humidor to about 65%—without disturbing the integrity and the geometry of the wood.
Where to Store Cigars When You’re seasoning a humidor with Boveda
To preserve the flavor and condition of premium cigars, you store them at the ideal. RH—ALL THE TIME. That means zero-lapse protection. While you season your wood humidor, store your cigars in a Tupperware® container with Boveda B69 or a Boveda Humidor Bag, which comes preloaded with a 2-way humidity control packet.
BONUS: After you reenter your cigars into your freshly seasoned humidor, you can re-use that Boveda Humidor Bag for up to a year to condition new cigars. Conditioning new cigars at the right RH prevents them from stealing moisture from the sticks already in your humidor—and gives you a smoother smoke.
What Should Your Hygrometer Reading Be When You Season a Humidor?
The RH inside a humidor doesn’t matter while you’re seasoning with Boveda B84 packs. Just ignore your hygrometer for 14 days.
Why? A hygrometer only measures the amount of moisture in the air inside your humidor. While Boveda for Seasoning packs are in your humidor, they increase the moisture within the cell structure of the wood, not the air. We call that the free water space. A hygrometer can’t measure the moisture in wood, so forget about the RH readings for now.
TIP: While you season your wood humidor, calibrate your hygrometer
Day 12 of seasoning your humidor with Boveda is the perfect time to calibrate your hygrometer. Use the Boveda One-Step Calibration Kit. It’s a salt test just like the pros use to recalibrate laboratory hygrometers. Read more about Why You Need to Calibrate a Hygrometer.
Every six months you should re-calibrate a hygrometer or humidor sensor to make sure it’s giving you accurate results.
Do You Have to Season a Wood Humidor?
Yes. Skip seasoning and a wood humidor will simply absorb moisture from your sticks. You’ll constantly battle low humidity levels that make for dry cigars and frustrating smokes. (And you’ll blow through Boveda faster than you need to.) Don’t risk your cigars—season your humidor with Boveda.
BTW, if seasoning really isn’t for you, you can always store cigars with Boveda B69 packets in an acrylic cigar humidor, coolerdor, tupperdor, or Boveda Humidor Bag. No seasoning required!
Do You Have to Season a Wineador?
Yes, if a wineador has wood trays and shelves, you should season the unit before adding cigars. Seasoning with Boveda B84 packets conditions the wood components inside the wineador. The process is slightly different from seasoning a wood humidor. Read more about how to season a wineador/electric humidor with Boveda.
You can season a wineador/electric humidor with Boveda B84 packets. For this 250-count NewAir model, you’ll need three 4 packs of Size 60 seasoning packets.
Do You Need to Re-season a Wood Cigar Humidor?
Perhaps. You might need to re-season a wooden humidor one to two times a year if you:
- Live in an extremely dry climate
- Live at high altitude
- Experience seasonal dryness
- Store cigars in a drafty humidor
- Store cigars in a glass-top humidor
Tell-tale Signs You Need to Re-season a Wood Humidor:
- You can’t maintain the desired RH in your humidor
- Your Boveda packets don’t last the full three months
How Not to Season a Humidor
Shot Glass. Sponges. Distilled Water. Are you setting up a new humidor or cleaning up after a party? Either one sounds like a chore. Seasoning a cigar humidor does not have to resemble a chemistry experiment—despite what you read on cigar forums.
🚫 Shot glass method of seasoning a humidor
After spending $300+ on a great wood humidor, why go all DIY to save a few bucks? You fill a shot glass with distilled water and put it in your humidor for a few days. (How long? Who knows?) During your humidor experiment, someone accidentally moves or bumps your box, the glass spills, and you’ve drenched—perhaps—warped the wood.
🚫 Wipe-down method for seasoning a humidor
Instead of an open container of water, you choose to wipe down the inside of your humidor with a wet cloth or sponge. Think of this like staining the wood with water. It doesn’t fully humidify the wood. At the most, you’ll provide two to three grams of moisture to the wood veneer. If your humidor isn’t fully hydrated, it will leach moisture from your cigars.
Why hassle with seasoning your humidor with water? Slip Boveda in your humidor, sit back, and let seasoning packets get to work. (You can now use that shot glass for its intended purpose. Salud!)
Shop Humidor Start-Up Kits, Tune-Up Kits & More
Everything you need to season a small humidor and humidify cigars for months.
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One complete kit for seasoning a large humidor and maintaining humidity for months.
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Boveda Specialty Packs for seasoning & re-seasoning a wood humidor.
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All-in-one bundle: season your humidor, store cigars in a Boveda Humidor Bag & calibrate your hygrometer.
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