Have you ever found yourself with a damaged cigar that you were just dieing to smoke? On occasion we receive cigars in the mail, or as gifts, and sometimes they get to us a little banged up. Occasionally this abuse leads to a pealing wrapper, or and in some cases, a couple of small cracks.
With a little patience and a box of pectin this problems can be quickly remedied to make that banged up cigar smokable.
What you will need:
- 1 Box 100% Natural Pectin (Found in the canning isle of your local grocery store)
- Small Container of some sorts (such as the lid to a soda bottle)
- Small amount of water
- 1 Toothpick
- Small amount of donor tobacco to use a patch
Directions:
- Place a small amount of warm water into your soda bottle cap
- Add in a small amount of pectin and stir with toothpick
- Apply pectin with toothpick to both the cigar and donor tobacco
- Apply patch, press firmly and remove any wrinkles
- Allow pectin to dry for about one minute then enjoy your repaired cigar
Walt,
Nice video to show this neat little trick. To make things easier they do make a pre-mixed liquid fruit pectin so you do not have to mix the powder with the water. I use Ball Easy Gel Liquid Fruit Pectin for all my cigar repairs. This trick can save a pretty damaged cigar like when the lid of my desktop humi slammed down on the cap of a really good cigar, the pectin held it all together and the smoke was fairly flawless.
Nice educational vid Walt, it shows your diversity.
Last year I was gifted a few Cubans from a co-worker returning from El Salvador. Two of them had torn / cracked wrappers at and near the foot. Didn’t know what I was going to do with them; now I do.
Thanx.
This is a great episode of tips and tricks. I’ll probably put some of this in my travel humidor/smoking kit. It would be great for those times when a cigar gets damaged while in transit, vacation, etc.
Tom –
Is this still Ed’s shop address?
1008 58th Street North
St. Petersburg, FL 33710
I e-mailed him yesterday for an address confirmation w/ no response and noticed he’s not open Sundays.
I wanted to get payment in the mail tomorrow.
Paul-Yup that’s the address I have. He probably got side tracked yesterday. I was up there smoking a smoke with him for the last few hours he was open.
Cool video, seems like a very handy idea.
But why Pectin? Is that what they use when wrapping cigars or something? Will it burn funny at all?
Jon,
From what I understand, Pectin is what rollers use to apply caps and bands, or is very similar.
Walt –
Good vid; I agree with Mike and the liquid pectin suggestion. I get it in my local grocery store for something like $3 for enough to last about 86 years. Comes in two pouches – something like 1.5 oz. or 3 oz. per pouch. I pour a little bit into a tiny little vial that I have that is perfect for portability. The rest is in an air-tight container in the fridge.
The little vial I have is very small – for lack of a better example, it holds only about 4 tears, if you were to cry into it (lol). That amount has lasted me several months so far, because you only need a tiny amount when you are making a repair.
I have done this many times i usually use the cap i cut to fix a tear or whatnot but when that is not available i will cut about a 1/4 inch of the bottom of one and use that wrapper to fix it and it always works great. I never notice any taste from it and it never effects the burn. what i do is empty the packet into a class container with a nice lid than i shake it up and take off the cap there is enough pectin in there to do the job. I just dip my finger in it and and fixin always works fine.