My apologies for the delay folks, I had some family business to take care of throughout the week and wound up editing the show this morning.
While Jerry was off frolicking in Las Vegas, Brian and I recorded episode 37 of Your Questions, My Answers (YQMA). Check out the individual clips and notes from the show below.
Segment 1
Question 1 courtesy of Jon via Contact Form
Hey Guys,
I would have saved this for YQMA but I am trying to get this thing installed in my humidor.
So I bought a wireless hygro and am in the process of doing the salt test. The first time I did it the hygro didn’t get above 60%. I thought I may have had a bad ziplock bag so the second time I did it I used a new zip lock.
This time the RH wont go above 61%. I am leaving it for 8 hours at a time.
Could I be using too much salt ?
Too much water ?
Do I just suck ? Don’t answer that.
What could be the problem ?
Oh, I forgot to mention that I put one of my regular hygros in with it and it also isnt getting up to the 75% it is supposed to but it is getting slightly higher than the new wireless but just by a few % points.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Question 2 courtesy of Rodger via Contact Form
Jerry:
since you have been using these beads in your humi with the nylon sock ,
can you tell when they need water by looking at the nylon? or have you went
to something clear?
I want to do this too. Just want to know how you know when it needs water
other than humi drop.
thanks
Rodger
Question 3 courtesy of Ben via YouTube
hey walt, great reviews i really enjoy watching them ive tried many that youve reviewed, anyway, i just got a box of davidoff gran cru #2 and i looked threw the box and saw 3 cigars did not have wrapers on them, but they had a band, like the cigar was just the binder and filler and no wraper. would you recomend smoking these or just toss em.
thanks
ben
MP3 Version: Right Click > Save As
Segment 2
Question 4 courtesy of Jim via Contact Form
Hi Stogie Guys, I really enjoy your site and have gotten tons of great
information from you all. Thanks and keep up the great work. I just
started the process to fix an under bite that has been giving me fits all
my life. My lower jaw has grown faster than my upper jaw, thus messing up
my bite. This is not a big problem right now, but later in life it will
cause some major issues. I chose to correct it now, so I can enjoy my
later years puffing on cigars with no discomfort. I am required to wear braces for about a year, then have jaw surgery to align my jaws correctly.
Basically they are going to cut my upper jaw away from my face, align it correctly, then screw it back together again and let it heal. Hopefully they will just have to do the upper jaw and not the bottom as well.
Needless to say, I will be eating mush for at least a month, then just soft foods for probably another month. I probably won’t be able to enjoy a cigar for 3 months possibly longer. This leads me to my question. What would your last meal and cigar be if you all were in my shoes, then what would be your first meal and cigar be when you were completely healed? For both occasions, I am leaning towards a huge rack of baby back ribs, grilled by myself, tons of Miller Lite, followed by the most expensive Padron I can get my grubby little hands on. Have fun guys.
Question 5 courtesy of Rich via Fan Forums
Hey Guys..
I’m curious as to what defines a cigar as having “mixed filler”. I get the idea that “mixed filler” cigars are more inexpensive than other cigars, yet I find in many cigar descriptions different types of tobacco are being used in the filler, but are not classified as “mixed filler”. I can’t name any specific stogies right off hand, but I know I’ve seen it. For example, some cigars mix in Ligero, which I know is a particular part of the tobacco and not nescecarily a different type of tobacco. But why would this not be considered “mixed filler”?
Thanks!
Question 6 courtesy of Jim via Fan Forums
Guys,
I am a relatively new cigar smoker, and I haven’t bought a humidor yet. I generally have been keeping 15-20 cigars on hand, but I have been keeping them in the sealed plastic bags that I get from my local smoke shop. These contain a sealed (tiny zip-lock style) bag full of some kind of humidification gel. I obviously don’t want to ruin the cigars, but I have no way to check the humidity level of their storage environment. Should I be concerned about storing cigars like this for months at a time?
Ultimately, I need to buy a humidor, but I am not sure what size I should buy. Do you have any thoughts about what things I might consider when buying my first humidor?
MP3 Version: Right Click > Save As
Segment 3
Discussion Topic 1:
Pros and Cons of online cigar forums.
Discussion based of an article at Kevin’s Box Press Blog – Forum Foil-Hatters Rage Again
Discussion Topic 2:
Manufacturer Websites, Dos and Donts
Discussion Topic 3:
We talked Magazines, now lets talk catalogs. Who puts out the best mail order catalog?
MP3 Version: Right Click > Save As
Nice episode!
One suggestion Walt, one thing I liked most about how Jerry does YQMA is that he tells a story not just listing the questions asked. He encourages and entices a person to press that play button. Its just a lot of text to scroll to get to each segment.
I really like the sound and video quality Walt! I dunno what you did, but it works!
Nice episode fellas. Walt’s video and audio were good, but Brian needs to boost that audio level, get closer to the mic, something….I have to turn up the volume on my speakers when B-dog is talking and then when Walt chimes in its all blasted super loud and then my wife complains cuz she’s tryin to sleep! Brian fix that audio or my wife is gonna kill me…other than that great job guys!!!! I love this site!
Here’s another vote for Brian working on the audio. With Walt’s voice at a reasonable level it is almost impossible to hear Brian.
I need some help. I have only been smoking about 4 months and I love cigars, but through auctions and my local store I have easily spent over 500 bucks on cigars. I’m kind of getting addicted to the auctions, it’s ridiculous. Is there any methods you guys use to kind of hinder my excess spending?
P.S I have read the cigar auction rock star article from Walt and it gave me great insight on these auctions but it kind of just added fuel to the fire.
Also I need to ask do you leave the cellophane on your cigars when putting them in your humi?
Ryan,
I was going to suggest that you read my article on Cigar Auction Sites, but it seems you already looked that over.
Do you want to stop purchasing or do you want to spend less money every month?
If you want to stop purchasing, I would suggest deleting your Cigar Bid account, or even setting up Cigar Bid as a blocked site in your browser. Sort of “out of sight, out of mind”.
If you are simply looking to spend less, I would suggest forcing yourself to drop your maximum bids by another 10% over what you feel is a “deal” on these sites.
There is also the drastic approach, leave your Credit Card/Bank Statement out for your significant other to find. In the past that slowed down my purchasing a bit 😉
As far as the cellophane goes, that is totally up to you. If you talk to 10 people about it you will probably get 50% telling you to leave it on while the remaining 50% tell you to take it off. Its all a metter of personal preference.
I personally like to leave the cellophane on.
-Walt
Vic,
I appreciate the comment and will agree that telling a story is more appealing to me, but in the past we have been asked to list the questions to make the video easier to index. I’m just doing what I have been asked 🙂
M.J.,
Nothing special, just boosted the mic to pick up sounds further away and added one more light. Quality is actually set to be lower than my reviews in an attempt to reduce file size on YQMA.
I’m glad the mic setting and additional light did the trick.
Tony & George,
We are going to work on it to see if there is anything we can do to help the audio situation.
-Walt
I whole-heartedly agree with Walt’s concerns about cigar forums in the 3rd segment of this week’s YQMA. For sake of being direct, I think that the criticisms ‘ring leaders’, clicks and thread jacking are entirely valid. However for sake of being direct, I haven’t seen this as much in other forums as I have seen here in the Stogie Review Fan Forums.
I just discovered the Stogie Review fan forums after the recent 9/16/08 post indicating the existence of SR forums. I am not a stranger to forums and usually find the sheer amount of topics and information in them incredibly useful; particularly the older/resolved topics!
While catching up on the old topics in the SR Fan Forum, I found that topics chronically dissolve into irrelevant conversation and mindless banter after just 4 or 5 relevant posts, most of the times leaving the topic at hand unresolved. The back and fourth one liner conversations sometimes continue for pages at a time and really take away from the experience of archival research.
Some of the banter is valid like in the most recent thread in the deals section ‘bucket o cigars’ the top 4 posts are great! But soon after #5 takes a dive and all post following that are irrelevant and off-topic. There seems to be great comradeship and friendships being made, but as an outsider looking in, these ‘chat-log conversations’ are best kept in a chat room…These problems may be easily rectified by enforcing some forum rules through moderator post editing/deletions?
That being said, perhaps these criticisms simply reinforce the need for YQMA and its thoughtful discussion and analysis of cigar related questions! Leaving it to our faithful hosts to navigate the clouds of smoke to get us the answers we need!
Branfrog, I responded in the forums but I’ll respond here too. At the stogie review forum there are maybe 10 to 15 people that post with any regularity. You can join the “clique” at the SR forums simply by posting. 😉 But the banter between a couple members of the board is good natured and understood for what it is by those of us that post there.
There are many cigar forums that I’ve had problems with due to attitudes but the SR one certainly isn’t one of them. The only other one I frequent with any regularity is clubstogie where things are very friendly and mellow. I’ve met most of my smoking buddies through that site.
In all cases concerning the internet though, you get out of it what you choose. If there’s stuff you don’t like, don’t pay attention to it. If you don’t like people chatting, don’t read. If you want things a certain way, participate in that way. The internet is just what you choose to make of it.
Hey Ratters!
I read your post in the forums as well as the one here and indeed your cordiality speaks volumes for the SR community! Thank you for your invite to join in the gang, I do plan on participating much more in the near future. It does seem there is a tight knit group here that I hope to become familiar with.
Not only am I new to these forums, but im also new to smoking cigars as well; so I do have a lot to benefit from the information contained herein. If there is one thing I have learned so far, is that within cigars and its community there is an underlying social experience that exists, which perhaps accounts for its uniqueness in forum atmosphere. The typical hobby forums I frequent are very succinct, which indeed may be missing the social aspect found here.
Like I mentioned in my forum post, I don’t want to detract from the established community here, I just wanted to voice my immediate thoughts. Thanks again for the welcoming invitation! I look forward to gleaning any and all information that I can, so please stock up your virtual forum moochador as here I come.
That was quick as hell. I love what you guys have going here. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the link and interesting discussion. As noted, the good far outweighs the bad on the boards, though I found myself nodding with your mention of “ringleader” mentality, Walt. The “mobocracy” that springs up around certain brands IS, I believe, a more recent phenomenon. It seems to be a product manufacturers getting active on the boards. With forum members feeling “in the loop” because they know (or feel they know) the manufacturer/brand owner, some forums have become cheerleading centers for Brand X rather than objective sources for curious smokers.
Great episode! Quick question. What’s the song at the beginning of segment 1?
Josh,
The song is Hang em high by A Static Lulaby