Tobacco Cellar:
March 2, 2011
"(Useless?) Statistics
Total 300 Members with over 1,800 lbs (0.9 ton) of baccy!"
Mercy! Three hundred of us have almost a metric ton of tobacco cellared (as of now)!
Gotta love that. Well, were do we put it all? Newcomers to this hobby often ask 'do I store my tobacco in the cigar humidor'? And the answer is, NO. Sealed tins are stored as, well, sealed tins. Opened tins, or bulk baccy should be sealed into a nice clean glass mason jar. That's the easy part, but where does one put it? I currently have over 70 lbs (that's over 43 kg for the metric inclined, if my math is correct), and this question is a doozy.
Personally, I just toss tins and jar into large cardboard boxes. Where possible and known, I mark the "Target Year" on each box and stack them in a dark basement closet. And yes, tins to go into the wrong boxes quite often, and I do "lose" tins and jars often, only to rediscover them at a later date. This is not a perfect system, I have to admit. It is a nuisance to manhandle these large boxes, and there are a LOT of them. But a bigger concern that I'm starting to worry about is the "exploding tin" syndrome. Buried in boxes, which are buried under other boxes, there is no way I can visually inspect my cache of tins.
But wherever you put them, just be sure it is in a DRY, COOL and DARK place. Dry because tins may rust, and fall apart eventually. Cool because excess heat could over-ferment the contents and the tin may explode (a bulging bottom is a warning sign). And dark because sunlight and even indoor lighting may expose your precious cargo to heat and/or UV radiation.
A closet is good. But when things scale up to this volume, it will take a large closet. Or two. Or three. Keep that in mind as you build your cellar!