Why do my cigars unravel sometimes?

S

Studebaker

Evolving Lead Gorilla
I've searched but haven't found anything on this yet. (I'm sure someone will help me find a thread if I've missed it.) This has happened a couple of times, I'm on the patio with a nice enough stick and somewhere around the middle third, the wrapper starts gradually unraveling. By the time I'm well into the last third I'm afraid the stick is going to fall apart in my hand. It happened last night with a CAO MX2. Here's my situation:

I store my sticks in a tupperdor with 1 drymistat tube maintained according to its instructions. I keep 10-15 sticks in it at a time. Last night it was 48 degrees with a wind chill of 43, so only an occasional light breeze. I don't know what the humidity outdoors was, but probably farly low. This isn't atypical weather - I've smoked in these conditions a lot this winter.

The other time this happened, it was with a RP Vintage 1990 last December. The wrapper tore when I took the band off and everything went south from there.

If this happened with every cigar I'd blame the weather or my tupperdor. If I'd been smoking really cheap sticks I'd blame them. As it is, I'm confused. :confused:
 
do you always take your band off? i leave mine on until i've pretty much smoked down to it. i figure it's not worth the risk of potentially tearing/unraveling the cigar. sometimes the glue from the band sticks to the wrapper.

the only times i've had a cigar start to unravel are when:
1. took the band off before i started smoking
2. clipped too much off the end

not sure if that helps, but that's been my experience.
 
Hmm. I probably took the band off somewhere around a third or halfway into the cigar. Maybe it hadn't heated up enough to loosen the glue?
 
The only cigar that I had that truly unraveled was a perfecto that I removed the band on before lighting, and did not notice that I lit the wrong end, and was smoking it backwards. They will ALWAYS unravel if smoked backwards, due to the method of wrapper overlapping used in rolling.

I have cigars with wrappers that tend to split or have parts of the wrapper come undone, which can usually be traced to cigars that are too dry. Remember, in colder temperatures, the humidity holding ability of the air is decreased. Plus, if you are smoking in windy conditions, the wrapper and sometimes the binder will tend to dry out faster, especially if the cigar started with a somewhat lower rh due to lower temperatures.

If your problem is actually a wrapper unraveling, then I would say to make sure you are lighting the correct end. Having made this mistake myself, I am more careful, to the point that I leave my bands in place before I light the cigar, so I won't be as likely (hopefully) to make the mistake again.

If, OTOH, the wrapper is coming apart/splitting, I would recommend working on raising your rh inside the humi or other storage that you are using. I know that I have had more trouble this year with splitting and peeling wrappers than I have ever had, but I have been keeping my bedroom (where my humis are located) generally in the lower 60's, cause I like to sleep in cooler temperatures. This has resulted in rh levels consistently trying to run below 60%, and has required more of an effort to keep it up around 65%. I have been successful in raising the rh to more consistent 63-64%, and have not had a wrapper problem since!

The suggestion about NOT removing the band until you are close to it with the ember is a good one, especially if you are running to rh loss, since a dry wrapper is much more likely to suffer damage than a moist wrapper.

The only other observation I would offer is to observe the type wrapper that is involved. Is it consistently a natural wrapper, or a thin wrapper that you are having the problem with? Natural wrappers tend to be more fragile, and to dry out faster, and I think ALL the one's I have had problems this winter have been natural wrappers. I don't remember any wrapper split/peeling issues with maduro or corojo wrappers.

Good luck with the problem solving!
 
trogdor | the burninator said:
do you always take your band off? i leave mine on until i've pretty much smoked down to it. i figure it's not worth the risk of potentially tearing/unraveling the cigar. sometimes the glue from the band sticks to the wrapper.

the only times i've had a cigar start to unravel are when:
1. took the band off before i started smoking
2. clipped too much off the end

not sure if that helps, but that's been my experience.
Click to expand...

:tpd: ahh, I am definately a #2
 
I'm having a similar problem the last few weeks, wrapper cracking as the gar warms up, usually about an inch behind the burn all/most the way down to the nub. I'm trying like heck to figure this out and so far I've come up with afew constants, it's happening with

gars from the top of my humidor which is 3-4% higher in RH

of the above, those with thinner wrappers, thicker maduros are holding up

no visible sign of these being overly wet (no swelled foot)

I'm currently perusing the writings of John the Revelator for signs of the end times, I think this may be one. Seriously tho, there's been a lot of posts here lately dealing with this, or is it just me looking since it's started in my collection?
 
The problem that I have on occasion is the cap unraveling - I think thats because I used a dull gulitine cutter.
 
Out here in Tucson AZ I have that problem quite a bit with delicate wrappers. The dryness outside just makes them crack. I noticed it most with the Cohiba. The Connecticut wrapper is quite delicate.

Be sure to check you humidity levels in your X-idor. Try and bump up the humidity and see if you problem goes away. It's an easy test.

You can also keep the cedar wrapper on the end of a cigar to prevent this and it gives a nice cedar tas. . . Ummmm no don't do that . . . it's the voices, they are taking control. :ss
 
You have received many good replies to your question.

I can only add that if you are in the habit of knocking the ash off on the edge of your ashtray... stop doing that. It will often damage the wrapper. I speak from personal experience here. :mad:

As others have mentioned, don't clip too much off the cap and make sure you gars are properly humidified.

:ss
Robert
 
trogdor | the burninator said:
do you always take your band off? i leave mine on until i've pretty much smoked down to it. i figure it's not worth the risk of potentially tearing/unraveling the cigar. sometimes the glue from the band sticks to the wrapper.

the only times i've had a cigar start to unravel are when:
1. took the band off before i started smoking
2. clipped too much off the end

not sure if that helps, but that's been my experience.
Click to expand...

I ALWAYS had that issue until the man with a blue face came to my rescue when I was about to cut. I was cutting off too much, once I stopped that my problems went away.
 
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