Cigar World’s Guide to Dry Boxing a Cigar

Dry boxing is a method some cigar smokers use to alleviate over-humidification problems. 

While under-humidification is a more common issue, the reality is that storing your cigars at an ideal humidity level can be tricky. Leave your cigars in an over-humidified humidor, for example, and they can develop problems like mold, tobacco beetles, and construction issues such as poor burns and draws. 

Here, we’ll explain what the process of dry boxing is, how it works, and whether or not you should try it for yourself.

What is Dry Boxing?

Dry boxing is the act of removing a cigar from a humidified environment (a humidor) and leaving it in a non-humidified environment (a wooden box) for a while before lighting up. 

The idea behind dry boxing is that cigars stored at too high temperatures and humidity levels will become too moist, and that excess moisture will prevent the cigar from burning and drawing properly. 

Dry boxing is meant to address over-humidification and allow a cigar to “rest,” lose a little moisture, and acclimate to a non-humidified environment. Dry boxing is typically done inside a wooden box because wood is porous and absorbs moisture. However, some cigar smokers prefer to “dry box” simply by leaving a cigar out where they intend to smoke it.

How Long Should You Dry Box For?

The short answer is, “it depends.” Severely over-humidified cigars may need a whole day to shed excess moisture. 

On the other hand, you may notice an improvement in how your cigars perform after just a few hours outside of the humidor. Regardless, leaving any cigar outside a humidified environment for longer than a day or so will likely dry it out and negatively affect the smoking experience. 

(Though, you can re-humidify dried-out cigars in some instances.)

Should You Dry Box Your Cigars?

Generally, we don’t recommend taking cigars out of your humidor for an extended period. If you consistently experience problems associated with over-humidification (cigars that are too soft to the touch, that burn and draw poorly, etc.), rather than dry boxing, we suggest addressing that issue at the root by adjusting your humidor’s settings. While dry boxing may be a short-term fix to over-humidification problems, having to wait a few hours (or a full day) before smoking a cigar is far from ideal.

How to Address Over-Humidification Instead of Dry Boxing

Cigars should be good to go right out of the humidor, and if they’re not, we recommend taking these steps to prevent over-humidification:

• Re-calibrate your humidor to a different humidity setting.

• Ensure that your humidor is adequately prepared, sealed, and seasoned.

• Talk to retailers to rule out manufacturer or handling error. 

• Monitor your cigars closely for a few days.

Because while dry boxing may help out in some instances, it is not a long-term solution and — when done incorrectly — can negatively affect the smoking experience.

Where do you come down on the dry boxing debate? Sign up for Cigar World and let us know with a comment!