Cigar World’s Guide to Rehydrating Cigars

Like most good things in life, cigars need a little maintenance occasionally. As you may already know, leaving cigars outside a controlled, properly humidified environment can lead to them drying out and becoming stale. Thankfully, you can still rejuvenate most cigars and restore them to (almost) ideal condition by following a few simple steps.

Let’s break it down. 

Rejuvenating Dry Cigars

The most straightforward way to restore a dry or under-humidified cigar is to place it into a properly humidified environment and wait. That’s right — in many cases, simply placing dry cigars into a sealed container, like a Ziploc bag, Tupperware, or a humidor with a humidification pack (or two, depending on the size of the container), and leaving them there for about a month will return the cigar to good smoking condition. Just make sure to monitor the humidity levels inside the container with a working hygrometer. 

Pro tip for rehydrating a dry cigar: keep any cigars you’re trying to rejuvenate in a separate container from your other cigars. This will allow you to adjust humidity levels without affecting cigars that are already in good shape. 

You can also bring dried-out cigars back to life by gradually increasing the humidity in the controlled environment. So, consider humidifying dry cigars first at 62% before raising the humidity to 65% or 69%, and further if desired. This will allow the cigars to adapt to more humid conditions slowly. We’d recommend this tactic for extremely dry cigars that may need more time to restore fully. 

There is one caveat you should know before we go any further. Restoring a dry cigar to proper smoking condition will probably eliminate staleness and prevent major burn issues. However, once a cigar has become under-humidified for a sustained period (more than a couple of days), it’s likely that some of the original flavor profile will be lost for good. This is an unavoidable and unfortunate reality of under-humidification and one of the downfalls of rejuvenating a dry cigar.

Tips for Fixing a Cracked Wrapper

One tell-tale sign of a too-dry cigar is a cracked or frayed wrapper. While re-humidifying a cigar won’t fix an issue like this, you can attempt to patch a cracked cigar wrapper using a substance like pectin. Since pectin is a natural, tasteless, odorless, and sticky substance, it’s uniquely suited for cigar wrapper repair!

What are the Signs of a Dry Cigar

Not sure if your cigar needs extra humidification? Here are a few signs that indicate a cigar has become too dry.

• Faded or wrinkled appearance
• Cracked or frayed wrapper
• Stale, bitter taste
• Overly firm to the touch
• Excessively hot and inconsistent burn.

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