Insects in my pipe tobacco

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tulsagentleman

Starting to Get Obsessed
Feb 7, 2019
206
39
Russ (blendtobac):

Thank you for your response. I called your 800 number and explained my problem. After reading your reply to the operator she quickly agreed to send me a replacement. For your information, I ordered the Ryback Regular as a bulk product and it came to me in a large ziplock bag, not in the Daughters and Ryan pre-packaged bag. I hope this is helpful.

I would also like to add that I have been ordering pipes and pipe tobacco from P&C for years and this is the first time I have had to ask for a replacement. You're a great company and do good work. Nothing in this world is ever perfect. Thanks for your excellent customer service.

George Miller
gwbillmiller@gmail.com
 
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Mar 1, 2014
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Nice to know that freezing is a solution.
With all my Tobacco having weathered half a decade of Canadian winters now I’d say that should pretty much guarantee zero pests. Hopefully it reduces mold too.
(I keep everything in an insulated chest, indoors but unheated. I figure as long as temperature change isn’t dramatic it should reduce cellular damage from the freeze/thaw cycles.)
 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
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Don't love the idea of how freezing might effect the bacteria and aging
Every time I go into my stash it still smells wonderful. If there is any negative effect on aging I can’t imagine what a box of southern aged VA would smell like.

With all that I’ve learned about Whiskey recently, it would make sense that aging tobacco in a hot climate should also be dramatically different than cold climates, supposedly a year in a barrel in Texas is about as good as ten years in Scotland.

Then again, being inactive half the year could mean my tobacco gets a prolonged shelf life. Fingers crossed.

One thing to note is you want to avoid dramatic temperature change or moisture loss.
Rapid thermal cycling is what breaks things apart, and freezer burn is caused by dry air sucking moisture out of foods (apparently ice still evaporates).
 
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blendtobac

Lifer
Oct 16, 2009
1,237
213
Just a note about freezing - This is the preferred method to kill tobacco beetles, but the process is different for cigars vs. pipe tobacco. With pipe tobacco, you can remove the container from the freezer, crack it open slightly (to avoid an accumulation of moisture), and let it come up to room temperature. For cigars, they should get moved from the freezer to the refrigerator before bringing up to room temperature to avoid damaging the wrappers.

Russ
 
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stogie37

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 24, 2012
673
3,489
Southport, North Carolina
As Craig61a mentioned in his post;

“Yes, freezing does kill the eggs, larvae. They hatch when the temp get above 80F.”

That 80F number is a good one to keep in mind. With thousands of cigars in my humidor, moving to the Southeast coast of NC posed a slight concern as we keep our thermostat around 78F in Summer, and occasionally on very hot days, the walk-in closet/humidor can bump to 80F or a tad higher! I’ve been checking regularly and so far, so good.

If you have the ability to maintain safe temp in your environment, hopefully you’ll avoid issue - aside from transit time temps as mentioned by Russ. I’ve seen these little guys decimate a cigar shop ?
 

blues4goose

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 15, 2019
243
720
30
Bethlehem, PA
It's important to keep the life cycle of the tobacco beetle in mind when trying to mitigate an infestation. The larva emerges from the egg in 6-10 days, and it takes another 5-13 weeks for the adult to emerge, and crawl around in your baccy or make a hole in your cigar. Meaning, if your humidor/tobacco goes above 80 degrees, and you don't have beetles by the end of that week, you're not yet in the clear.
Also, here's a chart for the mortality rate depending on life cycle stage and temperature.1998
 
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