I decide which line to stand in at the supermarket, and the light starts flashing over the cashier's head... or maybe the octogenarian in front of me wants to pay with a check -- and doesn't start writing said check till everything is rung up. Or perchance someone wants to bicker price and send someone else across the market to make sure they're being charged correctly. I once had a cashier quit and walk out on the job when I was next in line...
Also, I had a special Chanukah cheat-meal last night. I decision'd Chinese food. It was intestinally touch-and-go there for a while there. I'm about 75% as I type this, bravely so. Long story short, a caloric deficit on a cheat day is rare, but not impossible.
Less recently, I decided "Eugene, Oregon? Why not?"
More recently, this morning I decided upon what I thought to be the perfect cigar.
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| Fercockt. |
Alas gentlepersons, my 'review cigar' instead became the impetus for the post yer reading now. I have another identical and herein un-named offering with which to attempt again. Mayhaps I proverbially 'pulled a bad one.' I have already furnished my resume above re: my penchant for so doing. (If that's how it unfurls, I'll name it [HERE] in the interest of full disclosure. Heck, I'll do-so either way, gentlepersons.) With names un-uttered for the time being, to protect the conceivably albeit it far-fetched innocent, lettuce forge ahead to learn about the burn. To be more precise, the errant burn. To be most precise, tunnelling.
An old professor of mine once regurgitated in my general direction this old Aristotle gem:
"Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them."
He also told me I would be an excellent cult leader.
Meow, gentlepersons. I shall again begin on the topic of tunnelling: its cause and cure.
(but first)
WHAT IS TUNNELING?
Tunneling refers to the end-result of filler tobaccos burning at a faster rate than either other filler tobaccos or the binder/wrapper. Think of the offending bits of filler acting as a candle wick or more dramatically, a fuse -- and burning on ahead and on down. All the whilst the rest of yer stick don't. Them hotter, faster bits see their burnt offerings fall out and voila: a void is left in their wake, hitherto yer stogie.
There is an easy ounce of prevention, yet it works only in one of several causes. We shall cover that and those in a bit. I simply wanted to provide a glimmer of hope in order to tease ya into reading on. No matter the cause, there are attempts at a fix, but early detection is key or at least rather helpful. So go have yer prostate checked after reading this post. A tell-tale sign of a tunnel forming is progressively less smoke in yer smoke-hole. Prior, you might sense a hesitancy or hollowness at the immediate draw.
There is an easy ounce of prevention, yet it works only in one of several causes. We shall cover that and those in a bit. I simply wanted to provide a glimmer of hope in order to tease ya into reading on. No matter the cause, there are attempts at a fix, but early detection is key or at least rather helpful. So go have yer prostate checked after reading this post. A tell-tale sign of a tunnel forming is progressively less smoke in yer smoke-hole. Prior, you might sense a hesitancy or hollowness at the immediate draw.
WHAT CAUSES TUNNELING?
We'll begin with the most easily fixed: don't smoke too slow. Don't let yer cigar sit too long. The filler will stay warmer than the cooling binder/top-leaf and, yeah. That stated, I should add that I often purposefully set a cigar down a minute to 90 seconds. I do this to check its combustion quality. For the sake of argument, and to answer a question not asked, you should generally pull on a cigar every 45 seconds.It is NOT a fix to double yer speed. This will make matters only worser. Let it go out, purge, re-light from scratch and quit letting yer wife distract you from smoking, gentlepersons.
Now for what's sadly outta yer control:
The binder tobacco(s) could be to the culprit. The job of the binder is to help make soiten the cigar doth burn at a decent and approximately even rate. Maybe it's the wrapper playing Judas! A too moist, thick, or oily top-leaf may very well not burn at the same rate as fillers and binder. Think Maduro or Oscuro. Staying with pinning the blame on wrapper, maybe it ain't as neatly rolled as is required. (Although this also 'covers' binder.) Any gapping, even a half iota of it, is enough to cause a tunnel.
How about "double bunching," as it's called? On occasion, the binder will get doubled back, making it too thick. Now ya have more leaf to burn, and if yer tunnel starts toward the side, this well may be the case. No matter the why...
HOW TO FIX TUNNELING(?)
If you've brazenly ignored the aforementioned warnings of tunneling looming nigh, and its visibly formed, try evening it up by lighting the top-leaf a bit. You should purge here, too. Chances are you don't want to taste what's happening at this particular point in time. If that ship's sailed, and it always leaves dock aheada schedule, you're looking at letting it go out and cool down. Then cut to a point where no scorched leaves are left behind. How much is worth cutting away before pitching the stick is an option? That's up to you, gentlepersons.
I do hope you've enjoyed this Cigar 101 - Tunneling: Causes & Cures, in which I writ on the topic of tunnelling: its cause and cure.
EDITOR'S NOTE
I have noticed there are two spellings of tunnel(l)ing in the cigar world. I have went with the dictionary's present participle vartiation of double L.
POST-SCRIPT
(by Skip Martin)
Nice piece. Two more probable causes of this.First, you have too much ligero in a particular section the bunch in relation to seco. The thinner tobacco the burns while the surrounding leaf does not. Most times this is a small section where the 'break' happened to be re-inserted with an odd ratio, sometimes it's a fundamentally bad bunch that occurred at the end of a lazy bunchero's supply and he chose to use what he had vs. re-upping to finish the last cigar.
Or second, it's a humidity related issue. The cigar could have undergone a sudden loss or gain in humidity that caused that section to be drier than the surrounding bunch. Dry burns faster than wet.
Alas, humidity, not construction, is the cause of most burn problems.
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