Experience cigar storage at its finest with the Newair x Boveda 500 Count Cigar Humidor. Impeccably designed, it features three Boveda humidity pack holders and digital temperature control (54-72°F) for optimal preservation. The adjustable pegging system ensures a snug fit for various cigar sizes, while drawer dividers elegantly accommodate boxes or individual cigars. Complete with a recessed top handle, accessing your collection is effortless. Embrace sophistication and functionality with this humidor, the epitome of cigar aficionado’s needs.

https://www.newair.com/products/newair-x-boveda-500-count-electric-cigar-humidor

You can purchase this humidor now using this link and if you purchase anything from NewAir be sure to use my personal discount code “CASASF10” for 10% off your entire order!

Unboxing and Setup

The Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 was shipped lightning speed. I received a shipping notification only a few hours after my order was placed and received the package 2 days later via Fedex. The Humidor is packed in thick walls of cardboard with plastic straps surrounding it. There were no dents or dings on the box itself.

Unboxing the humidor was a breeze. Once you cut each strap the top of the box simply slides off the top the humidor exposing a layer of protectant foam. Under the foam is a very thin foam tissue which covers the humidor to protect from any scratches. After that you just need to take the bottom cardboard n. piece out and you can open the humidor and begin your inspection. Each draw has a small peice of tape on the bottom which holds the Boveda box in place during shipment. Outside of removing these and the manual packet from the inside of the humidor you are ready to rock.

Seasoning

The Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 states that the humidor is ready to go and there is no need for seasoning. In theory, this is great, but I decided to put that to the test. I added a few shot glasses full of distilled water into the humidor and checked the humidity over 72 hours. Before adding the shot glasses I started at 48%. After the first 2 hours I was at 55%. This only raised to 58% the next day and settled at 61% after 72 hours. While this could work, it would also eat up a ton of humidity from your Boveda packs when you first insert them. It will also take a matter of days for the humidity to stabilize. Because of this I decided to do a very gentle wipe down of all exposed cedar with distilled water. The very next day. I stabilized at 75% with the shot glasses so I decided to remove them and get busy. 

Adjusting The Humidor

There is very little adjustment needed on the Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00. Once it’s seasoned and ready to go all you have to do is decide what temperature you want, and go for it. To adjust the temperature you simple use the up and down arrows on the front of the control panel until you see the desired value on the front display. You can also switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius by holding the light button on the panel for a few seconds. Not the most intuitive user experience, however it works well if you can remember how to adjust it. After setting the humidor will always display the current temperature of the inside of the humidor. It only took about 20 minutes for my temperature to stabilize, however this may be different for you depending on your ambient temperature. I also tested how accurate this is in the sections that follow.

Storage and Features

The Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 is a very large humidor with a ton of storage space. At 17.72 x 16.93 x 29.13 this beast of a humidor comes in at a whopping 56lbs. The humidor features 4 shelves and two drawers. The top three shelves feature a small, cedar box on the bottom of each shelf. These boxes slide out and allow you to place Boveda boxes full of your favorite Boveda packs. In the picture below I sampled a standard Boveda envelope as I was still awaiting my Boveda packs to arrive, but can happily say that the boxes fit in absolutely perfect. The cedar box is easy to slide in and out and the vents allow ample room for humidification to circulate smoothly. I also really like that Newair was forward thinking enough to make sure these were added on the top three shelves as humid air is much heavier and will fall to the bottom of the humidor. Couple this setup with the fans used in the heating/cooling element and it makes for a perfect setup for ideal air circulation. One note to add, I found it difficult to store even the slimmest of boxes on each shelf when the Boveda boxes were in place. This caused me to have to remove one in order to fit a box on the shelf directly under it. Not a deal breaker at all, but worth noting.

The four flat shelves also feature a really unique ability to insert small wooden pegs into in order to adjust the layout of each shelf and also keep single cigars in place so that they won’t slide around or fall of the sides as you pull each shelf out. This is a great little feature and works really will. In my opinion it may have been better to also add small wooden sides to each shelf to prevent single spillage, but this option also allows for a little extra space when storing full boxes. The biggest issue I had was that the peg holes were very tight and difficult to get the pegs in. Once in, I no longer wanted to move them so they’ll likely stay put as is.

The bottom two drawers give plenty of space for both singles and full boxes. The bottom-most draw is slightly less deep due to the heating and cooling element, but has some great permanent dividers perfect for storing a ton of single cigars.

While I get into this later the Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 features built in temperature control as well which keeps your cigars at the perfect temperature all year round. The front panel allows you to easily hit the up and down buttons to adjust your target temperature, a light button to turn on and off the built-in LED light, and a settings button that allows you to lock the controls if needed. The interior LED is actually quite bright and I was impressed with just how much light it put out. An item to note is that the light comes from a single LED on the top of the humidor so as you load it up, more light will be blocked from reaching the bottom.

Quality of Temperature and Humidity Control

The Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 features a heating and cooling element built into the humidor which is perfect if you live in an area like mine where the temperature fluctuates often throughout the year. It is recommended for best operation to store the humidor in an ambient temperature range between 68 and 77 degrees. If you do this you can easily adjust the humidor’s internal temperature anywhere between 54 and 72 degrees. For my setup, I set the temperature to a stable 70 degrees. After 24 hours I tested the temperature using an external thermometer on both the top and bottom shelves. While the front panel read 70 degrees the top shelve reported back 72 while the bottom shelf was a perfect 70. No points taken there as the accuracy was spot-on. As for the humidity. I started with using only a single 69% 320g boveda pack on the middle shelf. After 24 hours I saw a dip in humidity from 69% down to 64%. After adding another and letting it sit for 24 hours I landed at 68%. The perfect setup for me is one pack in each of the 3 Boveda boxes under the shelves which kept me between 68% and 70% over the 72 hours I tested with using my external hygrometer. This is such a small fluctuation and really speaks volumes to the seal and air circulation of the humidor.

Final Thoughts

It’s very easy to see why the cigar community was anxiously awaiting the release of the collaboration between two of the most trusted names in the cigar community. The Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 is a world class humidor and the first of its kind. I love Boveda packs as they offer the absolute most ease-of-use for any humidity option on the market. Add them, and check them every so often for dryness. Replace when dry. It doesn’t get easier than that. Marry that up with the superior build quality that Newair is known for and you easily have one of the best humidors on the market. I love that Newair has been so invested in not only temperature control, but also humidity control where they are constantly stepping their game up. Look, your cigars are an investment. Don’t skimp and make sure you protect them. 

Keep in mind you can use this link combined with the discount code “CASASF10” to score 10% off your Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 today. 

The post Newair x Boveda NCH500BS00 500 Count Cigar Humidor appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.

The NCH250SS01 is a 250 Count cigar humidor that features a stainless steel design, OptiTemp(tm) heating and cooling function, Spanish Cedar shelves, Digital Thermostat, Digital Hygrometer and a nice little lock and key to keep those pesky weasels out of your cigar stash. A few of these features are very appealing to me, but mostly the heating and cooling function. Since I live in a super hot desert climate the temps can get really high here and it’s nice to know that while its boiling outside, my cigars will be kept safe.

Before we dive into the review I wanted to make sure I shared a few things with you. First of all, we partnered with NewAir on this review. That being said we have always took pride in brining you our un-biased, open opinions. With that out of the way, let’s talk about how you can get one of these bad boys yourself. NewAir products are found pretty much anywhere humidors and wine fridges are carried, but you can actually use this direct link: https://glnk.io/llwm/casasfumando in combination with the coupon code FUMANDO to receive a $49.99 discount on your very own NCH250SS01!

Shipping/Packaging:

Let’s start with the shipping time. My order was placed on a Wednesday and my Humidor showed up on my doorstep on that Friday. I’m sure shipping varies based on your location, but they get starts here for getting this to me so quickly. NewAir is located in California, while I’m in West Texas so it’s not the furthest of distances, but it’s also certainly not very close. The New Air NCH250SS01 was shipped in a very large, thick cardboard box. Within this box was layers of more cardboard, and foam completely surrounding the entire machine which was then wrapped in plastic. All aces there. Since there are some movable part within the humidor, NewAir kept those in place with easy-to-remove tape so they wouldn’t shift around during transit. It took me a whole 5 minutes to unpack, plugin, and start rocking with this humidor.

Setup:

After taking the NewAir NCH250SS01 out of the box, it was a simple as removing the shrink wrap from a few of the more scratch-prone pieces, and cleaning the interior. All of the Spanish Cedar shelves come right out for ease of cleaning, and seasoning. After removing the shelves it was as easy as wiping down the interior of the humidor. This step wasn’t really needed since the instead was so clean, I just wanted to make sure I removed any debris before continuing on with my review.

Of course, we’d need to season the humidor first. I wiped down the shelves using a white towel soaked in distilled water. Woah, did a whole mess of the brown/red color come off of the shelves. This is mostly just sawdust embedded within the wood-grain after processing, but its a great idea to make sure you get all that cleaned up so it doesn’t end up on your precious cigars. After seasoning the drawers I dropped them back in and added pre-moist humidification beads to the included clear plastic container and let the humidor sit overnight. I repeated this process a second time just to make sure that we were all right and ready to go.

A few notes here. First, one thing I’ve always liked about the NewAir humidor are the open drawer concept. What the means is that each shelf and draw has slats of Spanish Cedar which allows air and moisture to flow smoothly between layers. I have another humidor with closed draws and I have to monitor each of those a little more closely. Secondly, in the instructions NewAir instructs you not to allow any direct moisture to come in contact with the shelves. This is on your own discretion as I completely ignored that rule as stated in my process above.

Performance:

Now this is where we get to see what the NewAir NCH250SS0 is made of. I monitored the temperature using a pre-calibrated Boveda Butler. The first time the humidor was seasoned the humidity read 79% which level off to about 72% overnight. The second time it read 76% which leveled off to 73% overnight. After leaving the humidor to sit for 3 days the humidity fell to 64% which is right around where I try to keep it. I use 65% beads so they are doing their job well. Each time I opened the humidor door it would drop down to about 62% before rising back up to 64%-65% within and hour so the humidity retain on this humidor is absolutely flawless.

The next test was the temperature test. In a previous humidor by NewAir that I reviewed I had issues with the internal temperature being off from the setting by a few degrees. While that’s a minor annoying, I was curious to see if that has been fixed with this new heating and cooling module. The humidor lets you set a temperature low of 52 Degrees and a high of 74. Depending on the ambient room temperature the humidor will either cool the humidor or heat it to achieve your desired temperature which has to be the coolest feature of these NewAir machines. I like to keep mine at 66 degrees as that is my happy medium. At the 66 degree setting the humidor read…..66! Looks like this one is much more accurate than my previous one. I tried setting this to 55 and the humidor read 54, and at 70 it read 70. Accuracy achieved!

Overall Thoughts:

Again, un-biased thoughts here. The NewAir NCH250SS0 is a wonderful little machine that impressed me yet again. I have a few different electric humidors and the NewAir machines are by far the best performance. Now that they fixed the temperature read issue there isn’ t a whole lot of complaining I can do here. Really the only drawback is you can’t fit taller cigar boxes in between the shelves as they are much closer together as some others, but the isn’t a huge humidor anyways. If you’re purchasing it you’re likely looking to upgrade from a desktop humidor to something larger, but aren’t ready to full-commit to a huger option anyways. The only other gripe is the digital hygrometer included within the humidor was always off by about 2%. I DID NOT calibrate that, so it’s more of just a note. I don’t really use the included hygrometers in humidors anyways as I like the ease of use on the Boveda Butlers. The price is a bit higher than you’d expect in a 250 count humidor, but the features included in this ultra-premium humidor certainly make up for that cost with their performance and ease-of-use. Again, if you are looking at purchasing one for yourself visit:https://glnk.io/llwm/casasfumando in combination with the coupon code FUMANDO to receive a $49.99 discount on your very own NCH250SS01!

The post NewAir NCH250SS01 Humidor Review appeared first on Cigar Reviews | Beer Pairings | Casas Fumando.