Cigars want 70 degrees. Your garage does not care.
That is the whole problem in two sentences, and it catches people every winter and every July. You build the bay, hang the screen, get the projector dialed. Then you buy a humidor to put out there, because that is where you are going to smoke. Six months later the cigars are wrong and nobody can explain why.
Here is why, and what to do about it.
A humidor is not a climate system
This is the part that gets missed.
A traditional humidor controls one thing. Humidity. It is a sealed cedar box with a water source inside, and its job is to hold moisture around the cigars. It does that well.
It does nothing about temperature. None. A wood humidor sitting in a 95 degree garage is a 95 degree humidor. It has no compressor, no fan, no thermostat. Whatever the room is, the box becomes, give it a few hours.
So the question is never really "will this humidor work in my garage." The question is what your garage does across a year.
The two numbers that decide it
Cigar Aficionado puts proper storage at 68 to 70 degrees and 70 to 75 percent humidity. That is the target.
The number that actually matters is 72. Tobacco beetle larvae hatch above 72 degrees Fahrenheit combined with humidity above 72 percent. A humidor that sits above 75 degrees for more than 24 hours is where the trouble starts. That is not a slow quality decline. That is holes in your cigars and a collection you throw away.
And a humidor is already running at 70 percent by design. So in a warm room you are holding one half of the hatch condition on purpose, and the temperature is the only thing standing between you and the other half.
Now go look at what a Carolina garage does in August. Or a detached shop in Minnesota in February.
Summer is the expensive season
Heat is the one that costs you cigars.
An attached garage in the Southeast runs 85 to 100 degrees through the afternoon in July. It stays there after the sun goes down, because the slab and the walls hold the heat. A passive humidor in that room is a 90 degree box at 70 percent humidity for weeks at a stretch. That is the beetle window, wide open, held there.
If it happens, the fix is a freezer. Three days frozen, one day in the refrigerator, then back into the humidor so the wrappers do not crack from the shock. It works. It is also a miserable weekend and you will not catch every box.
Winter is the one that surprises people
Cold does not hatch anything. It does something else.
A humidor in a 30 degree garage holds humidity fine. What it does not do is stay put. Cigars go through freeze and thaw cycles as the room swings, and the wrappers get brittle. The oils that make an aged cigar worth aging do not develop at that temperature. Aging basically stops.
Then there is condensation, which is the one that hurts the equipment instead of the cigars. Turn a space heater on in a cold garage and every cold surface in the room sweats. That includes a projector lens, a launch monitor, and the inside of a humidor lid.
Worth knowing what the gear actually tolerates. Manufacturers in this category are quiet about it. TruGolf does not publish an operating temperature for the APOGEE, and Carl's Place does not publish one for the impact screens. Projector makers do publish, and a projector is usually the most fragile thing in the bay. A representative Epson spec puts operating range at 41 to 104 degrees and 20 to 80 percent humidity, non-condensing.
Read that last word twice. Non-condensing. A projector will run in a cold room. It will not survive you warming that room up fast, over and over, for three winters.
So what actually works
Four options. In order of cost.
Keep the cigars in the house. Boring, cheap, correct. A desktop humidor lives in your office at 70 degrees year round and you carry three out to the bay when you go play. If you are smoking two or three a week, stop reading here. This is your answer.
Condition the room. A mini split in a sealed, insulated garage solves the cigars and the projector and the screen and the turf in one purchase. It is a real cost, usually a few thousand installed, but you were going to want it anyway the first time you tried to play in August. If you are building the room right now, price it in before you frame anything.
Buy an electronic cabinet. This is the one most people do not know exists. An electronic humidor runs active temperature control, not just a water sponge. Humidor Supreme calls it a "self-regulating, digital temperature and humidity control panel," and it means the cabinet holds its own setpoint instead of following the room. The 9200 Series electronic cabinet is the top of that line. Humidor Supreme rates it at 3,700 to 6,800 cigars depending on how much of it you fill with boxes.
One caution, and I would rather say it than sell around it. Every cooling system has a working range. We asked, and Humidor Supreme gave us the numbers in writing: the electronic cabinets want a room between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, somewhere stable, with ventilation room around the unit. The compressors run on timers rather than 24/7, which is what keeps them from burning out. So a cabinet that holds its setpoint in a 90 degree room is not rated to hold anything in a 20 degree garage. Cooling systems cool.
And one thing nobody else tells you, also straight from the manufacturer. If your room already sits at 65 percent humidity or higher, start the reservoir dry. The cabinet pulls enough moisture out of the air on its own, and filling it on day one over-humidifies the box. Check it after a day or two, and only then start adding a cup of distilled water a day if the sensor reads low.
Do not put a passive wood cabinet in an unconditioned space. The Commercial 2,000 and the rest of the passive cabinets are excellent in a conditioned room. In a garage they are a very expensive box that becomes whatever the room is. If the room is not climate controlled, this is the wrong product and we will tell you that.
The other half of this question
Climate is what the room does to the cigars. There is a second question, which is what the cigars do to the room.
Smoke lands on an impact screen, a projector lens, the turf and a launch monitor, and it does not come off the same way from all four. We wrote that one up separately: what actually gets ruined when you smoke in a simulator room.
Anyway, if you are building the bay and planning to smoke in it, read both before you spend money. The order matters. Climate decides the humidor. Ventilation decides the screen.
Tell us your room
Send us three things. Where the room is, whether it is heated and cooled, and roughly how many cigars you keep.
We will tell you whether a cabinet belongs out there at all, and which one. If the honest answer is "keep them in the house," you will get that answer too.
Email support@fairwayandember.com or call (843) 310-1415. Humidors are in the cigar collection. Simulator gear is here.