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As many of you know, I am fairly active in the Cigar Forum/Internet medium.  Over the years, I have seen plenty of write-ups on how to convert a wine cooler into a humidor, but I thought I would document it for the readers of Cigar Choice.

The biggest benefit to converting a wine cooler to a humidor, besides the room, and airtight seal, is the fact that it is tempurature controlled, and at its warmest setting it keeps the cigars at around 65 degrees.  For me, tempurature control was not as necessary as it is for some.  I live in a mountain area, and my home rarely gets over 65-67 degrees.  I did it mostly because I needed the room, and needed to condense my cigar stash.  I had a 48 quart coolidor, a 400 count havana footlocker and 3 desktop humidors, and a wife that was getting tired of tripping over all my stuff!

So after a couple years of constant box tetris, and coolidor making, along with a wife that was getting sick of tripping over all my cigar paraphernalia, I got the go ahead to make a purchase of an Edgestar model TWR282S.  This particular model is almost identical to the VinoTemp 28 bottle wine cooler, but costs about $150 less.  Here we go, step by step instructions on converting a wine cooler into a humidor.

First things first, you need to order your wine fridge.  I ordered mine from www.compactappliance.com .  I was very impressed with thier service and will remember them when it comes time to order wine fridge #2, because I know that will happen!  I ordered the Edgestar at about 8am on a Tuesday.  I got notice that it shipped at 12:00 noon on the same day!  It was scheduled to be delivered by UPS on the following Tuesday, so I was waiting patiently, checking the tracking number every hour, it seemed.  I then got an email the following FRIDAY that the wine fridge was sitting on my parking deck, delivered.  Talk about outstanding service!  3 days from order to delivery, and it went from Texas to California.

Here is how the Edgestar was delivered.  Double boxed, padded in styrofoam. At this point, I am very impressed with the way they packaged this thing!

Here are a few pictures of the Edgestar out of the box, next to my beer fridge.  Talk about a great combo, beer and cigars!

As I opened up the door, here is what I saw:

Here it is with the shelves removed:

Close up of the temprature control and light switch:

Once its all unpacked, the first thing that needs to be done, is you need to get rid of the plastic smell of the wine fridge, so it does not mess with the taste of your cigars.  There are a few methods to do this.  I pulled all my shelves out, and left the door open, and let it air out, while unplugged for a couple days.  After a couple of days, it still had a faint plastic smell, so I decided to take the next step.  I wiped the inside down with some mild palmolive soap and water.

Another method is to use water and baking soda as a method to get the smell out.  I used soap, because that’s what I had handy.

Now that the plastic smell is out of the Edgestar, its time to start it seasoning.  At this point, I put the wire racks back in, and took a few bowls and filled them with distilled water, plugged in the unit, and added an oust fan to the mix, to work on seasoning the inside of the fridge.

I also added a couple of empty cigar boxes to the mix, in order to help move the seasoning along.  I left the bowls in the fridge for a couple of days, until it stabalized at about 72% humidity.

After a couple of days of stabalizing the fridge, I put about 1.5 lbs of beads from Heartfelt Industries in the fridge, and started to load it up with boxes of cigars.  This was the hardest part, as I don’t have any drawers or singles trays, but I have a lot of singles.  This made it interesting.  I am working on getting some cedar shelving and at least one, maybe two singles drawers from Chasidor.com to complete my wine fridge.  At this point, the wine fridge is completely full, and I need another! Gotta love this hobby.  There you have it.  Just like that, you can convert a wine fridge into a humidor.

Lastly, here is the fridge completly full with my entire collection.  While it was a bit of work to do the conversion, and took a few days, it was worth the time and effort, to have the extra room.  I hope this post helps others looking at doing the same thing.  I am enjoying the wine fridge now, but as I said, I need another one already, and I just got this one!

Smoke Em If You Got Em, Buy Em If You Don’t!

Scott