An even burn is essential to a relaxing cigar experience, making your cigars taste better and the butane in your lighters last longer. Smoking a cigar that doesn’t burn right is the second most annoying thing that we can think of, with the first being a plugged cigar.

So what can you do? Here are the main things that impact the burn line of your cigar:

• Humidification

• First Light

• Rotation

It all starts with humidity:

If your cigars are constantly going out, have a bitter taste to them, or often display a funky burn line, chances are that you need to investigate your humidity levels. These are signs of an over humidified cigar, and may eventually lead to mold further down the road.

The good news is that it’s an easy fix! Unless you have a very, very large collection, all you’ll need are some Boveda packs and a digital hygrometer to inspect what you expect. When deciding on which Boveda packs to use, an easy rule of thumb is to use 65% in a humid environment and 69% in a dry environment.  Using too many Boveda packs may increase the relative humidity above the advertised percentage in an airtight environment, so don’t forget to use your hygrometer.  

Start strong to finish strong:

Just like a first impression, your first light sets the tone for the rest of your cigar. And while you can always make a correction later, one of the easiest ways to keep a cigar burning evenly is to light it properly.

You can do this with or without toasting the foot – the main goal is get an even burn all the way around your cigar. If you just John Wayne the cigar and hope for the best, you’ll need to keep your lighter handy.

Rotation matters:

You’ll often hear cigar enthusiasts tell folks to rotate the slow burning side down to speed it back up. But hot air rises, doesn’t it?  The reason you’ll want to rotate down, they’ll say, has to do with airflow.  I’ve never felt comfortable saying one is definitely better than the other, so over the last few months I’ve tried rotating my cigar up and down and placed it on all sorts of different ash trays and rests to test this method.

Honestly, I’ve had as much success rotating the slow burning side up as I have down. There’s no rhyme or reason to it that I can tell, except that the very act of rotating your cigar helps it burn evenly.  Rotate it in the ash tray or while in your hands - as long as it’s constantly moving, no one side gets preferential treatment over the other. 

What about you? What are your tips for promoting an even burn line?