Uneven burn: causes, and the touch-up that actually works
Most canoeing starts in the first minute and is fixed in the second.
An uneven burn is usually a lighting problem, occasionally a humidity problem, and rarely the cigar's fault. Catching it early costs nothing; ignoring it costs the second half.
The four causes, in order of likelihood
- An uneven light. One side started ahead and stayed ahead.
- Uneven moisture. A cigar that has not settled after delivery burns toward its drier side.
- Wind. Outdoors, the windward side burns faster, and no technique defeats a breeze.
- Construction. A stem or a dense fold in the filler. This one is genuinely the cigar's fault, and it is the least common.
The touch-up
Apply a flame to the lagging side only, briefly, while rotating slowly. Do not relight the whole foot: you will overheat the side that was already fine. Then draw once gently to even the ember out.
If it recurs twice, stop fighting it. Rotating the cigar as you smoke and slowing down does more from here than repeated touch-ups, which add heat every time.
Do this: check the burn line after the first inch, then leave it alone. A cigar corrected once in the first minutes usually behaves for the rest of the smoke; one corrected five times is being cooked.
Preventing it
Toast the foot evenly, let it rest a fortnight after delivery, keep humidity stable, and sit out of the wind. Those four cover almost every case, and none of them involves buying anything.
A note on ash
Do not knock the ash off early. A half-inch of ash insulates the ember, slows the burn and evens it out. Letting it build is the cheapest burn-correction technique there is.
Two words that explain a low score
"Canoed from the start" next to a six is a complete explanation a year later. Ligero puts your note beside the score out of ten so a bad evening does not quietly become a verdict on a blend.
Read next
Lighting a cigar without cooking the first third
Heat the tobacco, do not burn it. The difference is about two centimetres of flame.
TechniqueDraw problems: what you can fix and what you cannot
Too tight is sometimes rescuable. Too loose never is.
Storage & ageing65 or 70 per cent: choosing a humidity you can hold
The number matters less than whether it stays there all week.