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a south Texas epiphany about humidity

C

countryblues

New Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2008
Messages
13
OK so I am a little slow. I moved down to the Texas coast a little over a year ago from Colorado. Folks in CO know how dry it is up there. I had given up on trying to keep a humidor up there as all I managed to do was ruin cigars. I had a whole house humidifier and still couldn't get my cheap online purchased humidor to hold a good humidification. Well it's HUMID down here! Let me tell ya! So decided to pull that little humidor back out and try to keep a few cigars on hand rather than going to the B&M all the time.

First thing I noticed was that the hygrometer was sitting at a nice 60%. Hey problem solved! Woohoo! I buy a few smokes put them in and join CP! All is right in the world. Well digging around on here I decide I ought to calibrate the hygrometer. Its a cheap analog type. So I just did that today with the salt water. I just checked it a few minutes ago after the requisite 4 hours and no change -- 60%. What gives? I stop to think about this a bit then I remember that I have in a box a digital temp/hygro that I bought in CO years ago. I pull it out and notice that the ambient humidity it is reading is 83%. So now, the rusty ole gears in my head start turning and I begin to suspect that there is no way my humidifier is reducing the humidity from the ambient of 83 down to 60 -- laws of physics and all that stuff.

So I throw that rascal in the humidor and sure enough 85%. So now I go searching through the forums to figure out what that means for my small stash. Whoa! Beetles! Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! A little more checking and it seems that my best bet is to buy some of those gel/bead things and dry my humidor! In the meantime as, what I hope will be a beneficial experiment, I have put a small tray of salt in the bottom to see if that helps out.

From one extreme environment to another!

Wes
 
countryblues said:
OK so I am a little slow. I moved down to the Texas coast a little over a year ago from Colorado. Folks in CO know how dry it is up there. I had given up on trying to keep a humidor up there as all I managed to do was ruin cigars. I had a whole house humidifier and still couldn't get my cheap online purchased humidor to hold a good humidification. Well it's HUMID down here! Let me tell ya! So decided to pull that little humidor back out and try to keep a few cigars on hand rather than going to the B&M all the time.

First thing I noticed was that the hygrometer was sitting at a nice 60%. Hey problem solved! Woohoo! I buy a few smokes put them in and join CP! All is right in the world. Well digging around on here I decide I ought to calibrate the hygrometer. Its a cheap analog type. So I just did that today with the salt water. I just checked it a few minutes ago after the requisite 4 hours and no change -- 60%. What gives? I stop to think about this a bit then I remember that I have in a box a digital temp/hygro that I bought in CO years ago. I pull it out and notice that the ambient humidity it is reading is 83%. So now, the rusty ole gears in my head start turning and I begin to suspect that there is no way my humidifier is reducing the humidity from the ambient of 83 down to 60 -- laws of physics and all that stuff.

So I throw that rascal in the humidor and sure enough 85%. So now I go searching through the forums to figure out what that means for my small stash. Whoa! Beetles! Danger, Danger, Will Robinson! A little more checking and it seems that my best bet is to buy some of those gel/bead things and dry my humidor! In the meantime as, what I hope will be a beneficial experiment, I have put a small tray of salt in the bottom to see if that helps out.

From one extreme environment to another!

Wes
Click to expand...

Congratulations on going straight for the right answer (beads) instead of doing what it seems like most everyone else does: dick around with half measures or cheap fixes, whine that they don't work, get told to buy beads, try some other half-assed attempt to solve the problem, whine some more, get told again to buy beads, whine a bit more, and then finally buy the beads!

I'm not sure if the salt will do anything. I'd guess no, but I really have no basis for that assumption. You could try putting the cigars in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator for a few days to pull the humidity out of them and then store them in a tupperware, but the beads will be there soon enough so there's probably no need for anything too drastic.

Also: analog hygros suck, throw that thing out.
 
As pointed out above, forget about using the analog hygro, they are not accurate. You need a calibrated digital one for accurate measurement.

Beads are great though and it seems like you are taking the right steps.

Let your humi dry out and re-season it with just plain distilled water - no salt needed.
 
>> So I just did that today with the salt water. I just checked it a few minutes ago after the requisite 4 hours and no change -- 60% <<

Ummm... did you mean 4 hours or 24 hours? Double ziploc ( as in one bad inside another ) or a confirmed air/water tight plastic container ( you would be surprised how many are not ) with the salt solution for 24 hours is about right to get true results.

If you are going the bead route, you will be fine. As said above, good choice. The above correction is so that bad info doesn't get spread around.

Seth
 
Thanks for the advise guys. I have the cigars in ziplocs in the fridge now and the humidor is sitting open to the air. And I have shipping confirmation from Heartfelt on 1 oz of 65% beads. I wonder about the seasoning aspect though. My problem here is excessive humidity. Ambient humidity down here is 85-95%! So intuitively I am thinking that I just want to put the beads in the humidor and let them draw out the moisture to get it to a proper humidity. Right? Wrong?

forgot to add.

Seth, according to the pinned Guide: How to salt test / calibrate your hygrometer 4 hours is the amount of time. Is that a misprint?
 
OK, here's a new question re. testing the hygrometer. As I said above, the ambient humidity here is from 85-95%. If I follow the instructions and place the hygro in a ziploc bag with a capful of wet salt. I don't see how the humidity can ever get down to 75%. There's is just too much moisture in the air. Maybe I'm missing something?

The digital hygro I have was not designed for humidors. It is a Bemis thermo-hygro, that I bought at Ace Hardware in Colorado when I was trying to humidify my house up there. I had the absolute reverse problem there -- ambient humidity in between 15-20% normally. That being said it wasn't cheap -- 30 bucks -- so it should be fairly accurate. Right now I have that hygro sitting in a ziploc with the slurry and it is sitting at 83%. Hmm, I think I just answered my own question. I think I have too much water in the solution.
 
If I were you, I would click on the store link at the top of this page and go to the digital hygrometers link. You can get a digital hygro for $18.00 shipped. It fits all nice and neat where the analog hygro goes. Salt test that puppy and you're good to go. I have one in my humi and it works like a charm. As for your house, I live in Georgia and have a bit of an ambient humidity problem to. I took my home temp/humidity gauge like the one you bought from ACE (I'm assuming that's what you're talking about) and stuck it all around the house to find a place where the humidity is not so bad. You might could try that. Maybe you could at least shave a couple of points of the humidity that way. IMHO. Hope this helps.

Edited because I spell like a 4 year old.
 
Q,
Yup. that's the plan. The humidor I have is one of those with the hygro imbedded in the front so I want to make sure the replacement I get is an exact fit, but as soon as I have that down, I'll jump on it.

I'm familiar with the humidity of Georgia! I did a short stint at Fort Gordon about a million years ago. Atlanta was a mighty fun place for a 19 yr old with a weekend pass! :cool:
 
First off, take your cigars out of the fridge.... that is not the way to lower humidity in cigars, if that is even your problem. How are you cigars smoking? You don't have an accurate hygrometer so you have no idea what condition your cigars are in and have no reason to be trying to dehydrate them. The humidity here varies. The humidity in my house at this very moment is approx 48% and I'm not more than 30-40 miles from you as the crow flies. The humidity in Angleton tomorrow from noon to 4-5pm will be in the high 40's low 50's. In the evening and morning it will travel back up into the 80's-90's but unless you live outside or don't use airconditioning, and I can't imagine anyone not using airconditioning here. its a mute point.

I have never seen an accurate hygrometer that fits in the front of a humidor like a puck..... I'm sure someone will tell me they have one that works great but I can assure you that 99% of them are junk. Use a good digital that you can put in the humidor with your cigars.

Two things you need to do before anything else. First, take everything out of your humidor, put a flashlight in it, and close the lid. Can you see light coming out of it? You need to be sure that your humidor seals and this is as good a test as any. Second is to test your hygrometer with a salt test. If it is posted somewhere to only test for 4 hours then yes, it is wrong and bad advice. There is no reason to rush this procedure and 24 hours is best to assure the reading. Does that mean the hygrometer may not read accurately after 12 hours? No, it means 24 hours will assure you the best reading.

Once you have the correct answers to your humidor's seals and the accuracy of your hygrometer you can then assess the condition of your humidors enviroment with facts instead of pulling stuff out of the air. This isn't rocket science so don't make it so. Start with the basics and then change one thing at a time to tweak to your likings. Changing too many things at a time will make it hard to identify problems.... start with a solid seal humidor and accurate hygrometer and then take one step at a time so you can identify if the step you just made caused a problem or not. Once you have everything dialed in, its a piece of cake.
 
Hey allofus,
Thanks for the input. I gather from the "here ducky ducky ducky" that you are a duck hunter as well! that time of year is rapidly approaching, woohoo!
 
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