Curious about humidity & humidor

[McPhenius]

This might be a totally "stupid" question, but I am curious.

I have my digital hygrometer on a desk in the room where my desktop humidor is. The room is dark, with hurricane shutters closed and blinds on windows. There is central A/C in the room.

The temperature is alittle high at 75 degrees, but the humidity is between 65-70%. This is on my desk, NOT inside the humidor. When it's in my humidor, the humidity goes up a bit.

If my humidity is in the room is 65-70%, do I have to keep the cigars in the humidor? Should I just leave the lid open?

I haven't left the hygrometer out for more than 48 hours, but the range of max. / min. isn't too bad. But I guess the humidity could flucuate more.

I was sparked to ask this as a local cigar shop by me is one "large humidor" with the cigars openly displayed in the shop. They keep a gauge on the bar and it stays around 54% which I imagine compensates for people coming in and out of the bar and all the smoke in the air.

 

[N2Advnture]

65-70% is ideal for smokes (as I assume you know) but when you say the hygrometer goes up once you put it in the humi, what does it go up from? 65%, 67%, 70%?

What type of humidification device are you using in the humi?

The most probable cause is the interior of your humi is made of wood which has absorbed and retained water vapor as well as the cigars that are inside.

You could open the humi to let it dry out a bit or use a regulating media like the beads.

Just a thought.
~Mark

 

[McPhenius]

Thanks Mark... It's a 200 count Humidor from Thompsons, so it uses the black trays that you dip into water. I did wipe down the interior and let it sit overnight prior to filling with cigars. I've had it a couple weeks now and perhaps it does need to "dry out" a bit.

I was just curious as to if the cigars had to be in a humidor if the humidity was 65-70% in my dark room. In reality, I have the humidor and will use it, I was just curious.

I did leave it open for alittle while and the humidor is reading 67% today.

 

[Gonz]

The nice thing about a humidor is that it is a controlled environment. At most, with proper humidification (i.e. beads), you should experience a very small fluctuation in humidity, such as +- 3%.

In your house, even in that room, year round I would imagine the humidity might fluctuate a whole lot more than that, which isn't that good for the cigars.

Now if you've got a collection that consists of 10 cigars that have a turnover rate of every couple weeks, then I wouldn't worry about it too much. But if you plan on storing or aging any of your cigars for longer than that you will be best served by a humidor.