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Humidification Beads: FAQs

NullSmurf said:
yenwen said:
I was wondering about beads falling apart in my humi. I bought the 60% tube the smallest one and seems like the beads are breaking apart because everytime i move it to get to a cigar i hear more and more particles dropping and i've shaken out what i thought all of the pieces twice before... just wondering if i messed something up or if they're drying out too fast or something.
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If you dip your beads in water (like I do), they will sometimes fracture. It doesn't diminsh them at all. They should not be fracturing because of ordinary handling.
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Keep the cigar in a plastic Glad-lock container...that way the particles don't go all over the place...
 
they're fracturing on their own... i haven't added water to it in weeks but moving the tube i hear the pieces fall over the cello....
 
yenwen said:
they're fracturing on their own... i haven't added water to it in weeks but moving the tube i hear the pieces fall over the cello....
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Thats the first I've heard of this. I don't know what to tell you.
 
ok so... maybe i'm hydrating them wrong... should i dump out the beads and spray hydrate them and put it back in the tube?
 
Perfectly normal. I don't care for the tubes for this very reason. I prefer putting the beads in either a container with a solid bottom or the end of some pantyhose. You will still get some fall out with the pantyhose but nowhere near what you get with those tubes.
 
necro-bump. this should be at the top so those newbs of us don't have to spend two hours searching for this thread; which btw does not pull up under a search for "beads", but did turn up on page 10 of a search for glass top.
 
jailbait said:
necro-bump. this should be at the top so those newbs of us don't have to spend two hours searching for this thread; which btw does not pull up under a search for "beads", but did turn up on page 10 of a search for glass top.
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+1

I searched for quite a while before I found this. Would be a great sticky.
 
Probably not a bad idea. Am I wrong in thinking that the majority of the members here are using Viper's beads?
 
Giving Props to Viper here. I Ordered some beads from hearfelt. Unfortunately i ordered 60% instead of 65%. When i him with my issues. It was not a problem. Simply mail them back to him and he will send out the correct beads. mailed back the beads 3 days ago and already have the confirmation that the new beads are on the way.
 
Been using 65% beads for a while now and the humi stays consistently between 62-64% (using a digital hygro). 63% right now @70F and everything has been smoking perfectly.
 
Thanks for the bump, I am looking at replacing my COXL with some beads and now do not have to search... :laugh:
 
Great information held here.

I currently have a post running here. I received my beads from you a few days ago, but want everything to be right before I use them. Over here in the UK I'm failing to find Distilled Water, I've posted on that thread a link to a technical break down of Distilled vs Deionised but don’t feel like I understand it enough to say its ok to use. I can buy Deionised water as commonly as you guys across the pond seem to be able to access Distilled. I've also discovered a Humidification Solution for sale in a popular uk cigar shop which states "A Special de-ionised solution to maintain your cigars in..." So.. that made me think that de-ionised should indeed be safe for my humidor... And safe for the beads?

I'm also not sure where I stand on using an anti mould additive like the PG mix, some places I'm reading say I need to, others say don’t. ???
 
If you are not able to find distilled water de-ionized will work just fine. Some de-ionized water still ahs some of the minerals in it but it is still a better choice than bottled water or tap water.

Don't use any type of Humidification Solution, most of them are a mixture of water and propylene glycol. The propylene glycol will ruin the beads. This also answers your last question.
 
yenwen said:
ok so... maybe i'm hydrating them wrong... should i dump out the beads and spray hydrate them and put it back in the tube?
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I realize I'm about 2 years too late for a response for this, but some of the new guys that are buying the tubes might benefit from an answer so I'll shed some light on what I've done. I've got two 4 oz. tubes which I sprayed with distilled water. It's very hard to tell the color of the beads in the tube so I just assumed I was good to go after spraying them a few times and wiping off the excess water on the tube. The humidity in the section that the beads were in was only at about 59% after a week or so (the beads are 65%) so at the suggestion of heartfeltindustries.com I threw in a glass of distilled water next to the beads. To my understanding the beads sucked up the extra humidity which got them more "wet" and brought the RH back up to a good 63-67%. So, if you are having issues with your tubes running low on humidity and are unsure on how to get them wet enough your best bet is to throw a glass of distilled water in next to them and they will soak up the right amount of humidity. It takes a bit longer but to my knowledge none of mine have not cracked and it is holding perfect RH! Thanks again for the beads Viper! :thumbs:
 
I tried another 3 shops today and a pharmacy all with deionised. I’ll continue to hunt for distilled a bit longer, I’m happier now your saying its useable, but it doesn’t seem like its what we should be using ideally.

One of my concerns with the beads is the mould issue – whilst hunting for water I’ve come across a lot of information, a lot of it basically saying that because distilled water is so pure it can be ‘attacked’ by disease a lot easier. In contrast to tap water if tap water is left out for an hour it’s quite safe to drink, distilled water left out for an hour although it isn’t considered dangerous bacteria will have colonized it, apparently after a days vast blooms of bacteria, algae and mould take root… Now, I’m not saying by any means that I want to use tap water. I understand why you want the purest of waters, but my concerns are that my previous solution contained (apparently) and anti mould agent, and if indeed it is true that distilled water has such a lack of bactericidal properties that it could leave my humidor more open to mould issues?

The beads contain any kind of anti mould agents?
 
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