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My Wineador Adventure. Musings & Problems.

I'm in Houston. Humidity is high and temps are high.
Typical summer day is 90-100F and 80+%RH outside. We hit 90F the other day.....and it is still winter.
Inside is 72F and 45-55%RH.

I have two Boveda packs in my desktop and 6 in my cooler.

If I understand correctly, you don't even have any cigars in the winecooler. Dead air is not the same as a cabinet full of cigars. You need mass for stability.


Truly, I don't understand your mental masterbation over this subject. You've been given rock solid advice on all fronts, but are insisting on making this harder than it is.
 
Scap said:
You need mass for stability.
Click to expand...
This is important. The Cigars and Plain Boxes hold moisture. That is, in effect a humidifier / buffer.

You've fallen into the rabbit hole. You cannot, nor will you ever, learn how it all jives until you cover the bases presented.
 
Scap said:
Truly, I don't understand your mental masterbation over this subject. You've been given rock solid advice on all fronts, but are insisting on making this harder than it is.
Click to expand...

I'll quote myself:

Lucifer Morningstar said:
Anyway, I thought I'd let everyone know my experiences thus far. Any advice, comments, and suggestions are always appreciated. I hope my post helps some people with their wineador adventure!
Click to expand...

It's less about asking advice, more about my experiences on this.
Like I said, shelves are in build, will be shipped by the end of the month. My plan was to get it reasonably stable before adding anything so I could store boxes while the shelves were being built.
As having it reasonably stable is impossible at the moment, I will wait until the shelves are shipped.

Never will order from Wineadors.com, judging by other peoples... experiences on the delivery time.

Anyway, I'll continue posting my results, and musings, as time goes on.
Will probably resume mid next week when I try a few new things.

For the record, the suggestion given was the modify the peltier, which in turn could cause it to burn out.
Can't do that - I'm no good with that sort of thing. The few electricians I spoke to won't do it, either.

The only other suggestion(s) were not to worry about it. Well once the humidity stops spiking all over the bloody place, I will. But it hasn't so I won't put any shit in there.
 
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I've enjoyed this thread. What I think people are saying is until you get your shelves and beads and whatever else you need or think you need installed and get some sticks in there. Don't sweat the humidity fluctuations so much. It's not an exact science.
 
I'm pretty much resigned to waiting for the shelves to come.
I'll update this thread if anything interesting happens in between. I would have liked to store boxes in there while I wait - but the spikes are just too much for my liking.

In the meantime, I've opened it up and turned it off.
 
Extra 3lbs of beads came the other day. I pulled all of my beads out 4 days ago, and let the new ones also dry out.
I shoved them all in, at different levels and will see what happens.
This is more of just a test to see if more beads make any difference (which I expect it won't).

Also, I bought 2 Camco fridge aerators to circulate air. They happen to be really crap. I'll probably end up buying proper 120mm fans with grills for air circulation. Just a repeat cycle timer is really expensive, as in Australia they're non-existent.

Anyway, I'm still on the fence whether or not to get active humidification. I'll wait until the shelves arrive before making that plunge. John updated me and from what I can tell all that needs to be done is glueing the bits together, so it's always nice when things are ahead of schedule.
Picture that he sent me
vDiF2EO.jpg


FWIW, I'm only getting 2 shelves and 2 drawers. So the cooler won't be full of SC. So active humidification may be needed in the worst case.
Either way, if all fails I have some pretty cool shit I'm bound to find a use for.
 
So I bought a Cigar Oasis Plus. With the plus unit at the bottom - the humidity was really good except for the top - however, very minor fluctuations.
I decided to season 2 of the SC racks I bought ages ago, and re-season one of my humidor racks. I placed all 3 in the wineador and the cigar oasis in the middle.
To be honest - I'm really happy with the results. I'm still fiddling a bit here and there, but ultimately, it's good enough to the point I've placed a few sticks in there.

When the drawers and shelves come from John, it will most likely be much better than it is now. So in the end, it's come together quite nicely.
Each drawer and shelf will have Boveda packs, but they most likely won't be needed.

I'll update if anything new pops up. Unfortunately, I can't achieve a perfect 65RH 24/7... but I can get it where there are fewer fluctuations - a little SC helped in that regard!
Thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions, and advice.
 
I must say the John Nelson experience is amazing. He messaged me earlier today and said "I will probably be able to ship by the end of the week." which is always good news when things are ahead of schedule.

In other news, I now have 2 fans up top and 2 fans down bottom - both 120mm. I also put 2 Camco fridge aerators in the middle. The middle fans are really quite underpowered, so it's more of a "keeping airflow" consistent kind of thing. The humidity is holding a steady 64 - 67 throughout the fridge so I am happy with these results. The Oasis has to be set in the 60 - 62 region in order for humidity to not spike - despite the Oasis being calibrated. I'm tinkering with the positioning of it at the moment.

I put some hygrometers on the front of my trays to see any different results - these are usually +2 or -2 difference from the back of the fridge. Despite all my hygrometers being calibrated for 48+ hours the cold temperature does something to them. Anyway, results are good - once the SC shelving and drawers come I am sure the results will be even better.

I'll update if anything new pops up.
Thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions, and advice.
 
Hello.

The 2 shelves and drawers from John arrived. I would post pictures - but they're wrapped in glad-wrap with Boveda seasoning packs.
Seeing as I have a few sticks in the cooler I didn't want to mess it all up with seasoning kits. I figured glad wrap is the next best thing. I also did this with some SC racks you can buy all over the place. This will take 14 days apparently. The foam on the dividers isn't exactly stuck on much, and easily comes off. So I'll have to do something about that. Maybe super glue or something like that to make sure it stays on.

I cut into the side of the wine cooler with my knife when removing the peg things. It's really unfortunate, but I sealed it up with some silicone. Looks ugly but will be hidden. Besides - the cooler was under $200 so I wasn't expecting metal-hard plastics.



After the seasoning is done - just because they were in glad-wrap I'll stick them in the wine cooler and put some distilled water dishes, and sponges on each rack to make sure they're fully hydrated. The sticks should be smoked by then. Plus the Oasis can go up to 85% so that will help.

In the meantime, I was reading humidity - it's settled down now that I put some SC racks in there. So all is fine and dandy. The Inkbird thing is quite nice. I still can't get the Cigar Oasis fully "right" as I have to set it to around 64% to have it 65% top, middle, and bottom.



Anyway, I'm quite happy and pleased with what I did, considering the costs. I haven't got "Nirvana" but I am damn close. There's very little in terms of fluctuations. Maybe 1 or 2% over the day. As my readings are all in the 63 - 66% when I have looked. Plus there's the added bonus of proving that a non-Pigfish made wineador is perfectly fine. Which is a reward in and of itself.

Wineador adventure coming to a close, I'm in the home stretch now.

Hope this has helped someone. Comments, suggestions, and advice is always appreciated. My suggestion for anyone looking to make the switch - go for it!
Incredibly fun, albeit at the start I was worried - don't be!
 
Honestly, and I don't mean this offensively, but I'm still confused as to the purpose of this thread.

Most of us have gone through everything you're discussing and some have documented it to varying degrees on the forums here. I get you're trying to help others who are setting up wineadors for the first time but, simply put, this won't really help them. We are all in different climates, at different altitudes, with different weather patterns, and different humidity conditions. We have different thermostats, different walls and levels of insulation, hell -- we even heat and cool our homes differently.

On top of the physical conditions, we all have different standards. What you consider acceptable fluctuations in humidity, I consider unacceptable. Not because you're wrong and I'm right, but because I'm worse than you in my desire for control over every aspect of my cigars environment. Hell, some here have unloaded thousands of dollars just to never have to worry about it again. My point is, the specifics of what you are detailing here works for exactly one person -- you.

If I had done a post like this, I'd still be posting on it presently because I'm still constantly tweaking my setup to an unhealthy degree.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this -- maybe your post will prove helpful to someone down the road. I get that. But by using the search bar above, people can dive in as deep as they want to in order to create the range of conditions they consider acceptable. To me, this is sufficient. So while the intention of your post is certainly good-natured and meant to be helpful, and while it may help some newer members enlighten themselves as they decide how much control they want to have, I'm left feeling anxious and a little annoyed.

I can't speak for the board here at CP, but I've already been through all of this above, come to different conclusions based on different issues for my individual climate, home, altitude, ambient humidity, the erratic temperature shifts my wife requires based on seasons, and beyond specifically helping a new member dealing with a specific issue related to something I've experienced, I don't know that I'd want anyone else to live through the hell it took to set up my own wineadors.

Then again -- your avatar is the devil... :D
 
I'm not sure why, but you're spelling "masturbation" wrong.
Anyway, my data logging shows it's fairly well set.

I'm going to have the fans turn on with the humidifier, as I tested with the fans off and it was better... So I think with fans coming on with humidifier it will help the humidity come even across the whole cooler.
At present, the fans are on a repeat cycle timer.

Either way, I'm not going to get rock steady results as-is. I need the shelves and drawers in. The rock steady I hope to achieve is 65% for the most part. The cooling is good at the 20°C 24/7.
I won't get 65% 24/7. But 64 - 66% 24/7 would be ideal.

Camco fridge aerators aren't doing anything at all. So I may just pull those out.
Beads are drying excessively fast. Makes me think the shelves aren't seasoned enough - though I did wipe them down liberally. I know wiping down has mixed views but it has worked for me with no warping.
The cooling unit may also dry the beads out. But considering they dry out in 24 hours makes me think it's more than that (hence my musing above).

Anyway. Musings are posted here.
 
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