Controlling temps?

TRAVIS

So I read through most of the recent post and I see lots of post about what temp is best. My question is how do I get the temp down? I hover around 78 degree's and it is in the coolest dark room I have. The humidity stays around 71% (finally) Anyways, I was wondering if the mini fans are the best bet? It is a 100 ct humidor with about 80+ sticks in it.

Thank you in advance

phobicsquirrel

The best way to control the temp would be to get a wine fridge, or a little fridge. That way you could control the temp. Other than that I'm not sure.. My house can get warm as well and that is why I had to move my cigars. I actually had mold growing off of my humidifier. It ruined some cigars that had no wrapping. Though everything else was okay. I never really knew how to properly clean it, though all I could do was to wipe it down with distilled water.

Lasabar

TRAVIS:

So I read through most of the recent post and I see lots of post about what temp is best. My question is how do I get the temp down? I hover around 78 degree's and it is in the coolest dark room I have. The humidity stays around 71% (finally) Anyways, I was wondering if the mini fans are the best bet? It is a 100 ct humidor with about 80+ sticks in it.

Thank you in advance

I have in exreme cases loaded up my humidifier and put the cigars in the fridge... it'll dry the humi out a little (I only put them in the fridge for about a few hours) or I've done the plastic novelty ice-cubes (so they don't melt and leak) and wrapped them in a towel and then placed the towel in the humi. It'll drop the temp a few degrees, just make sure that you know the humidity will rise for the ice cubes with condensate...

This by no means is an expert opinion, but it's what I've done

kuzi16

basement.
wine fridge
crank up the AC
move
build a humidor with a peltier device


iduno though. id try and drop my RH to 65% with temps so high. the reason behing keeping the temp down is to stop the dreded tobacco beetle. If you have had your humi at almost 80 for a few weeks you are probably in the clear.

still 70*f is the goal but it isnt life or death (even for your cigars) if you get up to 80.

Big Dan

wats a tobacco bettle? how do you know if you have it? and how can you raise the humidity?

rusirius

Big Dan:

wats a tobacco bettle? how do you know if you have it? and how can you raise the humidity?

It's a type of beetle... They eat tobacco, but they'll eat just about anything else too... You can get them in your cabinets, etc...

You'll know if you have them because your cigars will get little pin size holes all through them... Basically the eggs hatch and the larva eats it's way out and then becomes an adult beetle, which then lays more eggs on your sticks, etc...

To get rid of them you basically have only one resort.... freezing... Not great on the cigars, but better than the beetles...

The good news is, they aren't really that common... Manufacturers (At least the good ones) fumigate their sticks (in a vacuum) which destroys the eggs...

as for raising the humidity, that's what a humidifier is for... Fill it with PG solution preferably, or just distilled water...

kuzi16

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

rusirius

kuzi16:

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

I'm just answering his question... LOL... I figure lowering the humidity is pretty self explanatory... Open the humidifier in an environment where the humidity is lower than your target and wait...

kuzi16

nice...
i was responding to his question too.

rusirius

Actually, this does raise an interesting point... Does anyone (and by anyone I'm probably narrowing it down to the Cap'n here...) use the vacuum method on all their cigars before putting with the rest of their collection?

I mean I know lots of people use quarantine humis, but that really isn't gonna tell you if there are live eggs in there or not... Unless you keep those humis at higher temps and humidities (unlikely) and keep them in there for a few weeks, you really wouldn't know... and if there WERE live eggs, would you really want to do that and risk destroying the sticks?

So I'm just curious... Shirley someone with a collection as valuable as the Capt. would think nothing of spending the cash it would take to buy a vacuum pump and some sort of container???

kuzi16

well... as pointed out before, most of the higher end cigar makers already fumigate, freeze, or vaccuume. i cant speak for the capt, but i dont worry bout beetles that much. my temp and rh are in the safe range and i only have higher end sticks.

dutyje

From what I understand, the eggs are actually very resilient in their dormant state. Fumigation, vacuum storage, and even freezing are no guarantee to make 100% of the eggs unviable. The eggs are only viable for a certain period of time, however. I don't know how long that is (6 months?), but after that time they won't hatch, even in the absence of preventive measures. A quarantine humi can be effective if you're willing to keep the cigars in the humidor long enough to ensure that the eggs aren't viable.

I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about temperature. I look at it this way. I place an order from ccom, and they shove a bunch of cigars in a ziploc with a grossly over-charged water pillow. Based on the experiment I conducted, this has a high likelihood of giving me over-humid sticks. Also, these well-hydrated sticks spend several days in a UPS truck and/or warehouse. I place orders year round, and a good bit of the year has temperatures well above 80 degrees.

With all the facts in the above paragraph, you would expect people to be getting shipments of beetles all the time if this were anyting to be concerned about. I trust that, well before the cigars have made it to my house, virtually all the beetles and eggs have been wiped out by any combination of the preventive measures in the first paragraph. Also, let's say the viability period for an egg is 6 months. That means that the elapsed time from the laying of the egg in a place where live beetles are present to the time it arrives on my doorstep (providing it still show no signs of infestation) would have to be less than the viability period.

I'm not trying to say it's not possible to get beetles. Otherwise we'll have maddy on here telling his story. Although it's a funny story (for us, not him). I just think that it's extremely unlikely if you, as kuzi suggested, keep your humidity comfortably shy of the 72% mark.

rusirius:

Shirley someone with a .....

hehehe

Fourtotheflush

Im new here, so I want to hear Maddy's story, unless it is too difficult for Maddy to tell!

TRAVIS

kuzi16:

basement.
wine fridge
crank up the AC
move
build a humidor with a peltier device


iduno though. id try and drop my RH to 65% with temps so high. the reason behing keeping the temp down is to stop the dreded tobacco beetle. If you have had your humi at almost 80 for a few weeks you are probably in the clear.

still 70*f is the goal but it isnt life or death (even for your cigars) if you get up to 80.

I plan on dropping the RH until the cooler months to about 68%. the only problem I have with temp is usually durning the day and it tends to come down a little at night, last night I was at 73 degrees and 70% humidity. I think I just need to stop worrying (because im new) and just relax. I wont worry with temp spikes and ill just keep an eye out for any wierd holes! I have to admitt using these forums have calmed me down and assured me that im over thinking the whole situation. I APPREACIATE ALL THE INPUT!!!!

phobicsquirrel

Fourtotheflush I love to hear homer when he says that line! cracks me up all the time.

Big Dan

ok well i hope i dnt get them haha i dnt even wnt to smoke them its messed up

jihiggs

I have only ever once had problems with mold, or with tobacco beetles. the mold issue was solved by getting rid of the crappy green humidifier. the beetle incident was brief and insignificant. during my last move, by circumstance I ended up homeless for a couple days and stayed at a friends house with all my stuff in his garage. there wasn't any place to keep my 3 humidors and 1 large coolerdor without his kids seeing and becoming intrigued (something he did not want to deal with) so I left them in the garage for a couple days, left my under charged beads in and the temp got easily 90 degrees for a good 6 hours of the day. When I moved into this place it was during the worst heat wave I have ever seen up here (95 degrees lol) I was worried about my cigars and began inspecting them and expecting to have to throw a good portion of them away. I opened one box and a single beetle flew out. I never found a damaged stick. I think you will run into problems if you have consistent heat problems, in my case it got down to 70 quickly after the heat of the day.

BigDan.

haha well i defeniatly dnt want anything flying out of my humidor, im ordering a 150 ct glass top humi right thts on its way, i expect my cigars a lot on my little humis but im hoping all will be fine. the only problem ive had is that my cigars seem to be hardening

rusirius

BigDan.:

haha well i defeniatly dnt want anything flying out of my humidor, im ordering a 150 ct glass top humi right thts on its way, i expect my cigars a lot on my little humis but im hoping all will be fine. the only problem ive had is that my cigars seem to be hardening

Don't be too surprised by "hardening"... Make sure your hygrometers are accurate and trust it from there... A properly humidified cigar will feel "hard"... Just as long as it's not cracking or rather when you press on it it doesn't crack the wrapper, etc...

I find that most cigars that arrive from shipments are over-humidified... These feel kinda "spongy" to the touch... If you're going by that and then feeling them firm up in the humi you may be freaking out for no reason...

CvilleE

I just read this curious about dropping the temps in my cooler and humi, but no matter what I do both stay at 70-70 (give or take a degree or 2 both ways, depending on their mood)....those who know me, seen a month or so ago I was worried about the radiant heat I have in the house disturbing my sticks, but I guess the reason I bumped this thread is because I found a few gars cracked in my humi...I assume that means they are under humidified, or too hot...

I have done the test, got digital hydrometers (2 of um)...got the self calibration kit for them, done more test, and recently added 2 oust fans....still it stays the same give or take a few....

I haven't found anything wrong with the sticks in my cooler. So is it just my humi? I don't see what else there is for me to do to lower the temps (I know I need to get the 65% beads to lower the humitity, cause the gel does what it says...keeps it at 70%)...but I open the lids and they appear to adjust to the room temps, so I don't think it is the meter....Aaaarrrrhhhh...hate it when I check and one cracked, and another with the wrapper that started to unpeel..all overnight..Any thoughts?

kuzi16

cigars usually dont crack when they dry. they just dry.

if cigars crack, it usually means one of two things:
1) the wrapper was applied to tight in relation to the amount of tobacco in the filler.
2) the humidity swung from too dry to too damp in a short amount of time.

cracks usually dont have much to do with temp.

CAcigarguy007

kuzi16:

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

This is good advice if you have temperature issues. You can do it by lowering your media ratio. If you use beads, less beads. If you use humi pillows, start with 1 and add more as needed. Give it a a few hours each time to stabilize before you take your reading. You may find you need very little humidification, especially if you live in a humid environment. Some guys in FL have to use damp rid. It really is just trial and error but if you can't keep temps down be sure to lower you humidity for sure! I have that problem in the summer. Here in CA my humis are at 80 degrees sometimes but I just remove pillows til it sits at 65% and I have not had any issues whatsoever. Wine fridges are good but they have drawbacks and you really need to know how to set one up (drain ramps/plastic blockers ect) less you get errant drops of water which will give you mold anyway. Bringing the RH down is priority number one with regard to high temps for an extended period. Good luck.

kuzi16

CAcigarguy007:

kuzi16:

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

This is good advice if you have temperature issues. You can do it by lowering your media ratio. If you use beads, less beads.

by the nature of how the beads work this is actually not a solution. if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 70% beads you will never get down to 65% by removing some beads.

if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 65% beads and your humidity is still high, taking beads out will not solve the issue. this means that your beads are charged too much. you need to de-charge the beads. in fact, if you add more of the 65% beads that have no charge you will be more effective in lowering the humidity because they are able to soak up more of the moisture.

CAcigarguy007

kuzi16:

CAcigarguy007:

kuzi16:

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

This is good advice if you have temperature issues. You can do it by lowering your media ratio. If you use beads, less beads.

by the nature of how the beads work this is actually not a solution. if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 70% beads you will never get down to 65% by removing some beads.

if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 65% beads and your humidity is still high, taking beads out will not solve the issue. this means that your beads are charged too much. you need to de-charge the beads. in fact, if you add more of the 65% beads that have no charge you will be more effective in lowering the humidity because they are able to soak up more of the moisture.

By your theory 1 saturated bead will humidify a whole humidor? No way! You want to look to make the humidification device work (stay active in output) and there is a low limit were you can make it stay active and in the "sweet spot" if you will. Personally, I just use humi pillows. Quick, easy, cheap, and effective.

kuzi16

CAcigarguy007:

kuzi16:

CAcigarguy007:

kuzi16:

uh... i said lower humidity to 65%

This is good advice if you have temperature issues. You can do it by lowering your media ratio. If you use beads, less beads.

by the nature of how the beads work this is actually not a solution. if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 70% beads you will never get down to 65% by removing some beads.

if you are in a high humidity area (80%) and you have 65% beads and your humidity is still high, taking beads out will not solve the issue. this means that your beads are charged too much. you need to de-charge the beads. in fact, if you add more of the 65% beads that have no charge you will be more effective in lowering the humidity because they are able to soak up more of the moisture.

By your theory 1 saturated bead will humidify a whole humidor? No way! You want to look to make the humidification device work (stay active in output) and there is a low limit were you can make it stay active and in the "sweet spot" if you will. Personally, I just use humi pillows. Quick, easy, cheap, and effective.

I never said one bead could do it. in fact, i never even implied it. i actually said the the more beads you add the better it will hold a specific rh. that is true that there is a minimum you need to humidify a humidor, but by the nature of the way beads work the more you add the more stable the humidor will be. if you live in a high rh area (80+) and you have 65% beads, the more you add the closer it will stay to 65%. make sense? the beads are two way. they soak up extra humidity. if you have more of them they will recover quicker from a spike up in humidity.
most humidification devices only let out moisture up to a point and stop. beads let out moisture up to a point then above that point they soak it up.

the more you have the better it will hold steady. you keep about 60% charged. the wet ones will let off humidity if it gets low. the dry ones will soak it up when it gets high.

CharlieCordus

How dry do those beads need to be to soak up the extra humidity? I tried that this summer by throwing in a bunch of the humicare pillows we get from CCOM and it didn't seem to work very well. They were flat so I thought they were 'dry' I was thinking maybe even a little moisture in the pillows was too much.

kuzi16

CharlieCordus:

How dry do those beads need to be to soak up the extra humidity? I tried that this summer by throwing in a bunch of the humicare pillows we get from CCOM and it didn't seem to work very well. They were flat so I thought they were 'dry' I was thinking maybe even a little moisture in the pillows was too much.

those are not humidity beads. those are pillows. they are a very different medium. they let out rh up to a point then stop. they dont soak it up from the air.

CharlieCordus

well that would splain things!