cigar.com deluxe humidor

Big Ern

i just received this new humidor i am a beginner and am seeking information on properly setting my new humidor.i have 15 sticks that will end up being useless without a little TLC and expert instruction.can anyone give me a little help like a "humidors for dummies" type instruction thank you in advance

mrpillow

First you will need to season your humidor. Place a small dish full of distilled water into the empty humidor, shut it, and leave it shut for at least 3 days, opening it periodically. If the water has evaporated, refill it until it stops evaporating. This will properly acclimate the wood to a humid environment. You will also need a humidification device. The humidor probably came with a foam type humidifier, throw this out. Invest a few $$$ in some humidification beads from Heartfelt Industries. The small round humidifier would do fine for your humi. Most prefer the 65% beads as it generally makes most cigars smoke better. After your humidor is seasoned, place the cigars and the charged beads into the humi. You will need a hygrometer for monitoring the RH, a digital is vastly prefered to a analog. You can get a decent one at Walmart for $7. To test the accuracy of the hygrometer, perform what is called the "salt test". Place the hygrometer in a sealed container (tupperware works fine) with a small dish (water bottle cap works) of damp, but not soggy, salt. Leave it sealed for 24-48 hours. After this period the RH in the container will be 75%, so whatever your hygrometer reads, subtract that from 75%. This is how far off your hygrometer is, and will always need to be taken into account when reading your humidity. For example if your hygro is off by 7%, when it reads 58% the humidity will actually be 7%.

Thats about is as far as the basics go. While your humidor is seasoning you cna keep your cigars in a tupperware container using the foam humidifier that came with your humidor, until your beads come in!

xmacro

In addition to what mrpillow said, you can also use the search function on the forums to look for "humidor seasoning"