Do you trust your hygrometer

Teege

OK so since im new compared to most in this hobby I seem to be a bit obsessed with my humidity. When I had just a 40 count humidor with 25 sticks it didnt bother me as bad. Now that I have that full and hundreds of dollars (i know not much compared to most of you crazy people) worth of sticks in a coolidor I worry about it all the time. Im scared to death its gonna stay to high or to low and im going to get mold or dry out all my cigars. So the question I have is do most of you just trust one hygrometer in each storage container? (Humi,Cooler,Cabinet) Or do you have multiple in each one or switch them out from time to time just to verify?

AJGARLETT

On my bigger cooler's I keep one on the left and one on the right. I personally dont bother with top/bottom on coolers because IN MY OPINION it doesnt fluctuate enough to worry about in such a small space. If I had a cabinet, things would be different. I do rotate them every month or so but it gets to a point that if one of them is reading 3% or more off from the others, I know its a bad hygro. Also, dont stress over it man....as long as you have beads or some type of self-regulating humidification then its pretty hard for things to get out of control to the point things get damaged! Its a stress REDUCING hobby, remember?

Teege

Yeah the only reason I worry right now in the cooler is it seems to be staying on the higher end. (75-76) I have 1lb of beads in it and they are 65 and I never charged them. (48qt cooler) At first I thought it was the meter so I bought 2 more and stuck in there and then even did the salt test.

Todd suggested tonight I leave it open over night and then tomorrow close it and see if it stays lower and try this till I get in the range im looking for or take one bag (2 half lb bags) and dry them out and stick them back in and see if it will settle down.

asianbiker8

I actually wondered if some of you guys had more than one in those large coolers. Thanks for the response ajgarlett.

AJGARLETT

how long have you had the beads in? It sounds like awhile. I would definitely leave that open for at least a few hours....take those beads out of there while you do it and let them discharge completley. Have you recently added cigars from a shipment?

Teege

They have been in there 2 weeks and I havent added any new sticks in the last few days no.

greg2648

I have a 6ft cabinet. I have 2 Xikar hygrometers. 2lbs of beads and a Moist-n-Aire. Rock solid 65rh.

Teege

A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity (or relative density) of liquids; that is, the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of water.

A hygrometer (UK: /ha?'gr?m?t?/) is an instrument used for measuring the moisture content in the environmental air, or humidity.

Details..... lol I updated to spell correctly.

Teege

Also because I don't have alot of boxes yet I still have most of them in bags. I do have the bags opened in the box not sure if that affects anything.

Russ55

I trust my hygros, and I trust my Boveda packs, and beads even more.

BigT06

I trust my beads more than my hygrometers, honestly. I use 2lb of Conservagel, with about 60% of them charged. ROCK solid RH.

Having seen the hygros in question, I would say, not to sweat it too much. If it was a calibrated xikar reading that RH I would wonder a little bit, but I think you're good.

[Deleted User]

I use two in my coolidor about 6 inches apart in my singles tray. With the beads, there's not much to it. Sometimes they are 1% off so I don't worry about it. If I see them more than 2% off, I salt test them both. Beads = no worries.

big chunks

i have a xikar hygrometer and i trust it, works great

Rhamlin

I've got a colibri and it's always worked good(Asgard as I know)

e6specialk

I only have a 100 ct humidor and my 65% beads took between 2 -3 weeks to level out. I haven't had any problems since. I salt tested my hygro when I first got it and it has been spot on without any problems either. Also, before I started using beads, I used the gel and my rh would not get below 75%.

jasonusa1

I have a round Xikar along with the gel. I calibrated it using the Boveda packet. Granted my humi is only a 75 (give or take) count, it is full, and reads between 65-68. I'm happy with it.

dowjr1

I have a vertical humi and on the bottom I have a Humi Care XG which has a humidity readout on it and then for the top portion of my humi I have a smaller unit and a radio shack hygro which is spot on. I have had the radio shack humi for years. SO between the two I have a good feel for whats up.

boydmcgowan

Yes, I trust my hygros, which are analog btw, but rotate one more digital one on occassion to double check that everything is still working. Really I guess I trust my 70% beads more than anything.

If your humidity is high, I would first just open it up for a few hours and check where its at. If it drops to where you want it, then shut it again and see if it rises back up. If it doesn't then they just needed to let off a bit of steam. But if it rises back up to higher than you want it, then maybe your beads are overcharged even if you haven't charged them. I think I saw somewhere that someone used a hair dryer on them to dry them out a bit and start over. It would probably work just as well to place them infront of a heater vent for a bit.

Second solution, you might have too tight a seal on the cooler. Humidors aren't air tight, while coolers are so I think you typically need much less of your style of humidification, ie 2 lbs of beads may be way too much if they are charged even at all. So you could also try either leaving the cooler closed but unlatched, or maybe go with half as many beads. Or maybe try drying out half of your beads 100% and leave them in there just to absorb the over humidity from the half that remains charged? I don't know, Just throwing out ideas man, hope it sorts itself out soon.

scarlin

I have 2 normal round digital hygrometers and I absolutely do not trust them. Lol