humidifier placement in humi

SoddyDenizen

Hi folks, been reading heavily here but this is my first post.

Just unwrapped my new humidor and I am wondering where to place the humidifier in it. Capacity is 50, shall I just put it in the corner, away from the hygrometer and rotate the sticks every few days? Also, how long will it take to achieve the proper rh before I can put my cigars in there? Or does that vary too much to predict?

I can tell already that 50 will be too small I think but it gets me started at least. Thanks for any help and thanks for a great forum!

oldsoulrevival

SoddyDenizen:

Hi folks, been reading heavily here but this is my first post.

Just unwrapped my new humidor and I am wondering where to place the humidifier in it. Capacity is 50, shall I just put it in the corner, away from the hygrometer and rotate the sticks every few days? Also, how long will it take to achieve the proper rh before I can put my cigars in there? Or does that vary too much to predict?

I can tell already that 50 will be too small I think but it gets me started at least. Thanks for any help and thanks for a great forum!

What kind of humidification unit are you using? It sounds like you are using a little round one that came with your box? If so, you should seriously consider getting some beads or gel - easier maintenance, and no chance of mold starting on the humidifier. As for placement, I don't know how placement affects cigars, but what I did was buy Drymistat tubes, and then evenly distribute them around my humidor. If you are using one humidification unit, I would think a corner should be fine.

Also, I am not sure (again, no expert here), but rotating all your cigars every few days is far too much, and probably not a good idea because the more you move around, pick up, drop, touch cigars, the more chances they have to get damaged.

my 0.02

The Sniper

Remember, humidity rises - the best placement of a humidification device IMHO is the bottom of the humidor. In smaller humidors this isnt so much of an issue, but when you start getting up into the sevearal-hundred-count or monster coolidor size (and you will LOL) thats something to file away for future reference.

Also, MUY IMPORTANTE - if you havent already done so, make SURE you do some research and season your humidor before you start storing your cigars in it... failure to do so is gonna cause lots of headaches with your RH if you dont. You may want to shoot Salem a pm on this, as she recently seasoned her first humidor and can walk you thru it. Also, using the search function here on the forums for the topic will probably yield some very useful results.

Hope this helps! :-)

jimmyv723

Great advice already and I have a 100 count humidor myself. I seasoned it before I found the forum here and actually found some great videos on Youtube for the steps involved. Also, as already stated definitely get rid of the foam humidifier that came with the humidor. I use gel jars in mine and have two of the 2oz ones and in the 50 count you have I would imagine a single 2oz jar would be plenty if you decide to go that route. Gel jars, Boveda packets, Drymistat tubes and beads are all options you could go with. Welcome to the forum and enjoy the ride.

oldsoulrevival

I, too, just seasoned my first humidor recently, and can offer some advice. PM if you want more info.

SoddyDenizen

Thanks for all the great advice! I think I will need to go for a gel pack or equivalent for ease of maintenance. Sounds like a much more consistent approach and I certainly need ease! Also should I use the divider to separate the humidifier from the cigars?

Good call on not moving them around too much, I thought they would need to be "rotated" or placed in different areas to maintain even seasoning. Of course this is only a 50 count box so I am really dealing on a small scale at this point.

And I did not write my post clearly, I was wondering how long proper seasoning would take to achieve the proper rh? I have read a week or as little as overnight using different approaches. I understand that it is very different.

I appreciate all the help, this is a great wealth of information!

oldsoulrevival

1) buy a digital hygrometer.. analog is really not good enough. Mine is off by 10 points, but my digital is spot on. I would also buy a hygrometer calibration kit from Boveda (I think they are 3 or 4 bucks on amazon) - it's what I used and it made calibration so much easier.

2) you really don't need a week, especially with a small humidor.

3) do NOT wipe the inside of your humidor. It's only good for speeding up the process, but frankly, there is more risk than benefit.

4) How I did it:

a) Place shallow bowl of DISTILLED WATER in the humidor(IMPORTANT:: USE DISTILLED WATER when dealing with ANYTHING in your humidor. If you get the gel, ONLY use distilled water). You are going for surface area, so a shallow cup is better than a shot glass. The bowl I used was about 2 or 3 inches across and 1 inch deep.

b) put your calibrated hygrometer into the humidor

This is the information I gave to him - feel free to correct me on anything, fellas.

Russ55

SoddyDenizen:

I was wondering how long proper seasoning would take to achieve the proper rh? I have read a week or as little as overnight using different approaches.

As you've probably already read, it depends on a lot of things. Seasoning method, size of humidor, ambient humidity/temperature, etc.

If you go with the shallow bowl, and charged humidification method I would watch it closely, and when it maintains a good, stable rh for 24 hours you're probably good to remove the bowl and add sticks.

If you go with Boveda seasoning packets, just follow the instructions. It takes a while with those, but it's very easy.

Rhamlin

Use the devider to seperate mild sticks from the full sticks, though if theyre in cello this isn't much of an issue. You don't need to worry bout seperating the humidifier from your stick. I keep my humidifiers laying on top of my sticks mainly so I don't have to disturb them when I add water.

boydmcgowan

The Sniper:

Remember, humidity rises - the best placement of a humidification device IMHO is the bottom of the humidor. In smaller humidors this isnt so much of an issue, but when you start getting up into the sevearal-hundred-count or monster coolidor size (and you will LOL) thats something to file away for future reference.

Hope this helps! :-)

Totally agree with sniper here. the only thing, I'd add is for people like me who have a medium sized humi with a removable tray separating the top form the bottom, its wise to make sure you have enough air flow from the top (where your hygrometer is), to the bottom (where most folks put their humidifiers) so that you get an accurate reading.

For example, I stuffed hy humi to the gills and have my hygro in the top area of a glass top humi so I can check the humidity without opening it, and my humidifiers (beads) on the bottom. Well I have 70% beads and I couldn't get the humidity to rise above 63%. And I was wtf? so I kept adding more water and more water till I knoew they we're completely over charged. and then sat back and said, wtf am I doing wrong here?

well my dumb a$$ covered up every single vent in the tray which lets air flow from the bottom area to the top area, so that very little air was getting to the top section where my hygro was. So I set my hygro in the bottom section to check, and it jumped to 69%. Luckily I use beads or else I'm sure it would have been much higher.

So I dried the beads out a bit, thinned out the top section, by using some tupper ware and now Its reading an even 66-68% all over which is right whereI like it.

So I know you have a 50 count, with no trays but I wanted to share the story for all to learn from my mistakes. hahaha, don't you judge me.

Moral of the story, USE BEADS or some over two way humidification, it can save you if you over fuss with things or over stuff your humi.

acewoodson

I learned the hard way on replacing the humidification disc ASAP. My disc had mold within the first 2 weeks. I was fortunate enough to catch it early. The Boveda packs or some of the gel cups are the best IMO. Some of the guys on here swear by beads. I also don't see a problem wiping down the humi with a light touch of distilled water. Just enough to get the wood shaving residue off of the inside. It will speed up the seasoning a tad and clean up the humi.

SoddyDenizen

Thanks for all the help everyone, great advice and insight. I do love to learn from others experiences. My first humi seems to be stable at this point, the hardest part for me is to just leave it alone and quit fooling with everything. I appreciate the assistance on questions that I'm sure have been asked many multiple times.

The 50 seems small already so there will be a larger one in the near future I am sure. Then of course I will need a travel humi for road trips, hard case for golf days, wallet case to keep one or two on hand.

Guess I have a lot to look forward to!

docbp87

In my 100 qt. cooler, I have bags of beads in all 4 corners, and one bag on top of the stack of boxes in the middle. In my 100 ct. desktop style humidor, I have a bag of beads, and a tube of beads, both on the right side of the humidor, on the other side of a divider, so my sticks stay nice and neatly piled up, despite the awkward shape of the tube and baggy. I've never had any problems with the fact that some sticks are further away. The reality is that as long as you have a well maintained source of humidity, unless you have a big cabinet, or a walk in, you probably aren't humidifying a space large enough for placement to make a big difference.