humidity opinions

letsgowithbob

Hey guys, I have a treasure dome humidor with a cigar oasis in it. My problem (or not problem) is with the humidity of it. I have a calibrated hygrometer (digital) and I cant seem to get the humidity down below 70. I would like to get it into the 62-65 range. I am thinking that the humidity wont come down because the humi is so small that the sponge is basically keeping the humidor too high for my preference. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences for me? For most of my cigars the humidity in my humidor is fine, but when I smoke outside when the humidity is high outside I experience more than usual burn issues. I am thinking that bringing the humidity in my humi down to the 62-65 range might alleviate some of these problems. Let me know what you guys think.

skweekz

What sponge are you speaking of? It's been my experience that anything involving cigars and a sponge is destined for bad news.

CvilleE

skweekz:

What sponge are you speaking of? It's been my experience that anything involving cigars and a sponge is destined for bad news.

+1...Check on getting some beads or the boveda packs (not the small humi pillows), between the two you can't go wrong....

deejmemixx

CvilleE:

skweekz:

What sponge are you speaking of? It's been my experience that anything involving cigars and a sponge is destined for bad news.

+1...Check on getting some beads or the boveda packs (not the small humi pillows), between the two you can't go wrong....

Beads for the win

Heavy

deejmemixx:

CvilleE:

skweekz:

What sponge are you speaking of? It's been my experience that anything involving cigars and a sponge is destined for bad news.

+1...Check on getting some beads or the boveda packs (not the small humi pillows), between the two you can't go wrong....

Beads for the win

+1,000,000 I fought with humidity flucuations, mold issues etc. when I got my first humidor going using the sponge it came with. Made the very minimal investment into beads and haven't had a problem since. You still gotta keep an eye on them of course, but the effort involved is nothing compared to dealing with any kind of sponge. I'd suggest the 65% heartfelt beads. I use those and I'm usually between 62-65% all the time. If it ever gets above 65% I just take the beads out for a day or so, put them back in, and everything is fine.

Rail_Jockey

The cigar oasis is probably too much for the size of your humidor. Take it out and get the beads or packs..

Toombes

Beads, beads and more beads! Gonna throw 1/2 lb of 65% Heartfelt in the trunkidor this week. Good things to come, I hope.

The Sniper

Ive had this problem with Cigar Oasis' in a couple of my humidors... my question is, where are you setting the Cigar Oasis at? If you simply use the digital readout on the CO to your preferred humidity, it will keep pumping out the RH until its internal hygrometer says it meets that setting. That internal digital hygro, in mine anyway, is nowhere NEAR accurate.

Pay some attention to what the your calibrated digital hygrometer in the humidor is saying when the CO kicks off, versus where the hygro in the CO is saying, and adjust your set point on the CO accordingly. For example...

CO is set to 65% RH.

CO kicks off (meaning it believes it has reached 65% according to its internal hygro).

Calibrated digital hygro in the humidor says 75%.

This tells you there is a 10% difference between the RH the CO believes to be correct, vs the 75% your digital hygro is telling which you which ACTUALLY IS correct.

Adjust your set point on the Cigar Oasis accordingly, and you should be golden. :-)

kuzi16

for the purposes of this post i am going to assume that the oasis and hygrometer difference is not there. this is just my opinion on what humidity is best for cigars.

i believe that i may have stated this before but things get lost on this forum easily.

the industry standard is of course 70*f and 70%rh. those were decided on because above 70* you have a chance of beetles and below the air doesnt hold humidity as well; above 70% mold becomes an issue and below 70% oils start to break down faster and the cigar will not age "properly"

given that i have the ability to control the humidity almost no matter what, i just keep my humidor at 70 degrees F or less. the humidity i have settled on is 68%

at 70% i got a few of the above mentioned burn issues. so i lowered it to 65%. i found that at this level nicaraguan tobacco tended to pick up harsh notes. since most of the big brands now are running with at least some nicaraguan tobacco, i needed to bring it up. Now i keep my humidor at 68%. it has been the best of both worlds.
again, just my opinion.