Establishing/Maintaining Humidity In A New Humidor
grizzly_bearded
Posts: 4
in Cigar 101
All right, so I've been a cigar aficionado for a few years. But I've always just bought a handful of cigars each week, would smoke them, and then go get more. Never had a humidor, and never bothered.
However, for Christmas, I received a nice 50 count (I think) humidor from the family. I calibrated the hygrometer, and did a fairly **** job at it I might add. I was unaware about things like seasoning the humidor and propylene glycol and such. Didn't really concern myself as I was still just buying a few here and there.
Recently, I've gotten into buying boxes of my favorites and wanted to properly set up and use my humidor. And I've run into issues I'm hoping someone can help me with. I took the time to season the humidor this time.
-I put my analog hygrometer that came with, in a glass dish with a shotglass containing the salt/water mixture, and sealed it in. Waited the 8 hours or so, and it was solidly registering 70-75% after that, so I put it back in my humidor.
-I used distilled water from a Brita filter system I have, and used a small sponge that came with the humidor to lightly dampen all the interior wooden surfaces, then dampened the sponge again, placing it on a Ziploc bag inside, and closed the humidor for 24 hours. I checked the reading that morning, about 12 hours later, and it was about 65%, and after the 24 hours passed, it was reading ~70-75% again. Repeated the process another two nights, as I was told 2-3 times would do it, and after the third night, it was still solidly reading where it should be.
I placed all my cigars inside, and the humidity plummeted. It was staying at 55-60% and through keeping a wet sponge in and adding water to the small circle humidifier, I've managed to get it just over 60% but can't seem to get it any higher. So, any tips or tricks or things I've done wrong here? Could really use some help.
Thanks.
However, for Christmas, I received a nice 50 count (I think) humidor from the family. I calibrated the hygrometer, and did a fairly **** job at it I might add. I was unaware about things like seasoning the humidor and propylene glycol and such. Didn't really concern myself as I was still just buying a few here and there.
Recently, I've gotten into buying boxes of my favorites and wanted to properly set up and use my humidor. And I've run into issues I'm hoping someone can help me with. I took the time to season the humidor this time.
-I put my analog hygrometer that came with, in a glass dish with a shotglass containing the salt/water mixture, and sealed it in. Waited the 8 hours or so, and it was solidly registering 70-75% after that, so I put it back in my humidor.
-I used distilled water from a Brita filter system I have, and used a small sponge that came with the humidor to lightly dampen all the interior wooden surfaces, then dampened the sponge again, placing it on a Ziploc bag inside, and closed the humidor for 24 hours. I checked the reading that morning, about 12 hours later, and it was about 65%, and after the 24 hours passed, it was reading ~70-75% again. Repeated the process another two nights, as I was told 2-3 times would do it, and after the third night, it was still solidly reading where it should be.
I placed all my cigars inside, and the humidity plummeted. It was staying at 55-60% and through keeping a wet sponge in and adding water to the small circle humidifier, I've managed to get it just over 60% but can't seem to get it any higher. So, any tips or tricks or things I've done wrong here? Could really use some help.
Thanks.
0
Comments
It's just a little frustrating to have tried to season the thing, and now it's hovering low (to me) at 65% when I'd like it at around 72%.
you mentioned you salt tested your hygro, and it sounds as if its in the ballpark, but a little low. That puts your 60% read humidity in the low to mid 60's, which is actually within the realm of good cigar conditions. I prefer 65%. I'd spring for a digital hygro that can be calibrated to get a solid reading.
Could be that the sticks were a little dry, and sucked up all your moisture. Smaller humidors are much slower to bounce back after a "shock.".
Buying silica beads (same material as kitty litter) will save you many headaches in the future. They are "rated" for different humidity levels, and you simply throw em in and pretty much forget.
Especially these parts: Yes ... your cigars will be fine, 60s won't hurt them.
(Now if they were in the low 50s and you added them to a humi that was in the 70s you'd have issues due to the rapid change in RH. But slow, minor changes in RH is fine. So take a deep breath, all is well. lol) (Maybe I missed it, but how many cigars did you add to the humidor?)
Whenever I add more than 5-10 cigars at a time to my smaller humidors I'll notice the RH drops a few % then slowly climbs back up within a day or two.
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
So yeah, get the beads or kl and the digital hygro and toss the foam. If your humi came with the foam puck you can throw out the foam and keep the plastic case to put your beads inside. In the meantime, open that thing up daily to check on the humidity or like catfish suggested move your cigars to a tupperware container until your humidor is 100% ready to go. And welcome to the forum.