Crystal Clear Litter Pearls not working?

llmercll

Hello everyone, I jumped on the Kitty Litter bandwagon and picked up a bag of this to use for my humidification purposes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001HWE6F0/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Problem is, they don't seem to be working so well. My humidor is barely hitting 60 RH with them, and a lot of them keep going white, even after a good spritzing.

I put a hygro in the KL bag and it read at 10% RH!!! I read that when most members here did it it reads around 65%.

Could they have changed their formula and are just using desiccant silica now? Any ways I can surefire test these beads?

thank you!

Bob_Luken

10%? Wow! That is way off the scale DRY. I've measured litter resting in the bag or jug between 50 to 60%. My suggestion is that you buy some in a jug. Those bags usually are not air tight and I suppose that the low winter RH may have affected yours. Maybe the litter that is sold in jugs isn't affected as much. Just a guess.

You should be able to slowly bring up the RH of the litter you already have by leaving it for a long time in a cooler along with a container of distilled water. This may take a while but whatever you do don't keep wetting it and expect quick results. I hear everybody say that getting it really wet diminishes the silica's "working ability".

Trident

Kitty litter needs to be trained to maintain humidity. You need to keep it at a constant rh until you don't see any fluctuations anymore. Otherwise it will be used to remove humidity.

llmercll

Thanks for the replies.

I will have to train it then, I have not done that. I guess just putting the beads into a plastic container with a bowl of distilled water will do the trick?

Could the low humidity have done any permanent damage?

thanks!

Trident

cigars are more resilient then you think. as long as they weren't down in there for months they should be ok. just get them into proper storage. good luck

with regards to the distilled water in a bowl. yes it will work. after a couple of days of just water with the kitty litter i usually put in a boveda pack so i know that the humidity will be stable and at a set place

Bob_Luken

I would think your cigars are fine assuming that you didn't let them stay in there with the 10%RH kitty litter for a long time. I would just keep an eye on your hygrometer in the humidor to make sure they bounce back.

Just to be clear, don't put the kitty litter IN the water. Put the kitty litter (KL) in a shallow flat tray or tupperware container and then do the same for distilled water (DW) in a separate container. The more surface area of DW you can expose to air the better. Same goes for KL. Low flat containers will expose more KL and DW to air and humidity exchange than would the same amount in a deeper bowl. And it's OK to spritz it lightly with DW to give it a head start but just not too much. Maybe just two spritzes of fine mist. At some point you will need to test the KL that you are trying to train. Just take a few cup fulls out and test it in a ziploc with your hygrometer. When it can give you a steady test reading at the RH you want, then it's ready to use.

catfishbluezz

My guess? Bad seasoning of the humi. Take some of the KL in a container, spritz it, and put it in a bag and see what the rh is. As far as it being dry, that is not a problem. I know alot of guys that bake it or microwave it to dry it out before they put it in the humi. So really, IMO the 10rh thing is not an issue.

Bob_Luken

(Dustin's post made me wonder,) What sort of situation was your humidor in when you introduced the KL? Was your humidor getting dried out already. Did you try KL as a solution to a problem? I hope that's not the case. If you are hoping it will correct an already bad situation, and you have never even tried it before, it could be very frustrating.

llmercll

Thanks for the continued replies

I'm sorry for any confusion, but I meant if the "beads" would be damaged from the low RH. I know my cigars are fine, as I have a set of already charged beads from a year ago that I've been using. The humidor never dropped below 60%. The 10% was not measured in my humidor, but in the actual bag of KL. It's slightly lower in there than the ambient RH, which is very low anyways because it's winter.

I took some of the KL out of the bag, spritzed it, and sealed it in a small ziplock. It's reading like 77% RH and has been since last nice. I guess that shows they aren't bad =p

Bob_Luken

You had Heartfelt beads in there with the KL? No problem with that that I can see. Sounds like you have things under control.

llmercll

Yeah I was never worried about the cigars, just the beads. Didn't want to waste $20 on them and find they don't work.

I put them in a plastic container, sealed the lid with saran wrap, and placed a fairly large, shallow dish of distilled water in there. Hopefully that brings up the humidity on these guys

I always thought these were 2 way beads though? Like they are designed to keep the air around 70RH. What's to stop them from going out of whack once I train them?

Bob_Luken

llmercll:

Yeah I was never worried about the cigars, just the beads. Didn't want to waste $20 on them and find they don't work. I put them in a plastic container, sealed the lid with saran wrap, and placed a fairly large, shallow dish of distilled water in there. Hopefully that brings up the humidity on these guys I always thought these were 2 way beads though? Like they are designed to keep the air around 70RH. What's to stop them from going out of whack once I train them?

The heartfelt beads are processed (trained?) at the factory. Kitty litter is a bit different. They are not exactly the same but from all reports, and my experience, they work just the same once they are trained. I have a couple of 70 quart coolers that I keep with KL and they went for 4 months or so without a single spritz of distilled water. I don't completly understand the exact science behind it all. But they just work great.