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Setting up my first Humidor

gt3911

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
119
Hello all,

Sorry – another noob here.

I’ve had a few things running through my head recently but kept refraining from making a topic as I didn’t want to rush into questions that didn’t really need asking. But I feel now that I could really appreciate some advice as I’m quite cautious and don’t want to damage anything.

I got my first humidor this last Sunday, nothing amazing, it has a capacity of 80 cigars.

I’m going to admit this… My order arrived, humidor and cigars – GREAT! *thinks – hmm shame it didn’t come with any instructions / advice… ah well I’ll fill her up and go do some reading ---- oh damn, time to empty her now!* ooops.

So, after emptying the humidor, I put a shot glass in there with water, but left the humidifier uncharged, as I placed some solution on order, I became concerned that after 24hrs the hygrometer was reading 40.. I felt this was too low but wanted to wait to see what this solution stuff was all about!

So, my solution arrived, and then I became confused about how much to use, I was quite worried about using too much, I’d heard mentions of people using squirts – but how big is a squirt?! I used the solution found here with a generic humidifier identical to this here so I started to put little drops of solution onto the foam, literally a tea spoons worth, and thought, surely we’ll need to use more than this.. so then I dropped a few more drops in eventually after dribbling more in, I noticed the foam seems to soak it up a lot, and soon looked ‘dry’ like it wanted more, I probably ended up with around 40mm in there, and left it tipped upside down for 1hr to allow any drips to drip (which didn’t occur) to ensure it wasn’t too wet.

I then placed the humidifier into the humidor and removed the shot glass. 12hrs later.. a reading of 40! So I decided put the shot glass back in but to fill it with the solution and take it from there, about 6hrs later 55% - now that things were looking up I was hopeful. Unfortunately 24hrs later still 55%.

While this was going on I’d been desperately asking friends if they had a hygrometer I could borrow, but so far no luck.

My hygrometer is on the front of the humidor, but thankfully 5hrs ago, I was relieved to find I can pull it out, I expected it to be glued in. Excellent! Lets test this thing out, I got a damp cloth and wrapped it up. 1hr later 70% 2 hrs later 70%.

Ah – finally, it seems I’m dealing with a poorly calibrated hydrometer. But now I’m just wondering about the best way to calibrate it. I read the methods here and just like my uncertainty with the solution I’m a little ‘scared’ about messing this up too.

My concerns with the damp cloth – isn’t humidity relative to temperature, so a damp cold cloth, or a damp warm cloth?

I thought, to be safe try and calibrate it using both methods listed. Calibrate it to around 96% when in a cloth, and then see if that calibration comes anywhere near close to 75% in the salt solution, if it reads 50% then I know something didn’t work right…

Aswell as being unsure about the temp of the cloth affecting the result, with the salt method, “a cup or spoon filled with salt” unless your using very tiny cups theres quite a big difference here, does it not matter if I use a cup or a spoon full? As long as the salt is damp the quantity doesn’t matter?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I know, a lot of you are going to say, get a digital, maybe even get beads, and yes, I’ve been looking into this, and plan on importing from the US to help keep the cost down, but unfortunately I’m really trying to make do with what I’ve got as these are costs I didn’t account for – I just payed my car insurance for the year so my account is currently sitting in the red, I do intend on upgrading my equipment, its just totally unfeasible right now though.

Many thanks!
 
There are too many issues to address in one reply so I suggest you use search or call Heartfelt and let David steer you straight.

Steve
 
1.) Properly season your new humidor for approx 10-14 days by placing a bowl of distilled water in it and leave it closed.

2.) Calibrate ("salt test") your digital hygrometer

After your humidor is properly seasoned:

3.) "Charge" the humidifier with distilled water and "pg" solution

or ditch the humidifier and pick up the Puck-ifier or RH Beads for easier RH regulation

4.) After your RH is holding steady, slowly start adding cigars a few at a time (dry cigars can quickly lower RH).

I hope this helps

~Mark

.
 
Thank you very much.

Steve, sorry if I overloaded with info.

Mark, great, thanks! 10-14days! I see! Very helpful indeed.

I have some deionized water sat here doing nothing, any use? Or do I need to head out to the shop and grab some more distilled water for the 14 day seasoning?

I found this here the most helpful explanation of the salt process – but it still left me with questions. I’d be so much more comfortable if someone said “put 50g of salt and 10mm of water in a cup” but no luck with finding any specifics so far. That’s currently in process right now, I felt the salt had the consistency of wet sand so decided to go ahead and let the process do its thing, although I have noticed that it DID feel like wet sand and didn’t look too wet, but now (after 30mins) I can see (without opening the container) the cup has separated some water and is now in a puddle, I’m not sure if this is normal or if my solution was too damp, and maybe I should open it up and poor out the excess?

And finally another concern, the salt in my kitchen, I noticed says its “reduced sodium salt” to reduce the risk of high blood pressure. Its “low in sodium salt and high in natural potassium” I’m not sure if this might knock the experiment out of line or not…?
 
First of all, I suspect your humidor's just sucking up humidity, which is why you have low readings. Don't let that bother ya, give it a few weeks...

Im not sure what deionized water is, but distilled water is cheap, around here it's less than a buck per gallon.

The salt test only works for me if I take 'regular' table salt (Mortons regular good old salt, kosher sea salt didnt work the same) and dampen it so the salt absorbs the water, if there's any laying on top of the salt solids I had to wipe it up in order to get a good reading.

~R
 
Great thanks Mysterea!

I'll drain off this excess liquid thats formed ontop of the salt then.

What I plan on doing, is as you mentioned - my salt might not be right for the job, So, I'll do the salt test and calibrate, then do the water test, if the water test gives a reading like 60% then I know something went wrong somewhere.
 
Hey all,

Thanks a lot for the help, I’d of been lost without this great resource.

I did the salt test, which informed me my hygrometer was 20% out of calibration(under). Due to the previously mentioned concerns about my salt, I then did the water test which was another 5% out under, from my readings it seems the salt test is more preferred and the water test is ok – ish, at 96% so I decided to adjust the hygrometer an extra 3% instead of the full 5, but to keep it in mind it could be under reading still, but a lot closer than it was before.

My hygrometer is now in the humidor, and although its not been left for the full 10 – 14 days as previously mentioned I’m reading 80% - Maybe I could start loading a couple of cigars at a time?
 
Hey all

Things seemed to look alright so I thought I’d try and load it up. (keeping cigars in wrappers) so if I wasn’t happy its no big deal to empty it again.

The cigars have been in there for about 4hrs and its currently reading about 78% - I’m using a pre mixed solution(bought mixed) so adding more glycol isn’t going to work (I don’t have any unmixed) so, I’m thinking if it continues to stay to high, I could just open the lid for a while?

A friend of mine has offered to loan me the $$ for a digital hygro if I store his cigars.
I’d been looking at this one, and I’ve seen a few people mention it, no one has any horror stories with it? here I’m also interested in the crystal gels this shop sells, anyone had any experience with them? (I did run some searches on here for this product but got a lot of ice boxes and ‘no result’ returns.)

Many thanks
 
Great advise from all. there are also other products in the market that can help, boveda pack make a calibrating kit, real easy to use. www.cigar-solutions.com carries then at a good price.
 
Excellent many thanks for the info here, the links and advise has been great!

also thanks to napa_smokes via PM's

I'll grab the calibratable digital hygro with the humi pack :)
 
Did you rtesort to using regular table salt instead of reduecd sodium?
 
Hi Jfields,

No I didnt as it didnt seem to effect the results, I verified this by doing the moist cloth calibration straight after the salt calibration. The result was 5% under. It seems the salt test is more prefered, so instead of adding another 5% I added another 3% and thought this will probably be calibrated close enough until the digital arrives. (ordered 5mins ago so hopefully I should have it next week) i can the calibrate both hygro's in the same boveda bag.

If after doing my salt test the water test was 10% out I'd of probably decided to redo the salt test with some 'regular salt' but I thought 5% was probably enough room for error at the moment?
 
Hi all,

I just wanted to comment on my findings just in case a fellow noob stumbles across this post.

My Hygroset II digital hygrometer arrived with a 75.5% RH Boveda One Step Calibration kit. Which, I thought was interesting, as the humidity accuracy is rated at +/- 2% at 65 to 75% yet my calibration bag exceeds this. Not by much, so I’m not too concerned I suppose.

The hygrometer arrived -4% out of calibration. I then decided to test my analogue in this pack, Oh boy.

It turns out that it was out by +20% - I can only put this down to 2 things. Firstly as previously mentioned by salt was “lo salt” which could of knocked my readings off, But I also ‘double checked’ my calibration by using the water method, which I’m now not so keen on, We’d like to hope our hygrometers window of accuracy will be around where we’d like to use it – I’m going to guess that with the water test giving such a high reading, you hygrometers probably way out of its accuracy zone, so calibrating it up at this end of the scale is probably not a very good idea….?

After re-calibrating the analogue in the boveda pack, I sat the digital and the analogue next to each other in open air, my analogue is actually over reading @ 75% by approximately +2% as the screw in the back is a little tricky to get right. However once my digital dropped down to 65% the analogue began to under read by just short of -10%. I also find the analogue gives a lot lower readings when mounted on the outside of the humidor, (the indented bit where it was designed to go)

So, if we can assume that the boveda packs are accurate, and the Hygroset II is also accurate, then my analogue is almost completely useless, its purpose in life now is to look pretty and fill the hole in the front of my humidor.

I’d say, that if you’re reading this, and your playing round with a standard analogue hygrometer, from my experience so far, your probably barking up the wrong tree, I cant recommend enough to get a good digital gauge, I’ve found it very interesting to compare the 2 devices in different environments, with no consistency at all. I’m sure a good analogue hygrometer can be useful, but if you’re a noob like myself, using a cheapo standard one… from my experience, your wasting your time.

On a positive note, my cheapo humidifier and solution seem to be holding up well to my surprise, with the humidor sitting quite happy at 68%

Many thanks for all the help
 
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