Cheating humidity?


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Hello friends,

A quick question; I have a display humidor shown here in this thread. I live in the western suburbs of Sydney, and while it doesn't get as humid as Queensland, my digital hygrometer (and 2 analogues) are currently showing 73. Now, I know that this RH doesn't necessaries hurt my CC's, but over the past weeks I've become 'spoiled' and love the taste of 65ish RH... but the weather has turned against me. The humidity won't stay down. I have a huge sack of beads in there (thanks to El Prez!), 2 x pucks, a few silica bags etc. and it refuses to drop. I have come to the conclusion that I'll need to get something more 'active' to work for me.

HOWEVER... in the mean time- if I keep a *REALLY* vigilant eye on the readings- is it possible to use an airconditioner to 'hyper dehumidify' the humi? I'm talking an hour in a room under supervision?

It sounds crazy- hell, maybe it is!- but just thought I'd ask the experts if anyone has done something like this before.

Thanks for any suggestions and advice!

PS) I know this is a temp solution- I'm moving soon and want to buy something a little more 'purpose built' ;)

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Hi Ryan,

No, do not do the air conditioner trick. This will dry out the outside of the cigar but inside will still be wet. At least bag all the cigar before attempting.

I do want to know the following though:

- Have you confirmed and calibrated all the hygrometers to be accurate ?

- Do the pucks and beads got chucked into the humidor dry or with some moisture?

It could be the hygro are not showing accurate readings. or the pucks and silca are releasing moisture.

If those statements are incorrect, then I advise on the following:

- bag all your cigars in Sealable plastic bags

- open the door to the humidor for several hours to drop the humidity.

Hyper de-humidfy = Damp Rid but this may mean re-seasoning the humi if overdone.

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Ah thanks for the reply mate.

That's good to know about the aircon; I didn't think of that...

95% of the beads were proper "puck" beads from Rob. They were put in 'dry' in an attempt to draw the moisture, but he even commented that the area was pretty large for this kinda thing. I have a few silica bags in there (the 5%) that I might remove now... seems they might be doing more harm than good. Pretty sure the hygro readings are accurate; the digital one is new and the two analogues were salt-tested. The prob with my digital one is that it can't be calibrated. I really need a Xikar, I think.

I might try, as you suggested, removing the sticks and attempt to lower it the easy way 1st... leave Damp-Rid as a nuclear option ;)

Cheers mate!

PS) You coming Tues?

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- open the door to the humidor for several hours to drop the humidity.

That would be stupid if the ambient humidity is higher than the desired RH inside the humidor…

In my opinion, there is not enough cigars in the humi. In my experience, with passive humidification, the more cigars the better the humi works.

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That would be stupid if the ambient humidity is higher than the desired RH inside the humidor…

Yeah, that part wouldn't work for me... what I was going to do instead was bag them and place the empty humi in an air-conditioned room in a hope that maybe if it were the cedar itself that was too highly saturated it might aid in drying it out. Thought I am a little hesitant at doing this...

In my opinion, there is not enough cigars in the humi. In my experience, with passive humidification, the more cigars the better the humi works.

I love this answer because it allows me to go nuts and buy a sh*t-ton more cigars than I can afford. For science. In all seriousness though, I have noticed it rise slightly every time I pull 3 - 4 sticks out.

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I don't use the a/c trick.but the room that holds my humi's has a/c unit in it. When ever the room hit 69f the unit comes on til the room goes down to 65f.This also pulls out humidity in the room.Right now my room is sitting at 60 rh its the same as i keep my humidor rh at,So if i wanted to i could open up my boxes and re arrange rotate stock or whatever at my leisure.

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There are many factors at work here. The key is outside air ambient RH.

The bigger the space you condition, the more energy you use! The solution is in the economy of the scale.

Furthermore you must understand what is going on in your humidor in order to solve the problem. Frankly, your humidor is your problem!

You see everything in your humidor is hygroscopic. The air inside is hygroscopic, the wood, the boxes, the cigars, the humidifiers. Once the air supply is unlimited at 72 RH (just for example) that means everything in there will become 72 RH! This is what is referred to as Equilibrium RH.

You need to jump on a solution to solve the problem. You need to:

Bring the ambient RH of the room down in toto and allow the humidor and it contents to transfer water to the room.

-or

Use the damp-rid, or a dry industrial desiccant to dry the inside of the humidor. It must be recharged by you, before the point of escalating RH in the humidor or the saturation will occur again. Don't be afraid of too dry! To wet is much harder to deal with! This along with a dryer room will help.

Need more details than this, let me know. -Piggy

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Sounds to me like a leaky humidor, i was also looking at your humi where you posted the pics...

While the pucks are excellent and you are on the right track with beads, id have thought a humi of your size would have needed a lot more than the amount you got in there. Have you ever considered heartfelt beads? Or cigarmonys rh beads?

Or,

Your humi could be fine and you may have over-saturated your pucks.

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For a big cabinet type humidor, beads won't do crap. I tried it myself to no avail. during a couple of months in the summer, the ambient RH in my area gets above 70, causing the RH in my big Aristocrat humidor to spike. The amount of beads I would need to make even a 1-2% RH difference would be massive. The only thing I've found that helps is DampRid. it slowly but effectively lowers the RH down to the desired RH target.

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Hey, thanks to EVERYONE for their tips and suggestions; the reason I didn't repost was I've been busy looking at (and then buying) my first house with my wife :)

I'll play with my humi when I get a chance, but I won't worry excessively until I relocate it into its new environment...

Thank you for all the advice- I'll smoke one for you all tonight at the Sydney C.U.*.T.A meeting ;)

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I have a similar problem in the summer. What I do is keep the AC runnning in the room pretty steady (with my humidor closed) and use my beads to bring the humidity inside my humidor up. I've found that I can maintain a pretty steady 62% this way.

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