Tower Humidor Help!

[Patric M]

Hey Guys.

I'm hoping that someone on here might have some experience with the Tower 2000 style humidors.

I recently set one up. It is the shelf model, and I have a Hydra LG in there at the bottom.

The issue I am having is that there is a huge fluctuation in the RH level in the cabinet.

I have the Hydra set to 65% the Humidity at the bottom are is around 70% the middle is around 65% and the top shelf if is around 62%. I have added 3 pounds of the HF 65% beads in the mesh bags. I have one bag on the top shelf at the back, one bag 2 shelfs lower and one on the bottom shelf. I just added these on Wed. It's now Saturday.

I also added 2 cooling fans some 200mm cpu cooling fans on on the top facing down and one in the middle facing down and I have the hydra extra fan in the bottom on the back wall blowing onto the hydra. The 2 fans I added have been off for the last 2 days.

The one issue I am having is when they hydra comes on the humidity display on it jumps very fast. So like if I open the door the display will go down to like 58ish, and then they hydra comes on and goes back up to 65 in about a min. the hydra is is the middle of the bottom away from all the wall and stuff. It doesn't really stay on long enough for the humidity to reach the top area. I know the humidity rises but even when I jacked the Hydra up to 70% it still doesn't really reach the top of the tower.

Should I made switch the fans so the are blowing up? and if so How should I mount them? right now one is screwed to the top where the hole is, and the other is on the bottom on the middle shelf. If I make them blow up them they will really just be blowing onto solid wood so it probably won't help.

The second issue I am having is that shouldn't the beads be able to keep it around 65% all throughout on there own?

Any advice would really help.

[Skyfall]

1) Don't trust the hygrometer on the Hydra, I would invest in the Honeywell or Meade wireless thermo/hrgro monitor with 3 sensors.

2) Check all of your seals, make sure your interior environment is secure.

3) you will probably have to tinker with air flow patterns to get a cyclical pattern going of unobstructed airflow, and you might want to think about bigger fans and timers.

[markmurase]

1) Don't trust the hygrometer on the Hydra, I would invest in the Honeywell or Meade wireless thermo/hrgro monitor with 3 sensors.

2) Check all of your seals, make sure your interior environment is secure.

3) you will probably have to tinker with air flow patterns to get a cyclical pattern going of unobstructed airflow, and you might want to think about bigger fans and timers.

I agree, check the seals. Can't keep humidity stable if the humidor doesn't seal.

[Patric M]

The seals are all good. The door closes nicely and i re sealed around the electrical box when I got it.

I'm also using the honeywell / meade kit with 3 sensors.

Today I woke up and checked and the top shelf is at 61% I added like 1 oz of water to the beads on the top shelf also.

I haven't been trusting the hydrometer on the Hydra. I have a good calibrated hydrometer sitting on the Hydra that I go by

[Skyfall]

The seals are all good. The door closes nicely and i re sealed around the electrical box when I got it.

I'm also using the honeywell / meade kit with 3 sensors.

Today I woke up and checked and the top shelf is at 61% I added like 1 oz of water to the beads on the top shelf also.

I haven't been trusting the hydrometer on the Hydra. I have a good calibrated hydrometer sitting on the Hydra that I go by

how wet are your beads? translucent:white %?

[Scdalak]

You Must install the 2 circulation (cooling?) fans at bottom of humidor facing up, diagonal from each other as humidity sinks not rises.. I have a 7 foot tower and took me good 6 weeks of experimenting to get it perfect. I now have 65-66% constant at all levels. It will take some tinkering and trial and error adjusting the humidy on the hydra especially as your collection grows. My tower has clear pathways on all sides from bottom to top for air to be pushed up. I bought the fans on Amazon (i recommend 4 Inch fans) and they are easy to install, also have them both hooked up to a 24 Hour timer so they run intermittantly not constantly. If you want to know what brand and how i Did it, please PM me. Here is a link to what my humidor looks like, you can see one of the fans under the drawer in back left corner, other fan is in front right corner. A little patience and perserverance will get it right.

http://www.friendsof...howtopic=110636

Hope this Helps and Good Luck

[PigFish]

Lord knows I don’t want to be accused of the misguided act of educating the membership… That is a bit of an inside joke between me and few others.

…But, you have a number of issues at play here, some of which can be solved and others perhaps not.

As usual I am going to post some things that you might not want to hear! I don’t do this for the sake of controversy but for the sake of edification; if not for you, for the other members of the forum that might be interested. Please accept my apology in advance if I step on your toes.

Any investigation about the sealing of your humidor is good advice. I don’t think that is your problem. Water vapor rises in air at a given temperature.

First back to basics. I will drone on about this till my dying day I suppose, but here goes again.

What does 65rH mean? It means absolutely nothing! That is right, 65rH, or 70rH… or 100rH does not mean a damn thing to anyone!!!

Why? I am glad you asked!!!!

Relative Humidity numbers alone are meaningless. Relative Humidity, means, humidity relative to a given temperature, without the temperature number we are all lost. There is a point to this beyond the lecture; trust me!

I want you to do something for me and forget humidity for a moment and start thinking about temperature!

Have any clue as to what your problem is now? You should!

Beyond the basics, which I won’t bore you with, water vapor content varies not only with rH but with temperature, as a relationship between the two numbers. Two 70rH spaces can contain substantially different amounts of water. It just depends on the temperature. So absolute humidity, or the amount of water actually in the space in your humidor may not really be the problem. As a matter of opinion, I don’t really think that it is. You see 70rH (just for example, you can pick any number other than 0) does not represent just one “set” value for absolute humidity (the amount of water in the space in grams (or grains) per unit of volume). 70rH at 60dF does not equal 70rH at 65dF, nor does either equal 70rH at 70dF in the amount of actual water in your space/volume of space. That is the way it works. You can get yourself a psychometric calculator and do the calcs yourself if you don’t want to believe me!

So what is your problem? In a nutshell, bad humidor design! SORRY!

Lets look at things a bit differently for a moment and forget about rH for now.

What does hot air do? That’s correct, it rises! Now lets look at your humidor and make some assumptions. Now I am not going to say that water vapor is NOT rising in your humidor according to the laws of physics, BUT your numbers suggest that something is defying this law. Or, of course you could have just invented an anti-gravity machine without knowing it!!! OR, you are just making simple mistakes. I am betting on “simple mistakes” as being the problem.

If you measure rH alone, as I have pointed out earlier you are making mistakes. The fact remains that the actual amount of water in the humidor space may actually be homogenized, but you don’t think it is because you are only monitoring half of the equation. This brings me to what I think the problem really is. So what is the temperature spread from the top to the bottom of the humidor?

The temperature of your humidor should rises as you move from the bottom to the top, and as a result the vapor pressure of water changes, allowing more water to be held by the warmer space. In real terms this means that your numbers MAY BE consistent with the higher space being hotter and therefore then able to vaporize more water, thus yielding you a lower rH reading when compared to the lower space!

Does this make sense now?

A tower humidor then is not good design for consistent storage. Sorry again! You see there are two forces of heat on display here. One source is the inside “micro climate” of your humidor. The other is the outside “macro climate” of your room. We have to assume that there is at least some insulating character to your humidor.

As your fans and gadgets run, they create heat inside your humidor and that heat rises. The room is the same. As it heats the heated air goes to the ceiling and the cooler air settles down at the floor. Your room then, heats the wood, the cigars and of course the air and the water in your humidor the same way. I will bet that if you take an infrared heat sensor and run it over your humidor, the outside, you will find out that I am right about this.

Better yet, I just did it in my office! I took my heat gun and ran it over a 4 ft oak file cabinet. At the bottom, the temp of the cabinet was 73dF, in the middle, 73.5dF and at the top 74dF. How is that for empirical evidence? My files are actually warmer on top than at the bottom. I am too lazy to post the pictures, so you will have to take my word for it.

So if your cabinet, at say 6 ft, is ranging in temperature several degrees from the top to the bottom, then the readings that you will be getting for rH SHOULD be changing or the science of psychrometry is out to lunch!

If you want to solve this problem it is twofold. First, lets start by moving air around in your room. Think about putting in a ceiling fan and letting it run all the time. Lets try to even the temperature in your room, which is a start.

Now for the microclimate. You need to move air around in there, but you don’t really want to create a lot of heat.

Just for kicks I have built you a system (on my desk) to give you an idea what can be done with the proper technology and parts.

The goal here (my thinking) was in increase circulation without unnecessary heat.

I have made some assumptions, and that is that the humidifier and controller that you have is 12VDC. I remove their power supply and provide a unified solution and use the IO-J box as a means to move wires into and out of the humidor. It would be mounted inside, say at the bottom, where the glandular grommets seal the wires.

The new power supply (right) powers your hygrometer/humidifier (putting a sensor in a humidifier is a bad idea, by the way) and the other components.

The humidifier works as it normally would but we use the trigger (accessory fan wire assuming it is 12VDC) to trigger our accessory fans. In this way the fans will always be on when the humidifier is triggered to run. This will push the humid air away from the humidifier and into the humidor as a whole.

Next, I have included a custom timer relay that I have manufactured for me. The timer relay will trigger the two fans at a cycle of 20 to 2000 seconds on and off. Lets say we program it to run about 1 minute every 5 minutes. So every 5 minutes your accessory fans run just to push the air around and if it moves dry air down to the hygrometer, it will kick on as well.

Lastly, you could add a silo for your beads. That is another topic however.

There you have it. Unless you move to a logic controller, this is about the best while perhaps not the simplest way to move air around in your humidor and control temperature variation. This is a unified system and it makes all the parts in your humidor work in unison, verses separate components. Only a unified solution will actually help you reduce heat inside. Heat inside is your problem with balance. This is one approach to dealing with the heat and the potential rH differential.

Cheers! –the Pig

[Skyfall]

Lord knows I don’t want to be accused of the misguided act of educating the membership… That is a bit of an inside joke between me and few others.

…But, you have a number of issues at play here, some of which can be solved and others perhaps not.

As usual I am going to post some things that you might not want to hear! I don’t do this for the sake of controversy but for the sake of edification; if not for you, for the other members of the forum that might be interested. Please accept my apology in advance if I step on your toes.

Any investigation about the sealing of your humidor is good advice. I don’t think that is your problem. Water vapor rises in air at a given temperature.

First back to basics. I will drone on about this till my dying day I suppose, but here goes again.

What does 65rH mean? It means absolutely nothing! That is right, 65rH, or 70rH… or 100rH does not mean a damn thing to anyone!!!

Why? I am glad you asked!!!!

Relative Humidity numbers alone are meaningless. Relative Humidity, means, humidity relative to a given temperature, without the temperature number we are all lost. There is a point to this beyond the lecture; trust me!

I want you to do something for me and forget humidity for a moment and start thinking about temperature!

Have any clue as to what your problem is now? You should!

Beyond the basics, which I won’t bore you with, water vapor content varies not only with rH but with temperature, as a relationship between the two numbers. Two 70rH spaces can contain substantially different amounts of water. It just depends on the temperature. So absolute humidity, or the amount of water actually in the space in your humidor may not really be the problem. As a matter of opinion, I don’t really think that it is. You see 70rH (just for example, you can pick any number other than 0) does not represent just one “set” value for absolute humidity (the amount of water in the space in grams (or grains) per unit of volume). 70rH at 60dF does not equal 70rH at 65dF, nor does either equal 70rH at 70dF in the amount of actual water in your space/volume of space. That is the way it works. You can get yourself a psychometric calculator and do the calcs yourself if you don’t want to believe me!

So what is your problem? In a nutshell, bad humidor design! SORRY!

Lets look at things a bit differently for a moment and forget about rH for now.

What does hot air do? That’s correct, it rises! Now lets look at your humidor and make some assumptions. Now I am not going to say that water vapor is NOT rising in your humidor according to the laws of physics, BUT your numbers suggest that something is defying this law. Or, of course you could have just invented an anti-gravity machine without knowing it!!! OR, you are just making simple mistakes. I am betting on “simple mistakes” as being the problem.

If you measure rH alone, as I have pointed out earlier you are making mistakes. The fact remains that the actual amount of water in the humidor space may actually be homogenized, but you don’t think it is because you are only monitoring half of the equation. This brings me to what I think the problem really is. So what is the temperature spread from the top to the bottom of the humidor?

The temperature of your humidor should rises as you move from the bottom to the top, and as a result the vapor pressure of water changes, allowing more water to be held by the warmer space. In real terms this means that your numbers MAY BE consistent with the higher space being hotter and therefore then able to vaporize more water, thus yielding you a lower rH reading when compared to the lower space!

Does this make sense now?

A tower humidor then is not good design for consistent storage. Sorry again! You see there are two forces of heat on display here. One source is the inside “micro climate” of your humidor. The other is the outside “macro climate” of your room. We have to assume that there is at least some insulating character to your humidor.

As your fans and gadgets run, they create heat inside your humidor and that heat rises. The room is the same. As it heats the heated air goes to the ceiling and the cooler air settles down at the floor. Your room then, heats the wood, the cigars and of course the air and the water in your humidor the same way. I will bet that if you take an infrared heat sensor and run it over your humidor, the outside, you will find out that I am right about this.

Better yet, I just did it in my office! I took my heat gun and ran it over a 4 ft oak file cabinet. At the bottom, the temp of the cabinet was 73dF, in the middle, 73.5dF and at the top 74dF. How is that for empirical evidence? My files are actually warmer on top than at the bottom. I am too lazy to post the pictures, so you will have to take my word for it.

So if your cabinet, at say 6 ft, is ranging in temperature several degrees from the top to the bottom, then the readings that you will be getting for rH SHOULD be changing or the science of psychrometry is out to lunch!

If you want to solve this problem it is twofold. First, lets start by moving air around in your room. Think about putting in a ceiling fan and letting it run all the time. Lets try to even the temperature in your room, which is a start.

Now for the microclimate. You need to move air around in there, but you don’t really want to create a lot of heat.

Just for kicks I have built you a system (on my desk) to give you an idea what can be done with the proper technology and parts.

The goal here (my thinking) was in increase circulation without unnecessary heat.

I have made some assumptions, and that is that the humidifier and controller that you have is 12VDC. I remove their power supply and provide a unified solution and use the IO-J box as a means to move wires into and out of the humidor. It would be mounted inside, say at the bottom, where the glandular grommets seal the wires.

The new power supply (right) powers your hygrometer/humidifier (putting a sensor in a humidifier is a bad idea, by the way) and the other components.

The humidifier works as it normally would but we use the trigger (accessory fan wire assuming it is 12VDC) to trigger our accessory fans. In this way the fans will always be on when the humidifier is triggered to run. This will push the humid air away from the humidifier and into the humidor as a whole.

Next, I have included a custom timer relay that I have manufactured for me. The timer relay will trigger the two fans at a cycle of 20 to 2000 seconds on and off. Lets say we program it to run about 1 minute every 5 minutes. So every 5 minutes your accessory fans run just to push the air around and if it moves dry air down to the hygrometer, it will kick on as well.

Lastly, you could add a silo for your beads. That is another topic however.

There you have it. Unless you move to a logic controller, this is about the best while perhaps not the simplest way to move air around in your humidor and control temperature variation. This is a unified system and it makes all the parts in your humidor work in unison, verses separate components. Only a unified solution will actually help you reduce heat inside. Heat inside is your problem with balance. This is one approach to dealing with the heat and the potential rH differential.

Cheers! –the Pig

Ray, glad to see you around again old friend!

[GottaBeKD]

Excellent write up Ray.

I have read a number of your posts and have to say the detail you go into in your posts make them by far the most educational around.

Thanks for taking the time to edumacate us.

[Patric M]

That was a very detailed answer. I really soaked my beads. I'm guessing they didn't have enough water because when I was adding the water they were crackling I plugged the hydra back in and set it at 65 also. The hydra is reading 71% the sensor in the bottom is readying 65% and the middle and top are at 69% I put the fans back on so hopefully it will even out.

I'm gonna look into putting in a small house fan shooting up from the bottom to the top also put them all on a time so they come on like twice and hour for 10 min. That should solve it hopefully.

[trevlan]

Great write up and information as always Ray.

Or another way to "simplify things" and other can correct me of course into use bovida packs.

In my 3ft - 2x2 ft humidor, much smaller than a yours. I use the cigar oasis in the middle and the top and bottom shelves get bovida packs.

The odd thing though for me is during the summer I'm working the opposite as you I'm doing my best to keep humidity Loe as it tends to rub higher.

Good luck getting it all straightened up.

Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk 2 Beta-5

[CanuckSARTech]

About time Ray decided to share his knowledge! LOL.

Cheers bud!

[PigFish]

Ray, glad to see you around again old friend!

...not exactly back mate, but I appreciate the welcome. Yeah, if I was back I would have undoubtedly commented on the lack of participation by my statist sycophant friends on Ninos 'Dark Side' thread and made some trite disparaging comments regarding the Cuban government and communism!!! Instead, I am giving Rob and company a break! -LOL

For the moment I am confining my inner demons to the humidor forum and only insulting people over here!

Hope all is well with you and yours. See some new names and chances to make new friends, thanks for reading my stuff.

Thanks mates for honor you bestow on me. The pleasure is mine. I am always happy overcomplicate a humidor and frustrate the electrically challenged. Making a working humidor is not that hard, busting the myths of the cigar world and convincing those who believe them that they have placed the fate of their cigars in the hands of those that don't know horse pucky from hair tonic is another story!!!

Luv you all! Cheers. -Piggy

[PigFish]

That was a very detailed answer. I really soaked my beads. I'm guessing they didn't have enough water because when I was adding the water they were crackling I plugged the hydra back in and set it at 65 also. The hydra is reading 71% the sensor in the bottom is readying 65% and the middle and top are at 69% I put the fans back on so hopefully it will even out.

I'm gonna look into putting in a small house fan shooting up from the bottom to the top also put them all on a time so they come on like twice and hour for 10 min. That should solve it hopefully.

I have written here extensively on desiccant bead use. The crackle is the boiling of water and the possible fracturing of your desiccant as you add liquid water to them. Truly water resistant desiccants are not real common as they are more expensive than standard Si desiccants. The adsorption of water by your beads is exothermic. Pouring water on them creates extremely high heat for a short period as the water vaporizes to bond with the substrate.

Frankly, with your controlled hygrometer/humidifier you should not be adding water to your beads! You should allow them to find equilibrium as they are fed water from your humidifier as needed. You have a partial active system and you should use that system in its highest and best use. Adding water to your beads might have just created a high humidity environment in your humidor.

Cheers! -Piggy

[Tino]

...not exactly back mate, but I appreciate the welcome. Yeah, if I was back I would have undoubtedly commented on the lack of participation by my statist sycophant friends on Ninos 'Dark Side' thread and made some trite disparaging comments regarding the Cuban government and communism!!! Instead, I am giving Rob and company a break! -LOL

For the moment I am confining my inner demons to the humidor forum and only insulting people over here!

Hope all is well with you and yours. See some new names and chances to make new friends, thanks for reading my stuff.

Thanks mates for honor you bestow on me. The pleasure is mine. I am always happy overcomplicate a humidor and frustrate the electrically challenged. Making a working humidor is not that hard, busting the myths of the cigar world and convincing those who believe them that they have placed the fate of their cigars in the hands of those that don't know horse pucky from hair tonic is another story!!!

Luv you all! Cheers. -Piggy

Ray, I'd just like to add that I really enjoy and appreciate your posts. Although I don't understand much of them

[CanuckSARTech]

That was a very detailed answer. I really soaked my beads. I'm guessing they didn't have enough water because when I was adding the water they were crackling I plugged the hydra back in and set it at 65 also. The hydra is reading 71% the sensor in the bottom is readying 65% and the middle and top are at 69% I put the fans back on so hopefully it will even out.

I'm gonna look into putting in a small house fan shooting up from the bottom to the top also put them all on a time so they come on like twice and hour for 10 min. That should solve it hopefully.

I have written here extensively on desiccant bead use. The crackle is the boiling of water and the possible fracturing of your desiccant as you add liquid water to them. Truly water resistant desiccants are not real common as they are more expensive than standard Si desiccants. The adsorption of water by your beads is exothermic. Pouring water on them creates extremely high heat for a short period as the water vaporizes to bond with the substrate.

Frankly, with your controlled hygrometer/humidifier you should not be adding water to your beads! You should allow them to find equilibrium as they are fed water from your humidifier as needed. You have a partial active system and you should use that system in its highest and best use. Adding water to your beads might have just created a high humidity environment in your humidor.

Cheers! -Piggy

Agreed wholeheartedly with the Pig.

You should look at drying your beads back out again (the oven method works well enough). You've created an oversaturated environment now.

[TheDistrictJP]

Bead silo you say?

[mcease022]

You Must install the 2 circulation (cooling?) fans at bottom of humidor facing up, diagonal from each other as humidity sinks not rises.. I have a 7 foot tower and took me good 6 weeks of experimenting to get it perfect. I now have 65-66% constant at all levels. It will take some tinkering and trial and error adjusting the humidy on the hydra especially as your collection grows. My tower has clear pathways on all sides from bottom to top for air to be pushed up. I bought the fans on Amazon (i recommend 4 Inch fans) and they are easy to install, also have them both hooked up to a 24 Hour timer so they run intermittantly not constantly. If you want to know what brand and how i Did it, please PM me. Here is a link to what my humidor looks like, you can see one of the fans under the drawer in back left corner, other fan is in front right corner. A little patience and perserverance will get it right.

http://www.friendsof...howtopic=110636

Hope this Helps and Good Luck

Old thread but I am hoping I can get an answer - Where do you have the sensor for the humidistat? Is it at the bottom of the humidor or near the top? Just wondering where I should place mine.

[NapaNolan]

Humid air is lighter/less dense than dry air, it does not sink (clouds are a good example).

Waiting for Pig to correct me.

[PigFish]

Humid air is lighter/less dense than dry air, it does not sink (clouds are a good example).

Waiting for Pig to correct me.

No correction to be made. Water vapor rises. So does warm air above cooler air. This then means mixed, homogeneous air is the only answer to consistent humidor. This also means that "tower" type humidors are an inherently bad design. (a side note)

I place my sensors on the back wall of my humidors about mid height. You should understand that my equipment is real-time and quite fast. So fast as a matter of fact, that I must dampen its response or the controls will bounce off of set points and you don't want that. The fact is, water in your system is constantly out of balance and it must be homogenized constantly to stay in balance.

My solution is to run air (air for temp and water vapor for rH) over the sensor, but not 'at the sensor.' The difference being that I put the sensor in the position to be in an air stream, but don't point a fan at it. I put it on the vacuum side of a ducted fan to keep it current without pressing it to become overly sensitive to any change.

High sensitivity equipment has some disadvantages. This is dealt with in the controller where I tweak down the sensitivity. You don't want your controller to miss trends, you want them displayed and acted on, but you do want your controller to filter out noise.

The bottom line is you can trick your controller (a real-time controller) by either isolating or shadowing it, or exposing it forced air and exposing it to too much 'noise.' Sensor placement is something that is tested empirically and contrasted to data logging equipment and other sensors placed in the humidor. That is how and where you place it... I may use a dozen sensors, all data logged to learn how a piece of my equipment (a humidor) works. Humidors are started with a theory, but need to be tested empirically. They don't work on theory. Well... let me rephrase that, they do work on theory, but they only work well when empirically tested for results.

You don't want your sensor atop or too close to hygroscopic material, like cigars or raw wood, where there will be water vapor that lingers around those substrates. It must me in open air and should be mounted on plastic or a water inert material that will not attract water like a hygroscopic material does. Reading a localized hygroscopic material is a common novice mistake. You lay your sensor on a piece of wood that is of the right rH and that is all that it will read. Put it on some dry wood, and it will saturate your humidor until the outer layers of wood report the set point rH back at you.

Sensor placement is a bit of an art. Those are the basics, go from there!

-Piggy

[NapaNolan]

Now there's a response!

Thanks for making me feel smart and dumb at the same time.

[PigFish]

Now there's a response!

Thanks for making me feel smart and dumb at the same time.

...just out to help! -P

[irratebass]

I am more confused than ever. I too have a tower, which I use beads that crackle...looking at a set it & forget system, but am being told that even that is a bad idea.....so what the hell am I supposed to do?

Pig I have to read, re-read, re-read & re-read again to get what you are saying.....I think I'm starting to understand, and you make sense, but man why is the science of cigars so difficult? Or are WE making it difficult since cigars are more resilient than we give them credit for.

On a side note Elbubble....beautiful humi, love the lights, and I believe that link you posted was the one that initially brought me here from a google search about putting lights in a humidor.

Anyway, I look forward to more posts that I will not understand, but enjoy reading.

[PigFish]

Look Mickey it is not that complex really.

I used to gamble a lot... and the dealers used to say to the dollar betters, only bet what you want to win! While this was a jab at them, there is some truth to it as it pertains to the relativity of the endeavor.

Cigar storage is not an absolute science unless you see it that way. I SEE IT THAT WAY, but that does not require that you do! I am just a lone voice!!! I am on the fringe outskirts...

Lets just say that there exists two parties. One party claims that water content is the deciding factor, the only factor the the cigar owner and humidor administrator can control over the taste of his cigars. Then, there is everyone else. They include people who are either not that concerned about it, cannot taste it, or don't care about it or don't know about it. This does not make them wrong or inferior, it just makes them independent from us.

Some of us are rather fanatical about water in cigars. It is that simple. My suggestion; don't become one of us unless your tastes honestly take you there.

Some of us that are here (having this position) have proven to ourselves that holding cigars to a cusp (somewhere) in the water content spectrum provides us the best smoking experience. That is it... That is all that there is to it... It is all opinion, all anecdotal, debatable and arguable. We may see it as fact, but it is totally subjective!

Now on the other hand I post a lot about humidors and humidor science and theory. A lot of what I post is my opinion, yet much of it is fact and can be proven by science.

Take for instance a comment I made about tower humidors. That the design is flawed. That is a matter of opinion. Most don't care because they are aesthetically pleasing, affordable and they are happy with the cigars that are inside when the smoke them. This makes my observations about them, while accurate to me because I am in the precision storage business, meaningless to most. The difference of course when I talk about these things is that I am happy to explain my bias, and not high-hat someone who happens to feel differently about it. There is more than my opinion out there. I am just one guy... There is a right and wrong way to store to me, as there likely is to you. The fact that we don't draw the line in the same spot does not make either of us wrong. The other guy might be wrong in our eyes, from our perspective, but since the endeavor is subjective in nature, there is no absolute right or wrong (within reason). The reason may be that we both can agree that mold growing on your cigars is wrong...!

How about facts? Glad you asked. Here is a fact. Water content in cigars is linked to both rH and temperature... That is a fact and not my opinion. A study of water activity in hygroscopic materials (percent moisture content) will net you all the info you want to know on the subject. Hygroscopic materials, like tobacco, are deponent on the environment for their percent moisture content. The aspects of the environment that control the amount of water is the vapor pressure of water. That vapor pressure is controlled by the amount of water in the environment and the temperature of the water... Basically, temperature and rH...

Lets tie them together shall we? The rH and Temperature correlation to percent moisture content, that is a fact. The link of percent moisture content to the smoking experience and taste, that is opinion...

Now that we have separated out some facts from opinions lets go a little further. One needs to ask one's self, how much water can I taste, and if the water varies, for a number of reasons, control, position in the humidor, location of the humidor, design of the humidor, conditions when smoked... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... what can I do to make it better? What can I do, to make my smoking experience the best that I can make it, without leaving it to chance (the environment)? Again, if this is not important to you, then this does not matter to you... If all you care about is mold on one end, and dry sticks on the other, the broad spectrum that you mention is really all that matters because there is no correlation to taste, then simply toss all that I have written!

Me, I am different. I don't wish to leave to chance. I am into extreme control... I cannot pretend to tell you what percentage water difference I can taste. That in and of itself is not important to me. What is, is that I can taste excess water and it ruins cigar flavor (for me) and I wish to avoid ruining a cigar and my smoking experience. I won't say at all cost, because I am not a rich man... Cost is a factor and this is why I make my own humidors... It is also why I help others learn and understand storage, so that they can get better tasting cigars (again my opinion) and save a few bucks along the way...

Blast the busted beads, screw the set and forget... Put yourself in a camp and proceed until the cigars are the way you like them. If you like them now, stop now, but ALWAYS REMAIN VIGILANT!

If you want some advice for your project email me, or we can leave custom costs off of it (if you want to buy stuff) and take the project on to the forum for entertainment...

Either way you will get the same advise from me. Do what you need do to make you feel better about the cigars your are smoking. When you are there, remain vigilant, but you are done! Look for solutions when you have problems. Don't just look for problems. If you just look for problems you will find them and there is no perfect humidor! That is a fact!

Cheers mate! -Ray

[CBMC]

Look Mickey it is not that complex really.

I used to gamble a lot... and the dealers used to say to the dollar betters, only bet what you want to win! While this was a jab at them, there is some truth to it as it pertains to the relativity of the endeavor.

Cigar storage is not an absolute science unless you see it that way. I SEE IT THAT WAY, but that does not require that you do! I am just a lone voice!!! I am on the fringe outskirts...

Lets just say that there exists two parties. One party claims that water content is the deciding factor, the only factor the the cigar owner and humidor administrator can control over the taste of his cigars. Then, there is everyone else. They include people who are either not that concerned about it, cannot taste it, or don't care about it or don't know about it. This does not make them wrong or inferior, it just makes them independent from us.

Some of us are rather fanatical about water in cigars. It is that simple. My suggestion; don't become one of us unless your tastes honestly take you there.

Some of us that are here (having this position) have proven to ourselves that holding cigars to a cusp (somewhere) in the water content spectrum provides us the best smoking experience. That is it... That is all that there is to it... It is all opinion, all anecdotal, debatable and arguable. We may see it as fact, but it is totally subjective!

Now on the other hand I post a lot about humidors and humidor science and theory. A lot of what I post is my opinion, yet much of it is fact and can be proven by science.

Take for instance a comment I made about tower humidors. That the design is flawed. That is a matter of opinion. Most don't care because they are aesthetically pleasing, affordable and they are happy with the cigars that are inside when the smoke them. This makes my observations about them, while accurate to me because I am in the precision storage business, meaningless to most. The difference of course when I talk about these things is that I am happy to explain my bias, and not high-hat someone who happens to feel differently about it. There is more than my opinion out there. I am just one guy... There is a right and wrong way to store to me, as there likely is to you. The fact that we don't draw the line in the same spot does not make either of us wrong. The other guy might be wrong in our eyes, from our perspective, but since the endeavor is subjective in nature, there is no absolute right or wrong (within reason). The reason may be that we both can agree that mold growing on your cigars is wrong...!

How about facts? Glad you asked. Here is a fact. Water content in cigars is linked to both rH and temperature... That is a fact and not my opinion. A study of water activity in hygroscopic materials (percent moisture content) will net you all the info you want to know on the subject. Hygroscopic materials, like tobacco, are deponent on the environment for their percent moisture content. The aspects of the environment that control the amount of water is the vapor pressure of water. That vapor pressure is controlled by the amount of water in the environment and the temperature of the water... Basically, temperature and rH...

Lets tie them together shall we? The rH and Temperature correlation to percent moisture content, that is a fact. The link of percent moisture content to the smoking experience and taste, that is opinion...

Now that we have separated out some facts from opinions lets go a little further. One needs to ask one's self, how much water can I taste, and if the water varies, for a number of reasons, control, position in the humidor, location of the humidor, design of the humidor, conditions when smoked... etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... what can I do to make it better? What can I do, to make my smoking experience the best that I can make it, without leaving it to chance (the environment)? Again, if this is not important to you, then this does not matter to you... If all you care about is mold on one end, and dry sticks on the other, the broad spectrum that you mention is really all that matters because there is no correlation to taste, then simply toss all that I have written!

Me, I am different. I don't wish to leave to chance. I am into extreme control... I cannot pretend to tell you what percentage water difference I can taste. That in and of itself is not important to me. What is, is that I can taste excess water and it ruins cigar flavor (for me) and I wish to avoid ruining a cigar and my smoking experience. I won't say at all cost, because I am not a rich man... Cost is a factor and this is why I make my own humidors... It is also why I help others learn and understand storage, so that they can get better tasting cigars (again my opinion) and save a few bucks along the way...

Blast the busted beads, screw the set and forget... Put yourself in a camp and proceed until the cigars are the way you like them. If you like them now, stop now, but ALWAYS REMAIN VIGILANT!

If you want some advice for your project email me, or we can leave custom costs off of it (if you want to buy stuff) and take the project on to the forum for entertainment...

Either way you will get the same advise from me. Do what you need do to make you feel better about the cigars your are smoking. When you are there, remain vigilant, but you are done! Look for solutions when you have problems. Don't just look for problems. If you just look for problems you will find them and there is no perfect humidor! That is a fact!

Cheers mate! -Ray

Another great post. Just wondering if you have any charts or excel sheets that show the relationship between temperature, rh, and moisture content in tobacco. Thanks.

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