Mold or not mold?

[hepyadda]

I don't understand how, if you're using 65% bovedas, it's going over that. I've used Bovedas for 3 years, and they have never gone more than +/- 1%. They have always been spot on for me. I'm thinking it has to be the result of a different variable.

They’ve always worked very good for me too, it’s just now that I tried to control temperature that I’ve started to see that weirdish results, I will try to wrap the inside with plastic just to be sure that there is no air leak that could be doing some weird effect on RH as it’s been mentioned here...


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[hepyadda]

Boveda's could be saturated?
I have recently had an issue with high humidity. First I tried taking out the sponge things. No joy. Then leaving the doors open. No joy.
 
Finally got some dessicient pouches and it's sitting approx 60rh now. Background humidity here is currently 80hr...

I can try that, if i can find some around, I always see those around the house and now that I need some I don’t have any around here he he ...


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[hepyadda]

I would leave the lid open for a night with the cigars and the boveda pack resting  inside the humidor in open air. Then in the morning simply close the lid and wait 24 hours and re-check the humidity reading. 
I would get rid of the thermoelectric cooling device and perhaps recalibrate the hygrometer to be thorough. 

I’ve tried leave the door open but then when I close it within a day or less humidity rises again. Before starting playing with controlling the temperature I’ve left the cigars and boveda inside without turning cooling on for a couple of days and humidity was good at solid 65%, but when start controlling the temperature it rises to almos 80% and never get back to 65% which I expected to be after a couple of days... probably I just don’t get RH works and that’s what supposed to happen :\, I have no way to calibrate the humidity sensor, but I’ll recalibrate the digital hygrometer and check readings on both more often to confirm they match...


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[earthson]

20 hours ago, ponfed said:

I'm no @PigFish, but I can't figure out for the life of me how you can get rising RH by adding cooling, when you got a Boveda 65 in and 40%rh out.

Condensation

 

10 hours ago, Derboesekoenig said:

I don't understand how, if you're using 65% bovedas, it's going over that. I've used Bovedas for 3 years, and they have never gone more than +/- 1%. They have always been spot on for me. I'm thinking it has to be the result of a different variable.

If the pouches are moist, you're essentially adding water to an already moist environment, regardless of the numbers they printed on the pouch.  I'm more of a hightech low tech guy, so living in a desert, I'd experiment with cracking the lid for short amounts of time to let the moisture escape sounds fun.  Or buying dry dessicant beads and sitting them in there to soak up the moisture from the air. Will take some time to dial in, hut I have the opposite problem - a moist, cooler environment.  Still, once I got my cooler dialed in, it's remarkably low maintenance.

[hepyadda]

If the pouches are moist, you're essentially adding water to an already moist environment, regardless of the numbers they printed on the pouch.  I'm more of a hightech low tech guy, so living in a desert, I'd experiment with cracking the lid for short amounts of time to let the moisture escape sounds fun.  Or buying dry dessicant beads and sitting them in there to soak up the moisture from the air. Will take some time to dial in, hut I have the opposite problem - a moist, cooler environment.  Still, once I got my cooler dialed in, it's remarkably low maintenance.

This make sense, I’ll try putting desiccant beads and let boveda does it job if it gets too dry.


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[ponfed]

Would it work to have the Boveda dry out a bit out in the open? So they can absorb better?

Or control temperature without any humidifier and when it hits 65 at 70degrees, put the boveda in?

[Monterey]

You need to focus on the temp first.  Pointless to work on the RH first.   Cigars over 70  can have perfect humidity and you will still have major issues.

Have the cigars under 70 yet?

[DeskSmkr]

Pictures please! What is going on?!

[hepyadda]

Would it work to have the Boveda dry out a bit out in the open? So they can absorb better?
Or control temperature without any humidifier and when it hits 65 at 70degrees, put the boveda in?

I’ve taken boveda off, let’s see how soon RH drops...


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[hepyadda]

You need to focus on the temp first.  Pointless to work on the RH first.   Cigars over 70  can have perfect humidity and you will still have major issues.
Have the cigars under 70 yet?

I set up temperature to 21 centigrade that is just like 0.1 above 70 Fahrenheit, should I set it lower?, I took boveda out and RH is at 74%, seems to be dropping, I just made that like an hour ago..


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[Monterey]

Nope.  Sounds like you are on the right path.  I would buy some 62% boveda packs and let everything sit at 70 temp and 62 RH for 6 months or longer.

[PigFish]

I really don't have the time today to take in this whole thread, and maybe your questions have been answered.

This is not a control problem... I will say it again. THIS IS NOT A CONTROL PROBLEM. This means it is an engineering problem.

I did read a little diddy above about some TE coolers sold as humidors. The fact is, they don't work either. People live with their shortcomings. People who challenge me on this typically stop saying they work after a period of time and never clean up the record of past posts. The fact is, you cannot leave a free water source in a sealed surface humidor without a high rH problem. You either have to force cooling on the system to keep the water in check, or you need a deliberate dehydrate cycle.

If you want more help posts some actual design pics.

To answer some of the folks who were questioning your results, you are creating liquid water from your humidor insides when the cooling runs. That liquid water is evaporating into your relatively small environment the minute the water temperature becomes higher than the dew point. This is simple psychrometrics.

If you want to dry out that humidor, run the cooler a bit and REMOVE the water. That will get you dryer. If you don't remove the water it goes back into your humidor system.

Boveda is not a cure all... Sorry! You have a differential hysteresis problem thinking these are going to work in here. They are likely a part of the problem. They supply water, you pull it out with cooling. They provide more water (a very small amount when the humidor goes dry). You get an excess of water eventually at the cooler. Your liquid water evaporates back into the system, but not through a membrane. It has a short hysteresis. The Boveda a long one, it diffuses water from a solution of salts through a membrane. The delta means wet space!

Cheers! And good luck with your project. -Piggy

[Ouftastic]

On 8/20/2018 at 11:57 PM, hepyadda said:

 

They’re more soft than they should for sure. For some reason I thought that it was going to be easy to just set up the right temperature and RH will take care of itself... how wrong I was. I was looking into some newair humidor with a/c, I’ve read they’re good, doesn’t seem to be a lot of options beside them anyway.


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I had this exact same thing happen when I moved from a storage bin to a Whynter CHC-251s. I noticed that cigars in the middle of the unit were noticeably squishy, almost wet in some spots (confirmed by trying to smoke one of the Reyes, horrible!). After months of adding fans (3 in total) + moving them around & playing Tetris (two key steps) I finally got it to where It was perfect (stable temp & rH). 

I ditched the drawers and used the bare minimum number of shelves. There is a 120 mm fan behind the Siglo IV's pointing directly upwards. Below the Secretos I have a 80 mm 3500 rpm fan blowing towards the door (this thing really moves some air) and on the top I have a centrifugal fan pointing towards the back. All of this was hooked up to a on/off timer set to run for 2 minutes every 30 minutes. Also made sure to leave enough gaps between the boxes and the walls to allow for air flow. 

After moving to a house with a basement (~ 65-68 f year-round) I ditched the wineador for two huge pelican cases (waterproof/airtight) with 65% Boveda packs. Personally I wish I never got the thing and I will never go back to using a TE cooler and I would recommend that to you as well.

[PigFish]

A little lesson about solid surface humidors where there is free water can be found in this video. It is long, and you can skip on down to about minute 19 and see what happens when I lost power to my house and data logged it. Power out for me is the same as other people whose humidors don't work. I like to use it as a teachable moment...!

Cheers! -Piggy

 

[Monterey]

2 hours ago, Ouftastic said:

 

After moving to a house with a basement (~ 65-68 f year-round) I ditched the wineador for two huge pelican cases (waterproof/airtight) with 65% Boveda packs. Personally I wish I never got the thing and I will never go back to using a TE cooler and I would recommend that to you as well.

You guys are ignoring the fact that heat is his biggest problem.  He clearly doesn't have a basement and a/c isn't an option.  Putting cigars into the heat in a pelican case would make his situation worse.

[SCgarman]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 10:51 PM, hepyadda said:

 

Hi guys,

 

I’m just starting in this beautiful world of habanos, I’ve been enjoying them for a few months now and I’m in the learning process of taking care of them. I’ve been storing my sticks in a small 20+ cigars wood humidor, which has been served me well, my problem is that I live in the desert, temperatures above 40 degrees and very low RH so I decided to wipe off the dust of a some circuits and sensors I had and modified a thermoelectric cooling device into a prototype humidor, it’s very small it can hold like 30 cigars probably so I set temperature at 21 degrees and put a 65% boveda (60 grams) in, but my RH keeps rising, sometimes even reach 80%, so I decided to set temperature at 25 degrees and added some cedar sheets and RH has been keeping at 70-72% which still high... anyways my question is after that it seems that one cigar started to develop mold at the foot I cut the spot and if it was mold it was just that very little spot, but now some of my sticks looks very dark in some areas, some of them probably are too humid for my little experiment but I’m worry if those black areas could be mold, I’m attaching a picture of them hope it helps, some of them on the top row and bottom row are very dark, it feels to me that they’re darker than before but probably is just me...

 

 

TL;DR: are the darker leaves in the cigars probably mold?

 

P.S.: Any tip on controlling RH is welcome!

 

Thanks!!!

 

 

 

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No! Mold is white and fuzzy. Those cigars look fine. When mold starts it will be clearly visible forming on the wrappers. Your ticket for proper storage in the desert is purchasing a wine cooler and converting it into a humidor. Many folks here on the forum who live in hot climates go this route.