The main questions I have not got a definitive on is, how long is my humidor going to be without the beads till their recharged?
I notice one day I'm now sitting at 60, and it not just a temporary drop due to my door being open or something, and decide to throw them in a ziplock for a recharge. How long, on average, to get back up to 65, 70. Is this something I have to sit there and watch, or done over night? Minutes, hours, days?
Then there is the whole question of how long they hold their RH, compared to the HF?
Two big questions in IMO.
I thought answered this. But I will try again.
I cannot give you a definitive answer on this as it depends upon many things, but the two most important are: how much beads you are trying to recharge and how much you need to change the RH.
In most cases, one 8 ounce bag can be raised one or two percent in less than an hour. Worst case could be 8 hours or more to raise the RH of several 8 ounce bags of beads to whatever you need and to verify that the beads are indeed at the correct RH.
It's not like it will take weeks to raise or lower the RH. It will not hurt your cigars or your humidor to be without your beads for a short period of time -- even a few days.
When I recharge my beads I put them in the ziplock with a damp sponge. After 30 minutes I remove the sponge and leave them for another 30 minutes to see what the
surface RH of the beads is now at. I repeat this process until the surface RH is 1 or 2 points higher than I want them to be. Then I let them sit in the ziplock for four hours without a sponge to make sure that the RH change has had time to "soak through" the entire bag.
I keep my three humidors at different RH's. NC's at 68%, CC's at 63%, and a small one with a CC custom roll at 60%. I recharge my beads when they drop 2%. I usually have to recharge my beads after about 3 or 4 months.
The climate here in the Portland, Oregon metro area this time of year is high's of mid 60's to low 70's with an RH around 45%. Our home does not get below 65 degrees (furnace kicks in). The humidity and temps increase during the summer, but we run A/C in the summer so our house remains dryer.
Reducing the RH is more dependant upon the ambient RH of your home. If it is lower than where you want the beads to be you can just leave the beads out, testing them every 30-60 minutes. If your ambient RH is high then you need to use the refrigerator to lower the RH -- there are detailed instructions on doing this included with the beads and also on my website. Again, this process is well defined while it might take longer than it does to raise the RH, it is still a manageable amount of time.
[please note that this process is different from how I initially charge the beads and set them at 65%. I do that slowly over a period of 5-8 days.]
I hope this helps...