The following are 2 copied emails I sent to a friend about my humidor as I'm trying to get it seasoned correctly. Before he sent me the 65% beads and a digital hydrometer, I put a glass of distilled water in there for a week and a half to get it started. I got the beads and put them in and the next day...
I woke up and it was at 58% when it had been at 63% when I got home from work the day before. My logic when it was at 63% was to add water b/c I wanted to get it up to 70% before I put the cigars in. That would bring up another question which is how much will the RH go down after I put the smokes in? Bottom line is that it hadn't even gotten to 65% so I added water. Even though the directions say to have 80/20, sticky to dry beads, my humidor wasn't even at 65% so i pretty much made them all sticky. Where should I have the RH before I put the cigars in the humidor and how should I go about doing it?
My friend wrote back and told me that the beads shouldn't be all sticky and to apply the 80/20 rule so I went back to the drawing board and this is what I did...
I went back, drained the water out of the beads and took some of the sticky beads out. Then I put a layer of 20% dry beads on the top but not sure if that's correct either. Should they go on top, bottom or be mixed in? Then I put 2 glasses of distilled water in there (in hopes of increasing the RH) and will see what happens when I get back in town. My RH is ranging between 58-63. 58 usually when I have the A/C on in the house (I tried to move the humidor into the bedroom where it didn't seem as cool) and 63 when I come back from work and I've adjusted the temp in the apartment to be 78 all day. Not sure if this has anything to do with it either but I'm really trying here and am determined to get this done.
I know this is lengthy but wanted to fill y'all in on what I've been doing and see if there's anyone who can give me any other insight. Thanks a ton for your help.
Jeff
I woke up and it was at 58% when it had been at 63% when I got home from work the day before. My logic when it was at 63% was to add water b/c I wanted to get it up to 70% before I put the cigars in. That would bring up another question which is how much will the RH go down after I put the smokes in? Bottom line is that it hadn't even gotten to 65% so I added water. Even though the directions say to have 80/20, sticky to dry beads, my humidor wasn't even at 65% so i pretty much made them all sticky. Where should I have the RH before I put the cigars in the humidor and how should I go about doing it?
My friend wrote back and told me that the beads shouldn't be all sticky and to apply the 80/20 rule so I went back to the drawing board and this is what I did...
I went back, drained the water out of the beads and took some of the sticky beads out. Then I put a layer of 20% dry beads on the top but not sure if that's correct either. Should they go on top, bottom or be mixed in? Then I put 2 glasses of distilled water in there (in hopes of increasing the RH) and will see what happens when I get back in town. My RH is ranging between 58-63. 58 usually when I have the A/C on in the house (I tried to move the humidor into the bedroom where it didn't seem as cool) and 63 when I come back from work and I've adjusted the temp in the apartment to be 78 all day. Not sure if this has anything to do with it either but I'm really trying here and am determined to get this done.
I know this is lengthy but wanted to fill y'all in on what I've been doing and see if there's anyone who can give me any other insight. Thanks a ton for your help.
Jeff
