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I have a weird humidity problem

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@Tyler86 has a vested interest in the quality of my cigars as he mistakenly thinks he has a shot at winning some of them in our fantasy football league.
This is somewhat true LOL! I am giving you a run for your money thus far especially considering this is the first fantasy football league I've been in and had a mediocre draft at best. More than anything I don't want to see you ruin your investment. I also suffer from OCD and CAD so I feel ya!


Stupid Tapatalk
 
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Here are some thoughts to put the time frame and patience into perspective: You aren't just humidifying the air inside your tupperdore (or whatever you're using), but everything that's inside it. Depending on how much stuff you've got in there, this can be a lot of solid material that has absorbed moisture. All of your cigars and any wood (boxes or shelves) are now, in effect, humidifying the air as well, so your boveda has to compete against that. So while leaving the lid open is going to show an immediate effect based on the air inside (which is what your hygrometer reads), but it's still going to take a lot of time for the stuff inside to change. The problem with leaving the lid open is that you are almost certainly guaranteed to miss the mark and get too dry, and your boveda is going to dry out first before the other stuff. Then, you're looking at taking just as long to get it back up to the proper level. Just leave it closed and it'll happen in it's own time, without risk of splitting wrappers and whatnot. There are other factors to consider, too. Temperature effects RH, so if if your temperature swings, the humidity will, too. Just trust the Boveda, be patient, and think of proper RH as more of a comfortable range, rather than a specific number that you need to be at.
 
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Roger that. I will probably keep leaving the lid off a couple inches to accelerate it, but I'll keep an eye on it and once it drops below 65% I'll re-add the Bovedas and close it up....
I'll add $.02 more from my experience. Once you see the RH you are looking for, don't immediately go adding bovedas or anything else. Just seal it up and let it sit for another day or two, and see what it reads. It probably will still settle up or down a bit. Make sure it is "settled" before you start adding humidity (or new cigars or anything).
 
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Ok so a few people have said that the Bovedas will take weeks to absorb humidity from the cigars. Thats good info. I was under the impression any changes would happen in a couple days. This is especially unintuitive because the Bovedas increase humidity in minutes, like I can watch it happen. Perhaps the Bovedas can absorb just as quickly, but the cigars won't shed humidity that quickly. Thanks for the replies (mostly).
Boveda works very well. First, you can't use time as a measurement of humidification. The time it takes to release or absorb humidity depends on many factors. Look at a humidor for a moment. What needs to have the humidity controlled? If you have a wood humidor, the wood needs to have humidity stored in the cells of the wood. Seasoning a wood humidor takes 14 days under the right conditions. You have to allow the wood to reach equilibrium.

Then you have the air, the air is the the easiest thing to humidity and takes the least amount of time. The problem is, hygrometers measure the RH of the air and not the wood in the humidor.

Then you have the cigars, the cigars are typically less dense than the wood of a humidor, but more dense than the air. If the cigars have too much moisture content, it takes more time to release the humidity so the Boveda packs can absorb the extra humidity. The opposite if true as well. If the cigars are dry, it takes time to dehydrate them that it does air. I have heard it said, that it takes 4 times longer to re-humidify a cigar than it does to dry out a cigar. So, if a cigar took 4 weeks to dry out, it will take 16 weeks to re-humidify.

Now, if your humidor is nonporous. then you only need to factor in the cigars and air. Now there are other impacts to humidification, such as opening the humidor lid, the RH in the room the humidor is located.

Can You Over Humidify With Boveda?
 
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Thanks. My humidor is tupperware for now (the Sistema everyone has).
So it's been a month. How is it now?

Your problem is not with your RH, the problem lies within you. Keeping cigars is similar to watching grass grow. Put in the Bovedas of your choice and leave it alone. Your only concern after that should be not letting your Bovedas dry out. Which I suggest having replacements to use while you slowly recharge the old ones. Rinse and repeat. It's really extremely simple.
 
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Yup, understood. When I posted this I was missing that the Bovedas work so slowly (and/or that cigars release moisture so slowly), that isn't something that had been clear before.

My Govee is now reading consistently high 69%s. So it is down 1-1.5% since I originally posted.
 
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Yup, understood. When I posted this I was missing that the Bovedas work so slowly (and/or that cigars release moisture so slowly), that isn't something that had been clear before.

My Govee is now reading consistently high 69%s. So it is down 1-1.5% since I originally posted.
What is your target RH? I ended up settling on 63 for CC's and 65 for NC's. But 2 degree variance either way is fine.
 
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get a push hydrometer and calibrate it right....you may need some 62 bovedas to maintain 65 or maybe some 65's to maintain 70......plus it usually depends on the time of year...winters usually have less humidity then summers....just my .02
 
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Update: still reading between 69.7% and 70.3% consistently, with four 65% 60g Bovedas. I thought I'd be lower by now.
 
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RH is the measurement of humidity in the air. When over humidified, Boveda takes humidity out of the air. If you had a lot of cigars in the humidor and they are absorbed too much water. You have to let the cigars release the excess water into the air of the humidor and then Boveda takes the excess humidity out of the air. It’s a process. The Boveda respond quickly to changes in humidity. However that is its response. The time it takes depends on the water content. You can always open the lid of the humidor for a while if the RH in the room is lower than the RH in the humidor. That will speed things up. You can always add more Boveda packs, too.
 
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