Seasoning question

[Verwilderd]

I just got a new Wineador in yesterday and quickly unpacked it before I had to leave for the day to work. I stuck a calibrated hygro and left that for the day. The RH was 60% after being in there for over 12 hours. In the evening, I stuck a few bowls and sponges in there to begin seasoning. It quickly shot up to nearly 80%. My question is, with the RH being so close to my ideal level before even beginning, how long should I leave the sponges in? I only needed another 5%.

Could I remove the sponges after a day, then stick my heartfelt beads in and allow them to suck up any extra. Maybe leave those in for a day like that and then start filling?

Does the above make sense to do, or should I leave the sponges in for a few more days before adding my cigars? Normally with a humidor I would need to leave these in for a while. I'm curious if it's needed in the wineador because there really isn't much wood (two drawers and 4 shelfs...the standard newair cc-300 setup).

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[JG358]

Personally, I'd just toss in the beads and sticks if it was already sitting stable at 60% before you started seasoning. I think lots of people make it far more complicated of a process than need be when it comes to seasoning and storage.

 

[Verwilderd]

Personally, I'd just toss in the beads and sticks if it was already sitting stable at 60% before you started seasoning. I think lots of people make it far more complicated of a process than need be when it comes to seasoning and storage.

Agreed on people making it more complicated than it needs. I also think people take longer than they need as well with the seasoning. The thing I've noticed is that very few people will get a baseline reading of where things are before starting to even know how much more humidity is needed to be added to the wood.

Wineadors are a little different because of the lack of wood everywhere.

I'm also wondering what's the best way to season a single drawer. I will be adding another drawer that hasn't come in. I suspect I could just throw it in there and just not put cigars on it for a bit. If the environment is humidity rich, I can't see a single drawer sucking so much humidity out that it pulls from the cigars (as long as there's no direct contact with the new drawer) but I'm definitely not an expert and still a relative noob at all this.

 

[Hopduro]

One word... Bovedas

 

[JG358]

One word... Bovedas

Oh, Do you need some more?

 

[JG358]

To season the single drawer, I'd toss it in one of those giant zip-locks or a tupperware container with a couple bovedas and maybe a hygrometer. I trust Bovedas more than I trust my Hygrometers.

Speaking of hygrometers, are you using the one that came with the wineador for your baseline reading? Did you calibrate it?

 

[Hopduro]

Oh, Do you need some more?

Or just be friends/enemies with this asshat and you'll have more Bovedas then you could ever possibly need D:

 

[CVAC085]

@sofc might be able to assist here.


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[BigSkySmoke]

I trust Bovedas more than I trust my Hygrometers.

Exactly this...No reason to over think it if you are at 60% already.

 

[Verwilderd]

To season the single drawer, I'd toss it in one of those giant zip-locks or a tupperware container with a couple bovedas and maybe a hygrometer. I trust Bovedas more than I trust my Hygrometers.

Speaking of hygrometers, are you using the one that came with the wineador for your baseline reading? Did you calibrate it?

Good idea on that. Didn't think of using a ziplock. I'll do that instead.


As for your other question, I have 5 digital hygro's and used one of those. I just calibrated it about a week ago. The one that came, while nice, is an especially stupid analogue as the screw it tied to the spring and won't actually allow me to move the needle because it just bounces back. I've had some other analogues that were a little better for calibrating. Regardless though, I don't rely one them. The ones that I could reset are nice just to get a basic idea where humidity is (once calibrated that is).

 

[Verwilderd]

One word... Bovedas

? Not sure what you mean here. I'm using heartfelt for the maintenance. Did you mean for seasoning? The sponge method is working. I just wasn't sure at point I could start using this. Since t was already at 60, there really isn't much more seasoning needed. Since I wasn't able to find a previous thread where this situation had occurred, I figured I would ask and see what others thought.


As an aside, I do have a bunch of boveda packs that I've been using for my humidors. I may transfer some of these over if I find I didn't get enough heartfelt beads.

 

[Hopduro]

? Not sure what you mean here. I'm using heartfelt for the maintenance. Did you mean for seasoning? The sponge method is working. I just wasn't sure at point I could start using this. Since t was already at 60, there really isn't much more seasoning needed. Since I wasn't able to find a previous thread where this situation had occurred, I figured I would ask and see what others thought.


As an aside, I do have a bunch of boveda packs that I've been using for my humidors. I may transfer some of these over if I find I didn't get enough heartfelt beads.

I have 12 bovedas (thanks @JG358) that i chucked in the wino with the drawers. No seasoning. No sponge. No hassle. Loaded it up with sticks, everything works fine.

I'm going to turn into @sofc (scary thought), stop over thinking RH.



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[Verwilderd]

I have 12 bovedas (thanks @JG358) that i chucked in the wino with the drawers. No seasoning. No sponge. No hassle. Loaded it up with sticks, everything works fine.

I'm going to turn into @sofc (scary thought), stop over thinking RH.



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Fair enough. I'll just go for it this evening and get it loaded. That seems to be the general consensus here.

 

[Bruce T.]

Maybe I misunderstood but if it's a new winador then there is nothing in it to absorb moisture so the starting RH should be the same as your room air. If you put in sponges it will raise the RH fast. It's easy to control when it is a closed environment and there is no wood or cigars to deal with. If the shelves you put in are "dry" then you're going to have a big drop in RH. Better to get things stable with shelves and cigar boxes in before putting your cigars in.

 

[Boudie]

BruceT,

I think what they are saying is that if your cigars are at the proper humidity already and you have a sufficient amount of humidity control beads/ KL etc and if you load the wineador to the gills the drop in humidity do to the cedar shelves will be nominal. If you are putting dry or damp cigars into the unit or if you have only a very few cigars you may want to stabilize before loading.

 

[Bruce T.]

BruceT,

I think what they are saying is that if your cigars are at the proper humidity already and you have a sufficient amount of humidity control beads/ KL etc and if you load the wineador to the gills the drop in humidity do to the cedar shelves will be nominal. If you are putting dry or damp cigars into the unit or if you have only a very few cigars you may want to stabilize before loading.

I agree that if the cigars and cigar boxes (if any) are at the correct RH level then there is no problem. But I am concerned about the shelves that were mentioned. A wood shelf that is dry will suck up a lot of moisture from the air and your media (beads, KL, Boveda) will not be able to keep up. I suggest conditioning the shelf before adding cigars.

But then again, I'm probably just making this more complicated then needed. I think worrying about this stuff is what I enjoy doing. It expands the cigar hobby beyond just smoking.

 

[Verwilderd]

Allow me to clarify...it is a new unit received. It came with wood shelves (newair cc-300). I got it in the morning, so all I had time for was to unpack it. I threw in a hygro (the wood shelves were also in there) just to see where things sit since I didn't have time to finish setting everything up. When I came home around 15 hours later, the hygro read 60...with the wood being in there. I did add water/sponges that night and left them for a day. That shot the humidity up (naturally) to nearly 80. The next day I removed the sponges and water and added my already humidified cigars. I added some boxes as well that weren't humidified. I left that overnight. When I checked this morning, the RH was still nearly 80. So I opened the wineador and aired it out with a fan. That dropped everything to 61. I then had to leave. When I got home today, the humidity had increased to 71. So everything seems humidified. Now I'm just trying to bring the RH down a few %. Once there it should be perfect. I have hf beads and boveda packs in there. I'll probably try removing the boveda once the humidity is at a good place. Mostly have them there to aid in sucking extra humidity. These are 69% boveda and the hf is 65%...so they will probably fight each other.

I'm hoping with some short cycles of airing things and the hf/boveda, everything should be good by tonight.

 

[Verwilderd]

But yes, normally the wood would suck a lot of humidity up. I guess because this came so humidified (not sure what caused that) it was already pretty high.

 

[Boudie]

In retrospect if you started at 60 you could have just put your HF beads in (if that's the level you want to run) and the properly humidified cigars. By adding the water and dry boxes you added too many variables. You messed with it and screwed it up!! That's what I'm learning, keep it as simple as possible and if you make changes you can make them gradually. Nothing is going to get ruined with a couple of hours/days of slightly high or slightly low humidity levels. I think it's the large swings in humidity and temperature that cause problems with the cigars swelling and shrinking, possibly cracking wrappers.

And remember your beads, Bovedas and hygrometer are "close to" what is advertised. Using 69% Bovedas to lower the humidity 2% as described by the meter may not be possible. If your hydro has a 2% error you may already be at 69? Only thing going to happen is the 65% beads are going to suck up the moisture in the Bovedas, get over saturated and then not hold the advertised 65%. You'll probably end up with dry Boveda packs and beads with water pooling in them. Pick the humidity you want and run it. If you still have swings order more of that medium.

You know what you are doing, just do it SLOWER!!

 

[Verwilderd]

In retrospect if you started at 60 you could have just put your HF beads in (if that's the level you want to run) and the properly humidified cigars. By adding the water and dry boxes you added too many variables. You messed with it and screwed it up!! That's what I'm learning, keep it as simple as possible and if you make changes you can make them gradually. Nothing is going to get ruined with a couple of hours/days of slightly high or slightly low humidity levels. I think it's the large swings in humidity and temperature that cause problems with the cigars swelling and shrinking, possibly cracking wrappers.

And remember your beads, Bovedas and hygrometer are "close to" what is advertised. Using 69% Bovedas to lower the humidity 2% as described by the meter may not be possible. If your hydro has a 2% error you may already be at 69? Only thing going to happen is the 65% beads are going to suck up the moisture in the Bovedas, get over saturated and then not hold the advertised 65%. You'll probably end up with dry Boveda packs and beads with water pooling in them. Pick the humidity you want and run it. If you still have swings order more of that medium.

You know what you are doing, just do it SLOWER!!

Good points there. I always forget that despite what things say, they actually aren't that accurate. Worrying about a couple percentage points won't matter much because everything we use is probably off by that (ex, boveda 69 isn't going to be 69, hf 65% isn't going to always be 65, and even a calibrated hygro showing 65, doesn't mean the humidity right next to it is 65).

I'll pull my boveda packs this evening, check my beads and make sure they are too saturated and then just relax going forward.

And you're absolutely right, I have been impatient here....partly because many things I've bought have been in reaction to something (wineador for the high temps, and it just happened that temps jumped to their highest of the year the day it came in...so I really wanted to get it going so I would put my sticks through the high temp days only in a humidor)

Thanks for the advice.