Wineadoor Humidity Issues, Help!

[fsfrancis]

I have a Vinotemp 28 with Forrest's drawers that is slammed full, and has 2 lbs of heartfelt beads in a shallow tray at the bottom below the shelf. Up until recently, I've been holding the humidity quite well, and only had to wet the beads every month or so, but as I have filled the wineadoor with more cigars, I am having problems keeping humidity up. If I spray the beads till they're clear, put them in the wineadoor, the humidity will go up to 65 for about 3-4 days, at which point it goes down to the low 60's. I sprayed the beads last week, and its sitting at 61 today, and was at 57 yesterday. Everything seems to smoke OK, no problems with cracked wrappers, or splits, or too wet, and my hygrometers have been calibrated. I'm wondering if I have a problem with air movement. There's not any open space left in this sucker, it's filled to the gills except for the bottowm shelf that has two small boxes in it. Honestly I don't think I could put 10 more sticks in this thing. I added two Oust fans blowing down from the bottom shelf into the area below the shelf where the beads are. It is pretty dry in the house, 55-57% with the AC on here in GA. I don't open the wineadoor more than a couple of times a week (why its so full), and I think my seals are good. Shouldn't the cooling unit help with circulation? I'm worried that my sticks are going to dry out. What should I do? How often should I have to wet the beads?

Thanks,

~~fred

 

[StogieNinja]

When you say "up until recently", what does that mean? A month or two? A year?

I'm going to guess that you probably just have too much in there and there's no circulation. Also, rH tends to fall, so you might have high rH in the bottom, and none of it is getting any higher due to the poor circulation. The cooling fan and ousts should help, though.

Also, where are you hygrometers, how many do you have, and how did you calibrate?

 

[fsfrancis]

up until recently means over the last 2-3 months. It seems to be at the same time that the cooler has gotten more full, but it could be a coincidence. Hygrometers were calibrated less than 6 months ago with a boveda hygrometer calibration kit. The hygrometer is mounted to the front of one of the drawers, about 1/3 of the total height from the top. There's two hygrometers in there now that agree. I added the second two days ago since I thought that perhaps my hygrometer was just wrong. I haven't checked it at different parts of the humi, I'll move one to the bottom, and see if they differ.

 

[fsfrancis]

The hygrometer at the bottom of the wineadoor shows 65 on the nose. I guess I have a distribution problem.

 

[King Kill 33]

I know you have issues with space, but try distributing your beads at different heights in your coolidor. Or put them all at the top as RH tends to be higher at the bottom.

KK33

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[Cigary43]

I know you have issues with space, but try distributing your beads at different heights in your coolidor. Or put them all at the top as RH tends to be higher at the bottom.

KK33

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Good answer here and try not overfilling your wineador...when you do this it inhibits the process of holding RH as well. Even in wineadors I know others who will put sheets of spanish cedar at the bottom and middle and top. Cedar helps regulate RH and keep it steady as any tupperador person knows. There is also the idea of KL but if you are already comfortable with beads go with what you want.

 

[Jaricon]

Just two cents here but humidity rises.. if it didnt there would not be rain. However with your complete jamming of the space inside it could be creating a space at the bottom where the higher RH (released by your beads) gets trapped below and cant rise. This process has been slowly drying out your uppermost tiers in the fridge so that now every time you add water below your oust fans (did you add these after the problem?) help bring what little RH it can to the top where the already drier conditions wick every little bit it can until your beads cant keep up again. Spreading the beads out at different levels would help get more RH out of that blocked void at the bottom as stated above and the little bit of air the fans can move through the unit will eventually stabilize the whole space.

 

[King Kill 33]

Yeah I'm not one to argue with science, but my humidity has always been 1 or 2% higher on the bottom of my wineador. Even when it was much less full.

KK33

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[OB-Left]

Just two cents here but humidity rises.. if it didnt there would not be rain. However with your complete jamming of the space inside it could be creating a space at the bottom where the higher RH (released by your beads) gets trapped below and cant rise. This process has been slowly drying out your uppermost tiers in the fridge so that now every time you add water below your oust fans (did you add these after the problem?) help bring what little RH it can to the top where the already drier conditions wick every little bit it can until your beads cant keep up again. Spreading the beads out at different levels would help get more RH out of that blocked void at the bottom as stated above and the little bit of air the fans can move through the unit will eventually stabilize the whole space.

Yeah I'm not one to argue with science, but my humidity has always been 1 or 2% higher on the bottom of my wineador. Even when it was much less full.

KK33

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Don't mess with Science. You are both right. Humid air is less dense than regular air and as such will float (rise) to the top. King, what you are probably experiencing is the role that temperature also plays in the process. Warm air, being less dense, also, will rise and be found at the top of your humidor. That warm air can hold more water. As such even if it has the same water as the air below it will register several percentage points lower due to its increase capacity. After all it is Relative Humidity.

If you want to read more check out this link. http://marydaly.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/why-humid-air-rises/

 

[Jfire]

In your case the cigars recently added were slightly dry. I have had vino 28s that were so full u couldn't put a finger in them or a stick would fall out. I have never had this problem with only a pound of beads. But I've never added more then a box or so at a time. Keep slowly adding moisture to the beads and you'll be on track in a month or so.
Word to your mother.
Jfire

 

[King Kill 33]

Just two cents here but humidity rises.. if it didnt there would not be rain. However with your complete jamming of the space inside it could be creating a space at the bottom where the higher RH (released by your beads) gets trapped below and cant rise. This process has been slowly drying out your uppermost tiers in the fridge so that now every time you add water below your oust fans (did you add these after the problem?) help bring what little RH it can to the top where the already drier conditions wick every little bit it can until your beads cant keep up again. Spreading the beads out at different levels would help get more RH out of that blocked void at the bottom as stated above and the little bit of air the fans can move through the unit will eventually stabilize the whole space.

Yeah I'm not one to argue with science, but my humidity has always been 1 or 2% higher on the bottom of my wineador. Even when it was much less full.

KK33

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Don't mess with Science. You are both right. Humid air is less dense than regular air and as such will float (rise) to the top. King, what you are probably experiencing is the role that temperature also plays in the process. Warm air, being less dense, also, will rise and be found at the top of your humidor. That warm air can hold more water. As such even if it has the same water as the air below it will register several percentage points lower due to its increase capacity. After all it is Relative Humidity.

If you want to read more check out this link. http://marydaly.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/why-humid-air-rises/

Thanks. Yeah, I thought there would be a logical explanation for that. Science wins again.


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[fsfrancis]

I'm going to add fans to the back of the wineadoor like in the sticky thread. and I'm double checking the hygrometers, as they're in a calibration bag right now with a Boveda. I'd really like to get this straightened out. There's too much $$ in this wineadoor to take a chance on. The sticks at the top still seem to smoke just fine.

~~fred

 

[Donk]

I agree with the guys, I have a pound of bead on top and a pound of beads on bottom. same goes with my fans. I hold rock steady at 70% using two lbs. of 65% beads. I also have gotten my humidity stabilized with my cooler 65 degree temp. So spread out your beads, I recommend the nylon bags from heartfelt for your beads, I found they work great.

 

[fsfrancis]

OK, so I worked over the weekend to get the small fans installed. They turned out really nicely. I have 5 - 30 mm DC fans blowing on a timer, about 15 minutes every hour. Probably more time than I need, but my timer is limited. I have a new timer on the way that will run them less. The hygrometers checked out OK. All my beads are still in the bottom of the humidoor in a tray. BOTH hygrometers at the top and bottom of the cabinet agree, and it appears that the delta in humidity issues are gone. The problem I have now is that I can't seem to get the humidity to come up. The wine cooler has been closed since Sunday afternoon. I sprayed down the beads with distilled water on Sunday. The temp inside the box is 65°F, and the humidity is still at 58%. The beads are the 65% type, and are mostly clear with plenty of water on them. WTH? I don't understand. Can the beads go bad, or get defective where they won't give up their humidity? Water should at least evaporate from them. Nothing about this makes sense to me. When the beads were new, I didn't seem to have any problems getting the humidity up even after opening the door every day. Now, it won't rise. What would indicate that the beads were bad, or messed up? and what can you do to them to make them not work? I have only ever put distilled water on them. They started out in the nylon bags, and I moved them into an open tray to get them to evaporate faster. Any clue would be helpful.

~~fred

 

[StogieNinja]

I've found that the hygrometers seem to constantly measure low when the fans are running. Once the fans are off, they seem to adjust to normal readings. Seems like the movement of the air is enough to cause misreadings/low readings and once the circulation has stopped, an accurate measurement can be taken.

 

[Rupe]

Just a guess but 5 fans running 25% of the time (15 minutes of every hour) is probably drying things out for you.

My suggestion would be to cut down on the number of fans and the amount of time that they are running. The new timer should help things out some when it arrives. You don't need to create a hurricane inside, just "stir" the air every now and then. Just my .02.

 

[fsfrancis]

added more water to the beads yesterday, and humidity seems to be coming up. They were almost all white after 4 days with the circulation fans installed. I'm wondering if some stuff at the top got dryer, and had to be re-humidified before the beads could catch up. I also plugged the drain hole with tape. This was never a problem before. We'll see if it holds.

 

[Jfire]

added more water to the beads yesterday, and humidity seems to be coming up. They were almost all white after 4 days with the circulation fans installed. I'm wondering if some stuff at the top got dryer, and had to be re-humidified before the beads could catch up. I also plugged the drain hole with tape. This was never a problem before. We'll see if it holds.

Where on earth would someone get such a crazy idea!?!?! No reason to rush brother. Things will equalize.

 

[Tag9485]

New to the forum so just my two cents, I've noticed whenever I add new sticks my RH shifts around a bit but always comes back. I use KL tho so I don't know if it makes a differences over heartfelt beads. Also changing height levels with my KL bags helps to distribute. I live in northeast NC and the humidity outside is extremely high and muggy so I almost never have to mist my KL.

 

[fsfrancis]

Update.....eventually I think that I figured out that the temperature inside my winador was too low, and was causing all the humidity to condense in the bottom of the unit. It was filling with water. When I increased the temp by adjusting the thermostat, the water in the bottom dried up, and now I just have to wet the beads once every few weeks. I think that I must have been just getting paranoid, because, really 60-65% seem to be just about perfect. All my sticks seem to smoke just fine. I appreciate the help from you guys.