Heartfelt Bead high humidity

[Flounder]

I am recently trying to bring my humidor back from a couple months of neglect. I bought new Heartfelt beads, and have them in. Both the analog and digital hygrometers I have in there are reading 85-88%. Is it possible that they are both out of whack to the same degree? Or are my 70% Heartfelts really making it that humid in the box? Halp.

[Tio Gato]

My only guess is that if you soaked them with water maybe. It is awfully humid out too. I'm lost when it comes to beads but maybe leave the lid open for a while to let everything stabilize. I'm certain more knowledgeable folks will give you the correct answer. So I guess I'm not much help but just wanted to wish you luck. I do know you don't want to overdue humidity too quickly if the cigars are very dry.

[massphatness]

Besides throwing in the beads -- what else did you do to the humidor to try to bring it back? If you wiped it down with distilled water, for example, it could be the humi is over-humidified, and the beads have not yet had time to absorb the excess moisture.

[markem]

Have you calibrated the hygrometer?

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=619

[SurfnSafari]

Originally Posted by markem

Have you calibrated the hygrometer?

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=619

Bingo you said above what I was thinking.

Also it may take 24 hours to get an accurate calabration reading, then another 24 hours to get an accurate reading inside your humidor, after your hydrometer has been calibrated.

[Flounder]

All I did was add the beads. I may have over saturated them, but not sure if that's a thing. I'll try calibrating the hygrometer tonight into tomorrow, but as I said, I have 2 and they're both reading the same. I can't imagine they're both out of whack to the same proportions. Thank you guys for the input.

[massphatness]

It could be that there's too much water in the beads -- particularly if you're using more beads than necessary. I think you can dry out the Heartfelts by using a blow dryer on cool. That will remove the water and you can reinstall the beads in the humi. Add water as needed (and in small amounts) until you achieve the desired balance.

[SurfnSafari]

Originally Posted by massphatness

Besides throwing in the beads -- what else did you do to the humidor to try to bring it back? If you wiped it down with distilled water, for example, it could be the humi is over-humidified, and the beads have not yet had time to absorb the excess moisture.

Honesty my old heart misses beats when I hear the words "whip it down with distilled water". Reason is warpage, or warping, and people tend to use too wet a rag, or paper towel. Don't want to warp your good humidor.

Simple solution to seasoning a new, or old humidor that needs seasoned is to place like a clean plastic tupperware type container, clean cool whip container in the humidor. Empty first to check and see the lid will close with out striking lid. Also clean old plastic water bottles can be cut down to size so when the lid is closed, the top of lid clears container bu 1/2" -1".

Then remove the plastic containers, fill with clean distilled water. Replace in humidor, and give it 24 - 36 hours. If water level goes down repete the process filling, and reach check in another 24 - 36 hours.

After 3 - 5 days you should see the water level not moving. Then place a RH humidity gague (hydrometer) that has been calibrated, check in 24 hour without playing peek-a-boo. This just slows down the seasoning process, allowing humidity to escape.

This process is slow, but it works. For small desktop humidor Boveda make 84% seasoning packs, that take about one pack for each 25 capacity of the humidor. So a 100 count humidor will take 4 packs, and about two weeks time to season.

I am a big fan of Boveda, and recharge then in a glass jar with good rubber seal use the cut down water bottle method inside the jar. In the summer it take maybe 7 days for the Boveda to go from rock hard, to like new condition. The rehydrate feeding off the distilled water in the cut down bottle.

JMHO

[Flounder]

Originally Posted by massphatness

It could be that there's too much water in the beads -- particularly if you're using more beads than necessary. I think you can dry out the Heartfelts by using a blow dryer on cool. That will remove the water and you can reinstall the beads in the humi. Add water as needed (and in small amounts) until you achieve the desired balance.

This is what I'm thinking is most likely. I saturated the piss out of them, thinking the dry sticks and cedar would suck up all my moisture, but I'm wondering if I'm in better shape than I thought, and am just over doing it.

[Edeustace]

At one time I over saturated a couple bags of heartfelt beads and it took taking them out for a day. That’s when I read that they are not supposed to be submerged. Good luck it’s a process that just takes time.

[AdamJoshua]

You can also dry them out in the fridge spread them out on in a pan or something put them in the fridge.