Desktop humi frustrations

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Originally Posted by Chadderkdawg

Hygro is dead on, tested the rh in our house and its below 30%, woof.


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When I moved from CA to NV in 1999, we went from a place that had a fair amount of year round humidity to the high desert that has very low humidity most of the time. BEFORE the move, all my humidors did OK. Once we hit the dry climate, I soon found 3 of my lower end humidors had warped from the dryness and no longer sealed proper.

Due to my buying habits, I recently had to bring a couple low end desktop humidors out of retirement. They seal OK but being low end, they are cheap and I know I have to use more than the normal amount of humidification media.

The temperware thing sounds ok. If all else fail go with a cooler aka coolerdor we called it back in the day- really works great with less stress. At least your smokes will be safe until you can get things straight. Heck you might want to stick with the cooler when you see how it maintains temp and RH.

Darn I forget where I saw it but there was a thread on this, and the guy said the bottom is one of the weakest points on these cheaper humidors. Try and do a search on Google for making Chinese humidors work. And what's your environment inside your place like? Fluctuate in temp and humidity quite a bit?

When the weather turns cold the atmosphere dries out. I've had two small humidors I keep inside of a plastic bag to protect them from humidity swings. Try not to open it any more than you have to.

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Originally Posted by Chadderkdawg

Yep all the way around the glass, I bet my sticks are just dry and our house is just too dry right now.

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I'm in DSM, too and it's been pretty bad the past couple of weeks. Earlier this winter I gave up on my cheaper humidor and just stuck to the tupperware. I put my cigars in a Rubbermaid container while I tried to see if I could seal the humidor but realized it was just easier to use the Rubbermaid instead. The humidor worked great in the summer when the ambient humidity in my house was around 65% (imagine that) so it might work for overflow during smoking season, but it's nice to not have to worry about my storage when it's really dry.

My desktop does the same thing during the winter. I haven't checked the humidity in the house, but it's low. Do you have a humidifier on your furnace? I've got one on mine, but I can never tell if it's doing any good or not. Just a thought. I broke down and bought a handful of 65% Bovedas, and threw them into a 52 qt Igloo cooler with a bowl of water. Put all of my cigar boxes and my desktop in there also. It was at 70% last night after a week :D

I actually have temporarily fixed this, I left a soaking wet sponge in an open ziploc and threw the bovedas in there, been holding steady at 65 for a couple days.

Small table-top style humidors suck, for lack of a better word. There's just not enough internal volume to maintain an accurate and stable environment. To maintain the correct RH as per hydro readings, you'll most likely wind up with wet cigars and cigars that taste like crap. IMO of course.

Get yourself a 54 qt Igloo Marine Cooler and a load of quality empty cigar boxes, not those that are painted or varnished. Bare wood boxes are best. If possible, line the bottom with thin cedar and maybe a little along the lower walls. Get it pumped up to about 75 RH over the course of a few weeks then put a big bag of humi beads, maybe 1 1/2 lbs. in the center-bottom between the boxes and let that sucker stabilize at about 65 RH.

You'll be happy as the cigars will be kept perfectly and overall the cooler requires little maintenance or headache other than a little water spray on the bag once in a while. Keep the drain plug open to allow some of the gases to release. It doesn't have that much impact on the RH. :D

Is it pointless to put HF beads in a cheap humidor like in this case? Or would the HF beads still work, but just need to be recharged more often?

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Originally Posted by Rocket Scientologist

Is it pointless to put HF beads in a cheap humidor like in this case? Or would the HF beads still work, but just need to be recharged more often?

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Heartfelt beads work very well, but they aren't miracle workers. If a humidor is too leaky and the surrounding environment is too dry, they simply cannot adequately maintain RH and you need to fix the leak or get a new humidor.

For a lesser problem, HF beads or Bovedas will probably keep the cigars safe and smokable, but perhaps not as high as the devices are rated for. In such a case, you might use 70% HF beads, or Bovedas at 69% to 72%, just to maintain ~65% RH. I would not recommend higher-RH devices such as 75% Bovedas, unless you are willing to check the RH, without fail, every single day; if the home atmosphere's RH rises, as it will in spring most places, you could quickly end up with overly moist cigars and possibly a mold problem. Fortunately, Bovedas can be recharged a few times and HF beads can be recharged as often as necessary; it's just a little more work to do.