Shilala Beads

[BlazinOrange]

Well it sure sounds like you know what your talking about Scott. I am glad I purchased off you.

[shvictor]

Originally Posted by BlazinOrange

Well it sure sounds like you know what your talking about Scott. I am glad I purchased off you.

You understood that? Wow RG coming your way

[BlazinOrange]

Haha, how could you not understand that he used such simple terms....

[shvictor]

Originally Posted by BlazinOrange

Haha, how could you not understand that he used such simple terms....

Naw I just didn't read it.... That Scott does know what he's talking about though. I just have to bust his chops a little bit.

[Brule]

Originally Posted by shilala

I know.
The beads are definately boring. So are my rants about them.

Please keep up with the rants! I may be a noob here but so far I find your posts thoroughly enjoyable.

[aracos]

Scotts Beads are amazing...

I used them in the desktop and they were great...
I have them in my Antietam now and wow...

The temps in the Antietam have ranged from 70-81 over the summer. The beads have kept the rh between 64-67. When I open it for whatever reason, once it is closed it jumps right back to that 64-67 range in no time...

Thanks Scott, great stuff...

[BlackDog]

I ordered a pound of beads from Scott yesterday. I'm looking forward to using them in my cooler and humi. Even though it will be boring.

[Hammerhead]

Scott, you have a website we can order from? I've been using Viper's beads with great success for two years, now, but I'd like to experiment with something else.

Also, can you discuss or point to how one fixes the RH setpoint? I'm a 65% kinda guy myself.

[shilala]

No website, it's not time for one yet. Plus I haven't had time to build it.
Dave's beads work great, I'm sure you've had good luck with them, so has everyone else.
If you want to experiment, drop me a pm and we can talk.

On how to change the setpoint, these words are straight from the instruction/care sheet that I send along with all my beads...

"If the RH%age is lower than you like…
Place a small distilled water-soaked sponge in a pan or dish and sit it in your humidor overnight. Take the dish and sponge out in the morning and then wait to check your RH%age in the afternoon.
If it's still low, simply put the sponge back in the humidor, leave it overnight, remove it in the morning, check in the afternoon, and repeat the process as necessary.
If you wish to hasten the process, simply use more wet sponges in more areas of your humidor.
While you are doing this, be sure to realize that it takes a good amount of time to recondition everything in your humidor. The amount of time depends on how much you want to raise the RH%age of your beads, how big your humidor is, how many beads you have, and how many sponges you use. It could take hours, days, or a couple weeks. Take your time. Be patient. The more careful, patient and precise you are, the better things will work. The time you spend with the process will give you a greater understanding of how humidity works in your humidor, and how your beads react to the process.


If the RH%age is higher than you like…
You can lower the HCM beads’ RH%age by placing them in the oven at 120 degrees Farenheit for 25 minutes. This relies on the surrounding RH (the RH in the room where you are, or “ambient” RH) being lower than your desired setpoint. If the ambient RH is 65% or higher and you are trying to lower the beads by heating, it will not work. The beads will assume the ambient RH%age. The ambient RH%age has to be lower, the lower the better. If the ambient is less than 5% lower than your desired setpoint, don’t use the oven, use the freezer as instructed below.
If the oven trick isn’t working well enough, or your ambient RH%age isn’t low enough, you can put the beads on a plate and place them in the freezer for 25 minutes. SET A TIMER!!! If you freeze the beads, the water in the beads will freeze, expand, and destroy your beads.
After 25 minutes, take the beads out of the freezer and place them in a gallon ziplock freezer bag with your hygrometer. Let the bag sit for 24 hours, note the RH%age, and repeat the process if necessary."

[SIZE=2]I've also had success using Damp Rid in one of my big winadors to bring down the RH. It takes a lot longer, but it's thorough and even.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]I think it's probably the better solution for large humidors than the freezer method, because it'd gradual.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]The freezer method will bring the beads down, and they will scavenge water very, very rapidly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]I'm still on the fence with that line of thinking and I should really just keep it to myself until I've done more work with the stuff.[/SIZE]

Originally Posted by Hammerhead

Scott, you have a website we can order from? I've been using Viper's beads with great success for two years, now, but I'd like to experiment with something else.

Also, can you discuss or point to how one fixes the RH setpoint? I'm a 65% kinda guy myself.

[Hammerhead]

Ok, I have to confess I'm a bit confused.

It sounds as though there's no specific setpoint, and that it's all based on the beads ability to absorb and desorb to mainain equilibrium.

So, what I'm seeing here is that there's nothing to prevent the beads from continuing to absorb humidity from the cigars. For instance, if the beads will continue to absorb water from a sponge, what's to prevent them from sucking the life out of the 'gars when you put them into the humidor? In other words, when do they ever stop absorbing?

Hope I'm making sense here... I'm just not clear on how the beads decide for themselves what that 'setpoint' is.

[Molarman777]

Scott I think your beads taste horrible! I mean I have tried milk, gatorade, beer, and jim beam on them but they still taste like DIRT! (my poor attempt at humor)


In all seriousness, I love Scotts beads hell I am up to almost 3lbs now!

Scott is a great guy and a pleasure to deal with.


Keep up the great work Scotty!


Molar

[aich75013]

I believe they are 65% beads. Use his instructions if the humidity it too high or low and you need to get them back to 65%.

Originally Posted by Hammerhead

Ok, I have to confess I'm a bit confused.

It sounds as though there's no specific setpoint, and that it's all based on the beads ability to absorb and desorb to mainain equilibrium.

So, what I'm seeing here is that there's nothing to prevent the beads from continuing to absorb humidity from the cigars. For instance, if the beads will continue to absorb water from a sponge, what's to prevent them from sucking the life out of the 'gars when you put them into the humidor? In other words, when do they ever stop absorbing?

Hope I'm making sense here... I'm just not clear on how the beads decide for themselves what that 'setpoint' is.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Hammerhead

Ok, I have to confess I'm a bit confused.

It sounds as though there's no specific setpoint, and that it's all based on the beads ability to absorb and desorb to mainain equilibrium.

So, what I'm seeing here is that there's nothing to prevent the beads from continuing to absorb humidity from the cigars. For instance, if the beads will continue to absorb water from a sponge, what's to prevent them from sucking the life out of the 'gars when you put them into the humidor? In other words, when do they ever stop absorbing?

Hope I'm making sense here... I'm just not clear on how the beads decide for themselves what that 'setpoint' is.

From the original post...
"The simple explanation is that they work on the principle of equilibrium.
The beads want to be equal with their surroundings, so they give off or gather up water to get happy.
The reason they can do that is because of their construction. Stick with me, this is cool...
The beads are full of pores and tunnels. They are laboratory made. The process causes the beads to have gazillions of tiny holes that are exactly 4 angstroms wide. (That's incredibly super small.)
The walls of said tunnels are EXACTLY one molecule thick.
Those molecules have an electrical charge called covalence. Each molecule has an affinity to attach itself to water.

So now, what you have in a pile of beads are thousands upon thousands of miles of tiny tunnels that act like water vacuums. They want water BAD.

The beads suck water from the air until the force of their desire equals the force that the air uses to hold onto water. When the air and the beads are even, that point is called "equilibrium"."

To expand on that idea and make things more clear, you are working with a finite sealed space.
When the electrical affinity of the air equals the electrical affinity of the beads, all transfer of water vapor stops.
That is Equilibrium, and that's why the beads do not continue sucking up water.

To understand the beads further, you have to understand pages of mathematical relations, the liquid volume of water that exists in air as vapor, and the mathematical relations of vapor and liquid.
The cool thing is that beads transcend the vapor/water relationship.
They gather vapor and store it as water.
That volume relationship is why the principle of Equilibrium works.

I realize it is very hard to see why they work how they work.
It took me a long time to actually "get it". I ultimately understood what was going on once I realized the volume relationship between water held in the beads and water existing in air as vapor.
I'll try to illustrate this concept in words, but I'll probably fail miserably...

Imagine a box of air.
The air inside the box is 65%
If you were to take all the water that exists in the air as vapor and turned it into water, that drop of water might be as large as the head of a pin. (which is not at all true, I'm just trying to illustrate the point simply.)
Also inside the box is a pound of beads.
Inside those beads sits a volume of water that is held on to the beads by their electrical force. That amount of water is 4 ounces (also not correct, but an illustration).

So there is 1 drop of water in the air and 4 ounces of water in the beads.
Lets say that there are 4000 drops of water in one ounce.

As things sit, the beads and air at at equilibrium, both being 65% saturated (65%RH).

Now, I come along and open the door on the box.
The surrounding air is at 0%RH (which is once again and illustration).

All the 65%RH air falls out of the box and is replaced with 0%RH air.
The beads and air are now unbalanced. The air has a greater force to pull water from beads than the beads have to hold onto it.
So what happens now is that the air will pull one of the 4000 drops of water from the beads.

At this point, the air is now a tiny bit lower than 65%RH and the beads have 1/4000th less water.
In order to make the beads drop in RH by 6.5%, we'd have to open the door and replace it with 0% air 400 times. (also an illustration)
At an open a day, that would take more than a year to lower the beads to 58.5%.

Being as the difference between ambient air and air inside the humi is usually only 30 or 40 points at extreme, and usually only a 15 or 20% difference, we'd only really use 1/4th to a half of a drop of water each time we open the humi, so it'll take 800 to 1600 opens to lower the RH%age by 6.5%.

See the mathematical relationship developing?
That's why my beads work so much better than "treated" beads. It's because "treated" beads use up all that potential space for water by filling it with chemicals that regulate humidity. It's also why they need to be "recharged" more often.
Whether that's a downside or a plus side depends on who's considering it.
It's actually very ingenius to use the chemicals to regulate RH%age, while using the beads to store water.
The trade off is that you have to add water more often when the ambient RH is lower than the bead's setpoint.
To me, that's not a bad trade off for someone that doesn't open their humi very often, and isn't around to look at their humi.
Thing is, my beads address that situation perfectly.

Okay, off the pro's and con's and back on point...
This mathematical relationship works both ways with my beads.
They react almost equally to a higher ambient RH as they do to a lower ambient RH.
Thing is, as with all dessicants, my beads have a point where they absob as well as they desorb. That point is around 65% for HCM beads.
That point is around 45% for HCS beads.
Thing is, the curve for Grade 1 silica gel beads like my HCS beads flattens quickly after they are about 80% saturated. That means if they get to 80% RH they are almost worthless at gathering excess moisture from the air. Doesn't matter to us, but it matters when understanding how beads work.
At 80%, HCM beads are still sucking almost just as hard as at 45%. Their affinity for gathering water from the air is balanced all the way from 25% to 99%.
Their affinity for giving up water is greatest at around 65%, and decreases rapidly above 80%. Once the saturation reaches a certain point, HCM have a harder time giving away water because of their construction. That's great if you are drying things. For us keeping cigars, it means absolutely nothing.
From 0% to around 65%, HCM beads have an incredible affinity for taking on water, but that affinity is astoundingly equal, and that's a quality that stands out among dessicants. It's also the quality that makes them so incredibly perfect for use in our humis.

I'll shut up now.
Hope this answers your question!!!
Scott

[Hammerhead]

Originally Posted by shilala

From the original post... <massive amounts of information edited> I'll shut up now.

Scott, I didn't realize that the beads HAD a setpoint. I guess it's presumably as a byproduct of their manufacturing method. If that's correct, then I "get it". What didn't make sense until the above post was that I was unaware they had a setpoint at all.

Thanks!

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Hammerhead

Scott, I didn't realize that the beads HAD a setpoint. I guess it's presumably as a byproduct of their manufacturing method. If that's correct, then I "get it". What didn't make sense until the above post was that I was unaware they had a setpoint at all.

Thanks!

Nope, that's not it.
My beads do NOT have a setpoint. The are conditioned to a balanced equilibrium at a specific RH%age, ergo and adjustable setpoint.
I create the setpoint by adding water through various means until they balance and settle at my desired setpoint which is usually 65% or thereabouts.
In the summer I set the beads at 63% for shipping.
In the winter I will send them out at 66 or 67%.
That two points is a buffer. That way when a guy sits them in his wet humi, they ultimately land at 65%.
In the winter there will be a little extra water to help a guy's dry humi get where it needs to be, then balance at 65%.
I've had excellent results doing this, and it saves guys ever having to do any reconditioning.
I've learned to do it through talking to all the guys who are using the HCM beads. Their input is invaluable. It's the entire reason the HCM beads are what they are, and why they work so good right out of the box.
Without everybody's input I'd have never been able to develop these beads into something that works so damn good and so easily.