Newbie question on da beads

[tube guy]

Earlier this week I received my bead shipment (65% beads) from Heartfelt and I seem to be having some problems. I'm currently using an "airtight" piece of tupperware for cigar storage and have been doing so for a few months or so. I started out using a foam "Credo" with 50/50 PG and distilled water mixture and with that my relative humidity would run around 75 percent when left sealed. Luckily it's wintertime and our house is around 30% humidity so I could just crack open the lid to reduce humidity. I started to worry about the summertime when the humidity in Rhode Island can be greater than 90 percent pretty regularly. Then I stumbled on this forum and learned about Viper's 65% beads and thought that would be just the ticket. When my beads arrived, I followed Viper's setup instructions and placed four one-ounce tubes of beads in my tupperdor (12in x 8in x 7in) that holds about 100 cigars. My humidity began to spike very quickly. After about 15 minutes when it hit 80 percent I pulled the beads out and dried them with a hair dryer, so all beads were white, and put them back in my tupperdor. Now after two days the humidity is running at 69% and has been at 69% for about a day and a half. That's no problem, but before I got the beads, I pulled my Credo out and left only the cigars in the tupperdor. With only the cigars and no Credo, the humidity would run at 69% just like it is now with the beads. Are these beads actually working or not?

About four weeks ago I salt tested my digital hygrometer twice and both times got a true reading of 75% humidity, so I believe it's reasonably accurate. During each salt test I let the test stabilize for about 36 hours and made sure the humidity reading on the hygrometer did not change for at least twelve hours. I read through the long post at the top of this forum regarding the beads and found a few people with similar problems using beads in a tupperdor, but most attributed the problems to the hygrometer. As far as I know, my hygrometer is reading reasonably true. Does anyone have any ideas? Should I bag the tupperdor and buy a real humidor for storage? I appreciate any information you can provide and thank you in advance for any help.

Brian

[galaga]

If all the beads are clear, then the humidity can get too high. If the beads are half white and half clear, then after a few hours, and certainly after a day, the hunidity should be 65%, if they are 65% beads. You have dried the tubes, so if they are half clear and half white, they should hold at 65%. I now trust the beads over my hydrometer, given enough time too equilibrate. I would suggest a few things. Get some cedar dummies from some of the cigar boxes or maybe find some cedar slats and put a few in your box, that will help stabilize things too. Be patient. It might be that you have had your cigars at 70% and now it is going to take time for the beads to pull the excess moisture out of the cigars and get everything back down to 65%.

[tube guy]

Thank you for the help Galaga. I'll definitely give it some more time. I didn't mention it in my first post, but I have stuffed some Spanish cedar pieces from cigar boxes into my Tupperware, so I think I've got that covered. The beads are all white in color and none of them are clear. I guess I just expected them to work a bit more quickly.

[Hammerhead]

Brian, keep in mind that after removing your Credo and replacing the fully dehydrated bead tubes, that the cigars themselves are humidified, therefore you might now wind up with a lower RH again as the beads draw moisture from the cigars.


Don't try to do too many things all at once. When you make too many changes, and/or too drastic a change, it tends to confuse the diagnosis. The guideline is to have 60%-70% of the beads translucent.

As a tip, what you might do to rehydrate the bead tubes is to place them in a ziplok bag along with a damp sponge. Because they're not in contact with the water, there's no danger of them cracking, and when they get 'recharged', put them back in your tupperdor.

So, I'd rotate out 2 bead tubes at a time. Charge 'em overnight and place them back in your tupperdor. When you see your RH begin to fall again - probably in a week's time or more - take the other 2 out and charge them. This way, you'll always have at least 2 tubes to buffer your RH, and because a recharge takes only overnight, your RH should be relatively stable.

I also have a tupperdor as a backup, with three 1oz bead tubes, and it's been at around 65% for three weeks without any recharging. It's gone down slowly as I open and close it, but again, I can simply take out one tube, recharge it overnight, and then that one will help balance out the other two.

Hope you follow the strategy... let me know if you have any questions.

[plexiprs]

Hammerhead nailed it! The cigars and your cedar pieces are full of water and will be part of the equalization process. Check on it, the opening will release some humid air, but you are going to need some time for everything to balance out. Drying the cigars too fast is the worst thing you could do.

[Viper139]

All of the above give very good advice. Patience is sometimes hard but in cigars it is necessary.