Mr. McSquirelly
Joe Bananas
I have been re-seasoning a humidor I seasoned two weeks ago. I know that sounds crazy. But, to be honest, I am new to cigars and cigar storage. During the first round of seasoning, I followed the factory instructions that came in the box with the humidor, a Craftsman's Bench 125-count. I bought it off the display shelf at local B&M at 35% off: it had a little nick in the veneer and it had been on the shelf for a year. Okay, fine, great, wonderful. Now I live in Northern California and usually we have around 50% humidity during the day. I'm assuming that box was pretty dern dry when I took her off the shelf and brought her home, right? Anyway, the instructions in the box told me to wipe down the Spanish cedar very lightly with a very lightly dampened sponge, place the sponge atop a plastic baggie in the humidor, and then close the lid and let it sit for 24 hours. Okay, fine, great, wonderful. The next day, 24 hours later, the instructions told me to wipe down again with newly and lightly dampened sponge, then remove sponge, fill the humidification device with water (I removed the floral foam and added polymer crystals and then filled them with 50/50 Propylene Glycol solution which I made myself), put it in the box, close the lid, and wait another 24 hours. The instructions never told me to calibrate the crappy hygrometer that came with it, so I never had an accurate reading of RH during this whole process. Finally, the instructions told me to open the box after the final 24 hours and fill humidor with my favorite J.C. Newmann products. Okay, fine, great, wonderful. Genius that I am, I never thought to scour the internet for alternative methods of seasoning. Didn't have the time, really. And had full faith that the people over there at Craftman's Bench knew what they were talking about. After a week in the box, the cigars started to smoke funny, crack, and burn in oblong shapes. Hmmmmm? Problem! So I began scouring the internet. To my surprise and amazement, I came to the conclusion that the people over there at Craftman's Bench had no idea what the hell they were talking about when they wrote those basic instructions. So, one week after the first seasoning, with no reliable or credible RH reading to go on, I decided to season the thing all over again, removing the cigars to a safe tupperdor with a 69% Boveda pack--the place they were before this little adventure. Well, after much sound advice from many at-home cigar experts, I decided on a long term method that prohibited wiping anything down. I also got a pre-do-anything RH reading from my new Hygroset II hygrometer, fully calibrated over a 72-hour period--a period, I might add, which included many heartbreaking and frustrating attempts to set the Goddamn dial to 75% using sodium chloride solution in an airtight microclimate. My pre-do-anything reading was 67% RH. There was nothing in the humidor for 4 hours when I took that reading. Just the closed box and a newly calibrated hygrometer! Okay, fine, great, wonderful. According to an expert's instructions, I took a sponge, lightly dampened it with distilled water, placed it atop a saucer in the box with my hygrometer right there next to it. I closed the lid and let it sit for 72 hours. When I came back to it three days later, the RH was 84%. The sponge was dry too. I re-dampened the sponge and placed it back in the box with a tablespoon of polymer crystals in a shot glass. I was told by the expert that this would help stabilize the air in the humidor, allowing the water to seep into the Spanish cedar. Okay, fine, great, wonderful. I came back today and checked the box after 24 hours. The RH had dropped to 81%. That is still way too high. So I took out the sponge and left just the hygrometer and the shot glass full of polymer crystals which, by the way, were starting to grow a little, i.e. absorbing some of the moisture in the air. I closed the lid and will check back tomorrow in 24 hours. So to all you experts out there--and I would be utterly lost without you--what should my hygrometer read tomorrow after another 24 hours without the sponge? How long will it take to bring the humidity down to my target point of 65% RH? Or have I totally ruined this humidor by seasoning it again with the proper tools and the proper approach? If the humidity comes down, as the expert claims it will, at what point 1) Should I put the humidification device into the humidor? and 2) Should I put the cigars in there for storage? Hope this post hasn't been to long-winded and boring. I just hope the humidity comes down to the point I'm looking for. I hope I didn't remove the sponge too early, but the humidor was holding at a solid 84% RH for three days.
