Cigar beads causing high RH

[cyclops454]

This problem may have been answered before (if so feel free to just direct me there) but I'm having a very hard time with using the heartfelt beads which I had heard many good things about.

To give some background:

I currently have 3 Humidors in which I'm utilizing the Xikar bead humidifiers and all three generally run in the 69-71 Rh range. I also have a rather large humidor in which I use a powered Hydra humidifier which I've dialed in at 67 and is pretty much dead on whenever I check the hygrometer. I've been noticing that the cigars I pulled from the large humidor tended to smoke very well and so I decided to try something different in one of my smaller humidors. I purchased a 2 oz large humidity tube at 65% (blue caps) and replaced the crystal humidifier in my 100 count humidor. I used the spray bottle that was available on the Heartfelt site and sprayed the beads down until just over half of them were clear and the rest white. Two days later I checked the RH and saw that the level was at 73% and thought that couldn't be right so I added another digital hygrometer that I'd recently calibrated just to double check. The next day when I checked again both hygrometers were reading 74% and that was after having the lid open for several minutes the day before.

Needless to say I'm at a loss here and any info or advise would be welcome.

 

[lbowles2]

I know this doesn't help you but I didn't have a great experience with them either and ended up with Shilala beads.

That being said I'm sure somebody here will be able to get you straightened out.

 

[Greyghost]

Sorry to hear that. When I started using Heartfelt beads I to had a problem with RH at 70. Contacted Heartfelt and described my problem and they worked with me till the problem was solved and maintained the 65 Rh I wanted. They have great customer service.

Hope your problem is resolved quickly.

 

[Virtuoso]

I am sure you will be taken care of by some of the vets here. I am looking into maybe getting some beads.

:welcome:

 

[funkejj]

how full is your humidor?

 

[ckay]

Also, give it a chance for your humidor to regulate. I maintained at 70% for a long time prior to making the switch to 65%. It took two months for my humidor to stabilize at 65%.

Remember that your cigars are probably absorbing the moisture the new element is introducing. Give the new element some time to regulate the excess humidity.

 

[funkejj]

Oh I just realized something this is your first post. Please head over to the introductions forum and introduce your self and tell us about you. Thanks.

 

[dpricenator]

give it time, and or, take the beads out and let them dry.

 

[cyclops454]

I'd say it's about 60-75% full. I've never filled any of mine to capacity (maybe that's why I have 4) and there has been no new stock for at least a couple months.

 

[cyclops454]

Also, give it a chance for your humidor to regulate. I maintained at 70% for a long time prior to making the switch to 65%. It took two months for my humidor to stabilize at 65%.

Remember that your cigars are probably absorbing the moisture the new element is introducing. Give the new element some time to regulate the excess humidity.

Well I can sort of understand that but why is it 4% over what it normally is?

 

[Jwrussell]

There's a ton of questions that need to be answered on this. What size is the humidor you put the heartfelt beads in? I don't mean number of cigars, but the actual interior dimensions? It is possible that you put in more beads than necessary for the space and basically over-humidified to start with. Where are you in the world? What's the ambient temp/RH where you are keeping your cigars. If you have an active humidifier working in one of your humidors and it works well I'm assuming you aren't in a high RH environment, but worth asking.

GreyGhost, what was your issue and how was it resolved? Might help this case...

 

[twenty5]

First thing I would try:
take the beads out
dry them
put them back in dry

 

[Jwrussell]

Well I can sort of understand that but why is it 4% over what it normally is?

OK, this could be wrong, I'm NOT an expert, but see if this makes any sense.

You introduced an element into a regulated (I'm assuming) humidor that tends to stay around 70%. The element you introduced is made to regulate 65%. Humidors don't work instantly or really fast, they take time. So your beads are trying to pull about 5% of the humidity out of the air within the humidor. However, Cigars and the cedar in your humidor are self regulating to some extent. So as the beads pull moisture from the air, your cigars and cedar are dumping humidity back into the air in an attempt to get to some sort of equilibrium.

Again, I'm not 100% sure that is even right, but it seems to make sense to me based on what I know. And again, knowing the internal dimensions versus what the tube you put into the humi is supposed to humidify might also help to explain the situation.

 

[cyclops454]

There's a ton of questions that need to be answered on this. What size is the humidor you put the heartfelt beads in? I don't mean number of cigars, but the actual interior dimensions? It is possible that you put in more beads than necessary for the space and basically over-humidified to start with. Where are you in the world? What's the ambient temp/RH where you are keeping your cigars. If you have an active humidifier working in one of your humidors and it works well I'm assuming you aren't in a high RH environment, but worth asking.

GreyGhost, what was your issue and how was it resolved? Might help this case...

Ok here goes.

Humidor is 13"x9"x6" (internal) or approximately 700 cubic inches. From what I calculated on the site my 2 oz tube should be right?

I'm in Baltimore which is admittedly prone to high humidity (often in the 80% range in the summer months) and high temp, however it's never been over 60% inside my house and rarely over 50%. I only know this because I leave my spare hygrometers out all the time.

 

[Jwrussell]

Thanks Cyclops. That looks about right to me as well, though the 2 ounces of beads is really sufficient for quite a bit more than the 700 cubic inches, it's not like you dumped in a ton more than needed. I'm afraid I don't have much more advice or info than I've offered above. I would suggest watching things for a week and if things still aren't where you need them to be give David at Heartfelt a call and see what he can help you with.

 

[GoingPostal]

I had the same situation when switching from the gel to beads. I use the Heartfelt beads and work wonders for me. A question is after having the beads in your Humidor for 2 days were the majority of the beads clear? remeber that your trying to drop the RH by 5% that is going to take time. took about 3 days using 50%clear/50%white of 70%rh beads to get my humi rock solid again. try drying out the beads completly then put back in your humi and see what happens. a side note i like to use 2x the recomended amount cause it helps regulate humidity quicker

 

[JgButler]

OK, this could be wrong, I'm NOT an expert, but see if this makes any sense.

You introduced an element into a regulated (I'm assuming) humidor that tends to stay around 70%. The element you introduced is made to regulate 65%. Humidors don't work instantly or really fast, they take time. So your beads are trying to pull about 5% of the humidity out of the air within the humidor. However, Cigars and the cedar in your humidor are self regulating to some extent. So as the beads pull moisture from the air, your cigars and cedar are dumping humidity back into the air in an attempt to get to some sort of equilibrium.

Again, I'm not 100% sure that is even right, but it seems to make sense to me based on what I know. And again, knowing the internal dimensions versus what the tube you put into the humi is supposed to humidify might also help to explain the situation.

What Jason has stated here is essentially right. You have a humidor that you stated is 60-75% full of cigars and was at a stable 70% RH environment. The tube of beads that you introduced you said had also been sprayed to turn about half of the beads clear which means they were holding all the moisture that they could. It might be possible that more of the beads than you realized (more than half) were completely saturated leaving less bead volume than you thought to absorb moisture from within the humidor. Not only might they have not been able to absorb a significant amount of humidity but in turn you actually introduced more moisture into the humidor than there had been present which could have driven the humidity up. I'm not positive that's what happened but just thinking out loud. I would say watch it for a few days, opening your humidor a few times a day and see if it starts to come back down. If not you might take the tube out and put it in the refrigerator for a while which will pull moisture out of it. As long as the RH doesn't just keep going up, I'd just be patient and it should come back down.

I've been using beads for years and before I started using them I had foam and PG in all of my coolers and humidor that were stable at 70% RH. When I went to beads I put the volume of beads that I planned to use in each dry and let them pull the moisture from the cigars and cedar. I just kept an eye on them and when they started below 65% I added a small amount of water at a time until the RH started to rise and then left them alone. They settled in at 64-65% and have been trouble free ever since.

 

[joshua]

If the air is more humid than you want your cigars then you don't want to add water at all. You want the beads to absorb it.

If it was a new humidor you would want to add water and wait till it stabilizes before putting the cigars in, but you already had them in there.

 

[cyclops454]

If the air is more humid than you want your cigars then you don't want to add water at all. You want the beads to absorb it.

If it was a new humidor you would want to add water and wait till it stabilizes before putting the cigars in, but you already had them in there.

The general consensus seems to be that I need to have the beads dry. Since I'm sure the people in here have been using the beads quite a bit longer than I have I will defer to your judgment. I guess that I assumed that the beads would work similar to a boveda pack in that they would only emit humidity in an environment that was at or below 65%. This is obviously not the case as I decided to run a little experiment last night just for my own edification. I removed the beads from my humidor and placed it in a sealed gallon ziplock with a couple of hygrometers (kind of like what you do with the boveda packs to calibrate). At this point it appeared to me that more of the beads were white than clear so i felt they had the correct amount of water or perhaps a bit less than what was recommended on the site. The ambient RH in my house is about 50-55 so I was wondering how the beads would react. On the one hand the space was definitely smaller but there was a substantially lower starting rh and nothing else to contribute. Eighteen hours later and the rh in the bag is holding steady at 75%. Not sure what if anything this means at this point but it's certainly interesting....

Well I think I'll let the experiment go for a bit longer before I put them in the fridge to dry. I'm kinda curious if it will eventually balance itself out though I suspect that in a sealed container it probably won't.

 

[dpricenator]

I know you said the hygros are solid, but it could be that you hygros are off a bit. The beads are scientifically designed to hold a specific RH. No reason in a confined space with no other source of humidity, that the RH would go over the specified Bead RH%. I'm guess the hygros are off a bit.