Hello,
I'm new here so I'm hoping I'm putting this in the right spot. Anyways, I recently decided to start smoking cigars again, and before would buy them on the spot and smoke them that night, this time I went the humidor route so I can buy boxes at a time and save a little.
I have seasoned the humidor so far by rubbing the cedar down with distilled water once, left the sponge in on a zip lock bag, then left closed for 24 hours, then repeated a second time, but without leaving the sponge in. The issue comes down to the hygrometer. It came with a crappy analogue one, that I recently noticed doesn't travel anywhere outside of the 40-60% RH range. I can adjust the screw all day and it won't go any further than that range.
So I've already gone ahead and ordered some 65% Heartfelt beads in the 2.25" round plastic tray to replace the foam and propylene glycol solution and their round adjustable digital hygrometer to fit in the original analogue hygrometer space. Unfortunately, this won't ship until 6/6/09 since they're closed which is close to 2 weeks from now. The problem is, I already have a handful of nice cigars that I picked up, as well as a JR cigars special of Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve's that I wanted to put in the humidor.
So the only place near me that sells a digital hygrometer is Radioshack (believe it or not, the cigar store around here only carries analogue ones that were insanely expensive). I bought the $20 one they offered (only one) and have done the salt + distilled water in plastic bag calibration with it, and it stays steady at 63%RH.
Long story short, would you guys trust this hygrometer for 2 weeks until the good one gets here? -12% seems a ways off of where it should be and I'm not sure if I should trust it. If not, what would you do, leave the cigars out of the humidor, or put them in it? I'm at a standstill here and don't know what to do so please help a newbie out.
--Jeff
I'm new here so I'm hoping I'm putting this in the right spot. Anyways, I recently decided to start smoking cigars again, and before would buy them on the spot and smoke them that night, this time I went the humidor route so I can buy boxes at a time and save a little.
I have seasoned the humidor so far by rubbing the cedar down with distilled water once, left the sponge in on a zip lock bag, then left closed for 24 hours, then repeated a second time, but without leaving the sponge in. The issue comes down to the hygrometer. It came with a crappy analogue one, that I recently noticed doesn't travel anywhere outside of the 40-60% RH range. I can adjust the screw all day and it won't go any further than that range.
So I've already gone ahead and ordered some 65% Heartfelt beads in the 2.25" round plastic tray to replace the foam and propylene glycol solution and their round adjustable digital hygrometer to fit in the original analogue hygrometer space. Unfortunately, this won't ship until 6/6/09 since they're closed which is close to 2 weeks from now. The problem is, I already have a handful of nice cigars that I picked up, as well as a JR cigars special of Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve's that I wanted to put in the humidor.
So the only place near me that sells a digital hygrometer is Radioshack (believe it or not, the cigar store around here only carries analogue ones that were insanely expensive). I bought the $20 one they offered (only one) and have done the salt + distilled water in plastic bag calibration with it, and it stays steady at 63%RH.
Long story short, would you guys trust this hygrometer for 2 weeks until the good one gets here? -12% seems a ways off of where it should be and I'm not sure if I should trust it. If not, what would you do, leave the cigars out of the humidor, or put them in it? I'm at a standstill here and don't know what to do so please help a newbie out.
--Jeff
