Quote Originally Posted by jmontz View Post
Okay, I bought the humidor, the heartfelt beads, and the distilled water. The Humidor came with instructions that specifically said DO NOT wipe down the humidor with a wet cloth. It said to leave my humidifier in the humidor with a cup of water for 8 hours until the humidor reached 72%. WHAT I DID- I took a tupperware container filled it with about an inch of water and then wet my heartfelt beads and put them in as well. I then left it for 10 hours and the hydrometer now reads 75%. Is this good enough for my humidor? Is it broken in now? because I'd hate to start filling it up with cigars and then watch them go bad just because I didn't break it in right.
I'd say your humidity level may be a bit high. I know from reading here the majority of members keep their humi's in the 65-70% range.

Once your humi stablizes you're good to go. To see if it's stable, take out the cup of water and check about 6 hours later. Do the beads look dried out? Has the humidity level dropped? If yes to one or both, then it's likely the wood is still absorbing moisture. It may take a day or so for it to absorb as much as it is able and your humi to stabilize.

Should you put cigars in before your humi is stable, they'll dry out some as the humidor will suck moisture out of them as well as the beads so I would wait until it stabilizes to load cigars in. If you don't wait until it's stable, you'll end up stabilizing both the cigars and humi. Seems to me it makes more sense to get the humi stable first.

Oh, and its called a hygrometer, not "hydrometer"