Spring humidity is too high!

[Kenyth]

I never thought that keeping the humidity DOWN would be a problem in the cooler. The RH is between 70-80% these days. I've long since sealed the humidifier in a plastic ziplock bag and open the sucker twice a day. It still hits 80% between openings. Nothing to freak out about I guess.

[kevin7]

The more wood you have in a cooler such as boxes the more stable thre rh will stay. In all seriousness 80 % makes most cigars unsmokeable. Try to achieve 65%

[nhcigarfan]

Yeah 80% is two high. Lke K& said, get some wood boxes or cedar inserts. You can probably get some for free or next to nothing at your local.

A slightly more expensive but sure fire way is get enough 65% beads for your cooler, probably a pound and put then in without adding water. They should soak up a lot of excess humidity.

[Newfie]

I almost wish I had that problem. The RH in my house (I have the humi in the basement on a bookshelf) is 38% (measured with my hygrometer that read 73% on the salt test). I can't feed that thing enough water.

[Kenyth]

Yeah 80% is two high. Lke K& said, get some wood boxes or cedar inserts. You can probably get some for free or next to nothing at your local.

A slightly more expensive but sure fire way is get enough 65% beads for your cooler, probably a pound and put then in without adding water. They should soak up a lot of excess humidity.

I believe some self regulating beads are the best answer here. I'll try and look some up on the internet. I take it those are best used in conjunction with another humidifying device?

[basil]

The beads alone will be all the humidifying device you need, and in this case, they'll act more as a de-humidifier. I'd follow nhcigarfan's suggestion to get 65% beads and put 'em in dry. They should begin to absorb humidity and will pull the humidor's environment down to around 65% rh. If high humidity is a constant where you live, then you may have to dry the beads periodically - easily done with a blow dryer.

The beads can found here

Incidentally, 60% beads are now available.

[Kenyth]

After a couple days, the humidor is staying at about 66% with absolutely no humidification needed. Perfect! The ambient humidity is slightly lower than that. I have plenty of wood in there. I'm going to get some of those beads.