conservagel is gone?
blurr
Everyone, Registered Users Posts: 962
Brothers, has anyone purchased conservagel beads recently? Looking online to add a few pounds to build a new fridge, I see that conservagel is showing a not available on their beads page. In its place I see now they are trying to promote some gel. Super disappointed after how amazing my conservagel beads worked for ooh 4 years now I'm not going back to one way gels. The big net retailers push gels but they leave me very unsatisfied so anyone bought good beads recently. Besides heartfelt, that place is expensive I can a get silica gel cheaper for my cat if you know what I mean.
Comments
Or am I wrong on this, that once trained for a few weeks in say an empty 68rh environment, I can then put them in even any humidor and they will tend to stay "set" at 68rh? I'll give it a try if this is the case.
The other downsides I've heard are Litter Pearls tend to get musty moldy smells, and they tend to release a lot more Silica Dust (always good to be smoking). As cheap as it is, throwing it out every few months wouldn't bother me, but having to retrain more pearls would bother me. And worst of all you would have to check your humidors regularly because if they start smelling musty you better get them away from your expensive stash within a short time frame. This means it takes away the best part of beads, little maintenance! I can charge my beads in my conservagel humis and seriously pretty much forget about it for 2 months. Granted I check even my ager every few days but you get my point.
http://www.botl.org/community/forums/archive/index.php/t-8580.html
http://forums.cigaraficionado.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/7666095/m/496104573/p/1
Seems like the training for rh is more how much you use. More for less rh, less for more rh.
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Disclaimer!
1) I'm not a KL preacher/basher or a Heartfelt preacher/basher. Just an older guy on a budget, with a growing cigar habit. I have purchased Beads and accessories from Heartfelt a few times.
2) I live in one of the world's friendliest climates with respect to cigar storage. Here in Santa Cruz, CA, the RH and temperature stay between 60 and 70 for probably 7 months a year, and does not stray far from that the other 5.
I bought these beads.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001HWE6F0/ref=pe_175190_21431760_cs_sce_dp_1
I bought this cooler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000G64I1A/ref=pe_175190_21431760_cs_sce_dp_p2
After much research, I decided to go for it doing the "on-the-fly" method, using the KL without any "training". I made five 1/4lb. KL trays, shallow, covered with pantyhose, and set in 5 full cigar boxes (which came from a RH stable environment) and multiple plastic trays with loose sticks (also from a stable environment) totaling about 250+ cigars...there's still quite a bit of room in the cooler.
Put it all in there (the KL being dry), and waited 12 hours, RH was at 58%.
Moderately misted one of the KL trays.
12 hours later, RH at 62%. Moderately misted a second tray.
12 hours later, RH at 65%. Did nothing.
12 hours later, RH at 68%. Did nothing.
It is now 36 hours later, RH still holding at 68%.
It's still very early in the game, but I'm a happy camper.
Very easy and cheap for me to set-up additional coolers now, which I'm sure I'll be doing sooner than later.
Your mileage may vary.
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Well that was then, and it's now 9 months later, and all my humis and my cooler (now 430+ cigars), have been rock solid at 68, dipping to 67 or up to 69 on occasion, depending on temp.
My "smoking" humi runs at 65, as I have mainly 65rh Heartfelt beads in there.
One good trick when using KL is to get a flour sieve to shed all the smaller flakes/dust BEFORE putting it into your home-made containers. I don't care about losing 10% - 15% of the litter (as dust/small flakes) because I only paid $3.62/lb for it.
Also the color changing/browning beads do is not a problem at all, it doesn't affect the performance and its pretty common. Happens for me at about the time they start picking up that wonderful cigar/cedar smell.
I've also ran into HCM beads online. Does anyone have any experience with these? Claims they don't turn brown (not that that is a problem) and the site has plenty of info on performance. Seems like the top of the line as far as beads, just expensive. I'm still going to try some litter pearls. Hitting wally world pretty soon I guess.
Cigarmony beads look pretty good quality they are just a tad pricey but you know you are getting a good product. Think they come in at $42 for 1lb of 65 or 70rh.
I didn't train anything, just put it in the cooler with a shot glass of water and cigars and then pulled the shotglass when it got to a RH of 68ish. It has stayed in the 68-70 range. The litter stays in a little cream cheese container and I have no dust problems since I don't move it about.