How do cigars affect overall humidity?

TheShaun · September 2009

If the humidor has many smokes in it, will this lower humidity or help to maintain humidity?

sol1821 · September 2009

i would imagine it would depend what condition the cigars where in to start with. however i believe that if the cigars are at the humidity you want your humidor at then they would help maintain that humidity.

Renaissance_Man · September 2009

Ditto... If they are a bit dryer they might lower humidity a bit... The opposite also happens... The bottomline is in the long run the more cigars you have the better maintained your humidity will be...

sol1821 · September 2009

Renaissance_Man:
The bottomline is in the long run the more cigars you have the better maintained your humidity will be...

or so we tell the other halfs;)

ejenne87 · September 2009

Every time I have recieved a shipment from Ccom My humidity jumps up a couple points for about a day or two but it settles right back down after that. I have also noticed that when I threw in a couple cigars from another online store the humidity dropped because they were fairly dry (these sticks are still in my humi after 6 months because they were so dry, that is why I only order from Ccom now).

kuzi16 · September 2009

cigars are hygroscopic.... that means that they soak up and release humidity as it changes in the air around them. if you have a spike down in the RH the cigar will start to let moisture off. if there is a spike up, they will soak up more.
as cigar smokers, we all know that.
the next step is not quite as intuitive.

if you have a 100ct humidor with 5 cigars in it and you open it, all the humidified air gets stirred up and you lose a good amount of the humidity. the cigars will lose humidity a slower rate than the air will. so once you close the lid on that humidor you have two humidity sources: the actual humidity source, and your cigars.

if you have the same 100ct humidor and it has 75 cigars in there, and you open the humidor, there is less air in there to lose. so when you close your humidor it will take less time for the humidity in there to recover. the cigars, acting as a humidifier, help take care of it.

long story short...it is better to keep a full humidor because the cigars themselves will help regulate the humidity within.

...at least thats what i tell my wife.

kuzi16 · September 2009

ejenne87:
Every time I have recieved a shipment from Ccom My humidity jumps up a couple points for about a day or two but it settles right back down after that. I have also noticed that when I threw in a couple cigars from another online store the humidity dropped because they were fairly dry (these sticks are still in my humi after 6 months because they were so dry, that is why I only order from Ccom now).

if im not mistaken cigar.com keeps their ware house as close to 70/70 as they can. I keep my humidor at 65%rH. every time i get cigars from them, my humidor goes up as well.

Krieg · September 2009

yeah, my last shipment from ccom was 40 cigars, and my RH shot up around 76-77%, crazy! I took my beads out and everything settled back down to around 68%, which stayed there no problem for a few days till i had to put my beads back in. I got a little kick out of the RH staying put while my beads were out.

ironhorse · September 2009

I also think that those humicare pillows run a little high on the humidity. They say they hold 67%, but I have clocked them in a bag with 5 cigars at 74% or so. Which is fine for shipping/storage, but it explains why your humidity will spike a little with a fresh stash

TheShaun · October 2009

So after adding 20 sticks to my humi the rh dropped to 59%. the sticks came from ccom but since i'm north of the border they took two weeks to get here. i tossed in some humi care pillows and put the foam humidifier back in for a bit. my humi is still rather empty, but before adding the new sticks it was right at 65% with just the 4oz heartfelt 65% tube. with the opening of the humi it's now sitting at 58%. what should i do?

sol1821 · October 2009

TheShaun:
So after adding 20 sticks to my humi the rh dropped to 59%. the sticks came from ccom but since i'm north of the border they took two weeks to get here. i tossed in some humi care pillows and put the foam humidifier back in for a bit. my humi is still rather empty, but before adding the new sticks it was right at 65% with just the 4oz heartfelt 65% tube. with the opening of the humi it's now sitting at 58%. what should i do?

mine take 2 weeks to get here and are never dry. are you sure the hygro is calibrated? that be the first thing to check. and how empty is the humi??

TheShaun · October 2009

Hygro is calibrated. And the humi is very empty. Holds 150 and has less than 30 in it.

laker1963 · October 2009

TheShaun:
Hygro is calibrated. And the humi is very empty. Holds 150 and has less than 30 in it.

What you should do Shaun is NOT WORRY.
You said your humi is a 150 count that is only like 20% full. Therefore all that other dead air space is being exchanged when you open your humi.
It may take several hours after having it open to stabilize each time, just because of all that air you are exchanging.
As your humi fills up, it will be more stabile at all times, cause the cigars in there will also hold a certain RH so you won't have a bunch of dead air space to exchange whenever you open your humi.
It will be fine.

TheShaun · October 2009

Seems that when I had the thing almost totally empty (less than 10 sticks) the 4 oz 65% tube held a pretty solid 65-67%. Now that it's got more sticks in it, the tube seems to be insufficient. Currently I've got the tube and 3 humicare pillows and it's maintained 62% for a day or two now. What I've been doing is charging the foam humidifier that came with the humi and sticking it in there overnight to get the rh up, then taking it out. I'm hesitant to leave it in there as I've read about those things causing mold behind where they sit on the inside of the lid.

I'm miffed that the rh has gone down with the addition of more sticks, as I thought the opposite would happen, or at least remain unchanged. Maybe I need to buy another tube?

Matt Marvel · October 2009

kuzi16:
cigars are hygroscopic.... that means that they soak up and release humidity as it changes in the air around them. if you have a spike down in the RH the cigar will start to let moisture off. if there is a spike up, they will soak up more.
as cigar smokers, we all know that.
the next step is not quite as intuitive.

if you have a 100ct humidor with 5 cigars in it and you open it, all the humidified air gets stirred up and you lose a good amount of the humidity. the cigars will lose humidity a slower rate than the air will. so once you close the lid on that humidor you have two humidity sources: the actual humidity source, and your cigars.

if you have the same 100ct humidor and it has 75 cigars in there, and you open the humidor, there is less air in there to lose. so when you close your humidor it will take less time for the humidity in there to recover. the cigars, acting as a humidifier, help take care of it.

long story short...it is better to keep a full humidor because the cigars themselves will help regulate the humidity within.

...at least thats what i tell my wife.

I've always been told that you should keep your humi at around 75% capacity. I guess this is the reason why?

laker1963 · October 2009

TheShaun:
Seems that when I had the thing almost totally empty (less than 10 sticks) the 4 oz 65% tube held a pretty solid 65-67%. Now that it's got more sticks in it, the tube seems to be insufficient. Currently I've got the tube and 3 humicare pillows and it's maintained 62% for a day or two now. What I've been doing is charging the foam humidifier that came with the humi and sticking it in there overnight to get the rh up, then taking it out. I'm hesitant to leave it in there as I've read about those things causing mold behind where they sit on the inside of the lid.

I'm miffed that the rh has gone down with the addition of more sticks, as I thought the opposite would happen, or at least remain unchanged. Maybe I need to buy another tube?

Shaun, you could try a little experiment. I am thinking that maybe your humi was NOT quite as seasoned as you first thought. If you could put the sticks into a temporary home for a day or so, take out everything from your humi (including all the humidification devices) except for your hygrometer. Take a reading from your humi when you start this experiment. Leave it in there for a 24 hours period.
If your humi is properly seasoned it will NOT allow the RH to drop that much in a 24 hour period as it should be able to maintain (very closely anyway) the RH for that time period without added humudification. If after the 24 hours your RH is way down then I would look at one of two possibilities.
Either the Humi needs to be reseasoned OR the seal of the Humi is allowing air to escape from the humi and thus allowing the RH to bounce around.

Garen B · October 2009

laker1963:
TheShaun:
Seems that when I had the thing almost totally empty (less than 10 sticks) the 4 oz 65% tube held a pretty solid 65-67%. Now that it's got more sticks in it, the tube seems to be insufficient. Currently I've got the tube and 3 humicare pillows and it's maintained 62% for a day or two now. What I've been doing is charging the foam humidifier that came with the humi and sticking it in there overnight to get the rh up, then taking it out. I'm hesitant to leave it in there as I've read about those things causing mold behind where they sit on the inside of the lid.

I'm miffed that the rh has gone down with the addition of more sticks, as I thought the opposite would happen, or at least remain unchanged. Maybe I need to buy another tube?
Shaun, you could try a little experiment. I am thinking that maybe your humi was NOT quite as seasoned as you first thought. If you could put the sticks into a temporary home for a day or so, take out everything from your humi (including all the humidification devices) except for your hygrometer. Take a reading from your humi when you start this experiment. Leave it in there for a 24 hours period.
If your humi is properly seasoned it will NOT allow the RH to drop that much in a 24 hour period as it should be able to maintain (very closely anyway) the RH for that time period without added humudification. If after the 24 hours your RH is way down then I would look at one of two possibilities.
Either the Humi needs to be reseasoned OR the seal of the Humi is allowing air to escape from the humi and thus allowing the RH to bounce around.

Before you do the experiment that laker suggested, try the dollar bill test on your seal. Take a 1 (or if your a gamblin man a 5) and put it halfway in the humi and close the lid on it. Then slightly pull on the dollar, if it comes out easily, you have a bad seal, if it pulls the humi a bit (if its small) or won't budge, then your seal is good. Do it on the three sides without a hinge and then do the experiment.

TheShaun · October 2009

I've tried the dollar bill test with a piece of news paper. And there was definitely resistance in pulling it out. I may have to try Laker's experiment.

TheShaun · October 2009

This morning with the humidity at 65% I took out all the cigars and humidification sources to try Laker's experiment. When I put the tray and hygro back in the read out had fallen to the low 50's, and within a few minutes it was up at around 60%. About an hour later it read 62% where it stayed until about 30 minutes ago, where it's now at 61%. So far it's been about 7 hours. We'll see what it says in the morning. But so far it seems like things are good....... I think.

How do cigars affect overall humidity?

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