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Dude I just did so much research on this the past few days for my new humi, still don't have a clear choice/opinion. I would be interested in knowing the results of this experiment.

Already in the works.

I've used litter for a few years and haven't had any issues. I store most of my cigars in coolers and tupers in the basement where the temp is rather stable year round. I grew tired of going downstairs and tuper diving all the time and decided it was time for a compete reorganization of my stuff wrt storage and humidification.

I bought a mini wine fridge to use upstairs and store a subset of what I have but the bulk will still be stored in the basement. The fridge will allow me to not worry about them getting too hot during the summer months. It uses a TEC cooler and has a small fan that kicks on and off now and again. Virtually noise free. The temp set at 65° F.

I bought a fresh pound of 65% beads and a fresh bag of litter. I’m using the beads to season the litter as we speak – about 1 lb of beads in one container, 2 lbs of litter in another - side by side in the wine fridge with a calibrated digital hygrometer. I’m about 3 days in and I’m not in a big hurry so I’ll let them “mate” for a week or so.

When they are done, I’ll replace all of my old litter and beads with the new stuff and finally get my s#it organized.

I don’t plan on intermingling the beads and litter so I’ll post how well the litter maintains the 65%.

I've used the crystals for years....No problems!

I've never used the Heartfelt beads but I have used other silica/gel type humidifying devices with mixed results. I went to the unscented Exquisicat crystals in my storage totes about six months ago with what I would call overall favorable results. It takes a bit of experimentation to get the right amount of crystals per tote and then you have to learn how much to water them, but they work. I'm in Upstate New York where we have a real dry heating season and I found that I needed to put more crystals in for the winter to keep the RH stable, but hey they're cheap, and not that complicated. for the sake of illustration I can tell you that I'm using about half a liter per tote in the summer and closer to 3/4 liter per tote in the winter. To give an idea of the size of the totes, each of them holds 250-300 cigars.

It is sounding like you need more of the litter/crystals compared to the amount of HF beads for the required space?

Can't comment media volume comparisons. I don't measure out each portion, just use what I think is adequate.

I never felt like making a PhD thesis out of it.

Re: location. I'm in north central MA. Dry in the winter and can be pretty humid in the summer.

It's possible that the humidor wasn't adequately humidified. There was definitely leakage- nearly daily opening/closing between smoking, sending out, and adding in. All I know is that I threw some boveda packs in there and it is much more stable now. Probably because I can spread them around easier without taking up so much room. They can be refilled as well, so I just use those now.

My nutz hurt.

TIGER

The fact is both work. Now it just depends on how much you want to spend, KL=cheap, HFB=less money to spend on cigars. No horse in this derby, I use both, beads in the freezer in the basement, KL in my cabinet. In my desktops I use those little jars with gel. After a bit of experimenting and fine tuning I am able to keep each right where I want.
It's not like you need to keep your cigars at an exact RH, that is something you that you will figure out with time as to your preference. Some prefer 70% or 65% and so on and so on, again not an exact science here.
To many factors to say one product is best. We all live in our own corner of the world and no two surrounding environments will be exactly the same, no two humidors will be identical even if they look it.
Not everyone keeps their home at the same temp, this matters because the cooler the temp the harder to keep moisture in it. That is just for starters.

But go ahead and debate, I'm sure some will get some info that helps make a decision, some may just be more confused than before.

NO, I have given my thoughts, knock yourself out.

Do you drink to much bourbon in your crystal?

Point of interest:

The bag of litter I recently bought has a smattering of blue crystals. First time trying some with blue crystals but it's (as advertised) 100% Silica crystals and non-scented. It is non-scented (I can't smell anything off them) so I wonder what the blue crystals are for? Aesthetics?

While seasoning them I noticed that the blue crystals that are dry are a deep sapphire blue in color. Those that (I suspect) are "humidified" are a sky blue. I even have some that have one half deep blue the other side is lighter blue.

Soooo... curiosity set in.
Take a deep blue one and mist it with water a bit, wait for a minute and... it turns lighter blue.
Put a hair dryer on the sky blue ones for a minute and they dry out to deep blue.

Looks like I can use the colored crystals as a built in indicator as to when it's time to give the crystals a "sprits" from the spray bottle.

Thanks for keeping up on this. I could do solo experiment also. Since no one else us stepping up.


I've heard some throw out the blue and some come all clear. Mine have blue.

Ummm... here's where my money is on this. 10:1 has it that if you take a standard dry piece of blue cardboard and hit it with water it will actually DARKEN in color. Might wanna give it a try before taking the bet.

I'm not a chemist but I'd be willing to bet that the blue ink on cardboard is kinda apples and oranges to the tint in some of the crystals. When moistened, the crystals didn't "bleed" like ink.

My guess: it's probably similar to what you might see in the Barbie dolls and "Penny Pee-Pee" dolls where when you get Barbie's hair wet or Penny Pee-Pee has an "accident" it turns to some other shade of whatever color. (shrug) Don't know, don't really care...

Interested in a geek engineer way but I'm not gonna actively seek out to solve the Color Crystal Mystery.

Bucky is nice enough to keep us informed and we are learning from it. He is being a great BOTL for helping out.

The rest of you who are crapping on this are actually bringing some good points, but you're being douche-nozzles about it.

Just ordered some Heartfelt earlier this week, on sale too. I am confident I will not be disapointed.
Got so tired (haha Bucky) of the inconsistancy of crystal gels...they are so much work. Not really just not good humid balance.

I've been using the litter for years now in my tupperware bins...no problems. However, this winter has been very mild. We've been getting most of our precip in the form of rain so I think this winter is not as dry as it typically should be. That being said, I haven't had to add water to the litter for months vs. the gel I have in my 100 count humidors which I have to stay on top of (not so hard since they visibly dry up and shrivel). I thought I had to add water to the litter just as regular maintenance which is typical in the dry winter months. So I did, and found out the hard way (in the form of seeing traces of mold) that the litter can really hold their moisture. FYI, the batteries died in my digital hygros and I never bothered to replace them. Instead, a new little trick that may work just as well (maybe) to gauge humidity that I've learned in this situation, is to keep one of those humi/gel packs (that you might get in a box of cigars) in the bins along with the litter. I had one of these packs laying in the top of a bin, and had I been paying attention before adding any water to the litter, I should have taken note at how moist the gel pack was. The gel pack hasn't lost any moisture in a good 3 - 4 months, and has maintained that soft gel feel vs drying up at all and getting crunchy, which tells me that humidity in the bin is at a decent level...obviously too humid after I added water to the litter a couple weeks back. I even took the litter out for a while to bring the rh down.

Sorry...sounds like a lot of rambling. I guess the point is, that the litter does work, especially if you're budget-minded. And if you don't use a hygrometer, like I know some of you don't, you might want to lay a gelpack in the bin as a way to gauge rh. If it feels moist and remains soft, you're probably doing alright. If it feels like it's drying up a little, add a little water to the litter. This has been an unusual winter which has required very little maintenance on the humis...except to make sure that they aren't too humid.

Intresting. So you're saying you can add these products/chemicals to the litter in order to maintain a certain rh? I just used the litter "as-is" and just added water. I guess that's probably what most people do. But I always wondered what was added to gel/beads to claim it maintains 65%, 70%, etc rh.

Where's JTokash when we need him?

By the way, I think that the side-by-side experiment will need to be repeated at various temperatures......

Someone give me an addy and I'll mail the whole damn 8lbs if needed. At that point it would probably be cheaper for me to send a few bones to pick it up.

me too. It is turning out to be super informative already. not frustrated at all, just want to keep the offer out there for me to kick in my part on a side by side test. That's all.

How big is this humi? So humidifier + crystals.

I'm just responding to what I am reading, and trying to learn about litter/crystals/beads and what will be best for my set-up. I am not trying to diss or insult the cigar community either.

By your own words it appeared more litter was needed compared to beads:

I am tight on space. To me if I can use 1lb of beads instead of 3lbs of fresh litter, I can fit more cigars in place of that extra 2lbs of litter. Would rather store an additional 5-10er of premium cigars as opposed to more litter. So what's the value of a 10er of premium cigars compared to the cost of a couple pounds of litter??? There's your Kelly Blue Book value for humi space.

Blue beads and a visual cue. Understand the HF beads become cloudy or clear depending on their condition. That visual cue is enough for me. A pretty blue color is irrelevant when the humi door is closed most of the time. And I certainly don't open it just to see pretty colors.

Training litter. Not it's not hard. But I don't want to be bothered with it. Just want to place my humidification in and go. And I don't want to be bothered with the dust that often comes with litter either.

Unfriended on Facebook or explaining to buddies what I use to humidify cigars I am not worried about. Don't do the FB thing. But let's face it, telling someone who isn't into cigars and understands this discussion, that you store and keep your cigars with kitty litter just doesn't sound good and could be seen as funny... almost laughable. I certainly wouldn't consider using it to store any food items I eat, so I won't use it to store anything I smoke either.

As I said before. To each his own. Everyone likes/prefers to do different things. That's why I keep reading this thread and trying to learn what others are doing. To me the few bucks saved with kitty litter in the end is just not worth it. I'm not the kind of person who invests hundreds of dollars on cigars, then worries about saving a couple of bucks storing them correctly. Kinda like buying a top-of-the-line hi-performance car or truck, and then putting the cheapest tires you can find on it. But if you like it... go for it.

^^^^^ what he said.

Maybe its because of some female type person trying to do too much slut stuff to you?