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Wrong forum, nerd.....I mean, noob

Are you trying to learn something? Or just playing? What is it you want to know?

Paging Mr. jtokash

Way too much work, (well, for ME, anyway).
I just use the Heartfelt Beads, and I'm good to go.

Yeah, like I said..........cane sugar.

Just talkin chit dude.
Making your own Bovedas?
Good for you! They’re just cheap enough, and easy enough to maintain and recharge, for me to not bother with trying to make my own.
Good luck in your quest.

I'm honestly surprised the plastic pillows release that much moisture. Are you sure you aren't getting an increase to 71% from droplets of water on the outside (contamination from filling/sealing)?

Further, if in fact you are getting a real result here (sufficient water vapor escaping the pillows to raise humidity from 58% to 71%) then you would almost want to call the experiment a success. You don't intend to keep your cigars above 65% (I hope), so you will have to put some mixture into the pillows which will slow your water vapor release to ensure you don't over humidify.

The bigger problem would be going the other way. How will you remove humidity from the humidor if it goes over?

That's a really good graph. It shows pretty clearly that what we are seeing isn't contamination, but instead release of the water vapor. That seems clear by the asymptotic nature of the graph. There is some RH in the bag at which the pressure of water vapor in the bag is equal to that across the membrane.

As to why we're tapped out at 70ish percent... let me look.

As for testing two-way, I should be able to leave a pillow with nothing but sodium chloride in it and a cup of water next to it for a few days, remove the water and things should be around 75%. My AC is crap as is my state so I am stuck at around 58% ambient in my home so there is room for the salt to absorb more moisture even if it is already contaminated by ambient humidity.

I wonder if Victor's inner bag is holding him back..........

So these air pillows only function one-way as far as vapor goes. I made a 50 gram pack with nothing but sodium chloride and it only gained 0.02 grams while in a ziplock with a cup of water (it was 90% humidity) after 24 hours. That is within the margin of error the AWS-100 has.

For now, I am going to use them as a one-way system since they still function as a barrier to the salts. I might try Tyvek at a later date since I can pick up envelopes made of that material at the post office but for the time being I am not sure where to get the Hytrel stuff Boveda uses.

My friend calls that salmonella lettuce since it is constantly getting recalled. I do agree about it being superior though.

Well, the idea is to create boveda for cheaper than what they cost. If it's only one-way (inside or out) it's not boveda. For my needs to I don't need two-way if it's only going to be a set RH. I can just air out my humidor for incoming cigars that are over humidified. I have been having to do that anyway because even some 5 packs I bought caused my humidity to jump.

I just put an inflated pillow in a glass of water and am using the 100G weight that came with my scale to calibrate it to force it partially underwater. I can't test reversing it at the moment as my hygrometers are in use testing different salt mixes.

Since it is been challenging me the most I am currently going back to using Ammonium Chloride since it is 80% RH but is used in 65% and 69% Bovedas and I can't seem to get it below 72%. Currently playing around with the 65% ingredients:

Interesting. Well, if you're using NH4Cl solution in water inside a plastic bag that should be ok, as long as it stays sealed.
Looks like with a very small amount of heat you can get some off-gassing of ammonia (as well as creation of a tiny bit of HCl which is supposed to be a gas, but I'd bet would just acidify your water a little)...

If the bag will pass water vapor, it may also pass NH4, which means you may get a small ammonia odor in your humidor.

.... that's all about exactly how much moisture is in the air. Which is a relationship between temperature (because at different temperatures more or less water can be "dissolved" in the air) and the amount of water present.

This is pretty well established science (outside of your strange statement about how it would "manifest in rolled tobacco leaves") so I'm not sure how anyone would deflate the argument.

I've only been in this hobby for a year (next feb) but my basic understanding of RH/Temp is no higher than 70F to prevent tobacco beetles then you want a custom RH/Temp that is going to result in the best smoke once it leaves your humidor.

Based one what I have seen for humid locations like Florida (where I live) you want things at around 64% and 64-66F since you are pulling the cigar out of a cooler environment that shock is going to pull humidity out of the air. This is purely observation on my part and I honestly am clueless if it is accurate.

Humidity control is my obsession at the moment so I don't really think or care about temperature. One thing to do keep in mind if you are using a humidity control solution that involves salts (Bovedas, and the other brands that are popping up like RH Shield and Schmécké) is temperature will have an effect on how much moisture the salts will release but this is usually only a difference of 1-2%.

I am not sure how the mods feel about linking PDFs due to their exploitable nature so I will include a screenshot from one I have referenced often: https://i.imgur.com/NjjV2Zb.png If you want the full paper google "Humidity fixed points of binary saturated aqueous"

The two salts Boveda uses most are Ammonium Chloride and Sodium Chloride, these are 1% or even less than 1% RH difference between 0C and 20C which is excellent since we're in a narrower 16C-21C (60F-69.8F) window. Since Ammonium Chloride was not listed in the screenshot I'll provide it here: https://i.imgur.com/YclKuEw.png

No.

There's a chart called a psychrometric chart which is a pain in the ass but I've had to use in the past. It shows you the relationship between temperature and relative humidity.
If you follow a psychrometric chart to see the "grains of water" (this is a measure of the amount of water) in the air at 48F and 63%rh, you will find that is much fewer grains than an equivalent 63%RH at 69F.

We can assume that the grains of water in the air will correlate directly with how much is available to be absorbed by the tobacco leaves

An easy way to look at RH is that at any given temperature 100% RH is when water vapor will start condensing. If you are at 60% RH and 70F, and you take that box and reduce the temperature to 50F, the amount of moisture already present as vapor will condense to water, because vapor cannot hold that much moisture at 50F (you can follow the psychrometric chart and see that 60% at 70F is greater than 100% at 50F.)

Now, once you open the box, the moisture will disappear, beccause the volume of your box is tiny compared to the volume of the garage, and your cigars will then be held in an environment with much less moisture than before

I can definitely understand that. I sometimes worry about how many miligrams 1 gram of sodium chloride is since I live in a humid climate so 1 gram of sodium chloride for me is not 100% sodium chloride unless I go to the trouble of dehydrating it (which I do not). This goes the same for a lot of drugs since they will also absorb moisture from the air. Depending on the drug, you can kill someone, or fail to help someone if 100miligram os something is too many miligrams of water from absorbtion.

Any chemists in the house? Every time I play around with Ammonium Chloride and Sodium Chloride in a solution I always go above 70% RH. The question is (and google has failed me or I suck at googling) is there a reaction I am not getting between Citric Acid and the previously mentioned Chlorides?

Currently working with:

Test Batch 5 ():

*10.78 gram vessel*

3G Water
4G Ammonium Chloride
1G Sodium Chloride
3G Vegetable Glycerine

The 65% and 69% bovedas use Citric Acid and Citric Acid+Sodium Citrate respectively but it is always above 70%

tl;dr, at this point I am trying to use up my remaining Ammonium Chloride. I technically don't need this to work because I can easily get (my current target for this batch) of 64-65% with Sodium Chloride and Magnesium Chloride.

For reference at 20c/68F these salts have the following RH in solution:

Sodium Chloride: 75%
Ammonium Chloride: 80% (this is what makes me say it makes no sense to use it for lower than 75% RH)
Magnesium Chloride: 33%

Reference Data: https://i.imgur.com/witoLbu.png

Yeah, I am definitely trying to avoid HCl since I believe that is lethal? So I have not started heating things and will likely avoid buying a boiling flask to start doing it.

NaOH is Sodium Hydroxide? Unless I made it by accident this shouldn't be present?

MgCl2 is not in this solution but I am willing to accept some contamination from previous mixes if the salts managed to form within the bag itself while evaporating.

I am just bummed about this because I didn't spend too much on the Ammonium Chloride but the smallest amount I could get on Amazon was 1 pound so I have a lot of it.

As I write this I remember it has uses in food preparation which provided more information upon searching:



Again, no expert here, but maybe I am adding too much water?

edit: After looking into NaOH more I don't believe I would have made or even willingly be involved with it since it causes burns to the skin. I believe all of Boveda's stuff is designed around the idea a child or pet might get into it and it is reletively non-toxic. While I do not have kids, I do have German Shepherds so what I am making for personal use I am trying to make it non-toxic.

It's all in the dose.
A little NaOH (basic) and a little HCl are not dangerous, at low concentrations. And at these concentrations are probably in the food you eat.

Either way, I want to wrap my personal experiments up and start a "DIY Boveda (with caveats) thread. I am going to abandon the Ammonium Chloride for the time being and quickly figure out 2 batches of 65% that are (sodium chloride+sugar) and (sodium chloride+magnesium chloride). This should limit the requirements of DIYer's to:

1. Must have a food scale to measure things in grams.
2. Must have table salt and sugar OR:
3. Must have table salt and magnesium chloride (magnesium chloride being used in salt baths for aches and pains but also kid/pet friendly)
4. You buy cigars from cigarbid and have the air pillow packing materials used as a ONE WAY vapor barrier
5. Have a foodsaver or similar to seal these air pillows.

I got the 69-70% range covered with the above mentioned chemicals since 70% is what a lot of people obsess about even if its not recommended. Once I lock down 64-65% I will post the new thread and ask people to suggest different target RH for me to work on.

If people care enough, they can test the mixes in other packaging material and come up with other options. Something two-way would be preferred and I intend to get my hands on Tyvek and Hytrel once I stop spending so much money on cigars in the future (wonder if anyone stops spending money on cigars?).

I didn't bother with a new mix last night so this sat overnight and is now reading 63% oddly enough so I guess I am going to keep playing with it.



This did not work, there is no water in the bag so I am going to try turning it inside out then sealing it and doing the same thing. If it were a Boveda it would be oversaturated with water.

Well I know you can oversaturate Boveda packs (I purposely dried one completely out then submerged it and it got way bigger and had to release a lot of water before it was releasing the set amount)

In their patents, they always reference Hytrel in their proof of concept for releasing the correct amount of humidity as well as absorbing excess humidity so that's the stuff I really want to test if I can find it in thin sheets.

See: https://www.dupont.com/products/hytrel.html