I live in the Midwest in a house without air conditioning. I am unable to get the humidity down to acceptable levels. I cannot get the relative humidity below about 80%, and it goes up to 84% at times. Temperature varies between 74 and 84. I'm worried about losing my cigar investment. I've heard that increasing the concentration of PG above 50% will help, but I can't seem to find pure PG... it's all pre-mixed. None of the pharmacies around here stock it. I have tried to put some of the dehumidification devices found in medicine bottles into my humidor, but to no avail. Should I consider a tupperdor stored in the 'fridge? We have a fruit cellar that will keep the temperature stable at around 68 degrees, but its even more humid in there! What's a BOTL to do? Also, how gradual do I need to be in changing temp & humidity?

cellar sounds good, and on the humi side thats what your humidifier is for. that should ballance it out.

Whoa ... whoa ... whoa ... slow down ...

Hunidity is not as important as temperature.

Temperature is what will kill a good cigar ... if there are bettle eggs present.

If you cigars are too moist, they will only burn and draw poorly, and won't produce the pleasurable smoke they should produce ... but you should keep an eye out for mold.

That is easily 'fixed' ... by opening up your humidor and letting it air out for an hour or so ...

You don't need 'pure' Polypropolyne Glycol either ... that is all wrong. The PG solution should be 50/50 ... and all that does is stabilize the relative humidity.

Also, if your humidity is too high, consider NOT using ANY 'credo' (humidifier) at all ... but make sure you have a hygrometer that is calibrated correctly, to monitor the Rh ...

As Slim said, it would help if you opened up the humidor for a bit.

As to the PG, a common mistake that people make is that they _completely_ fill their humidrols. You need to leave some room for the water to be absorbed back into the humidrol.

Those are words of wisdom. I only use distilled water in my humidors and have had no problems...."if it ain't broke, don't fix it"! I keep my maduro humidor between 65 and 68......other 3 around mid 70's!

Slim is right open the lids if they get to much humidity.

Charlie

RussellKaufmann --- I'm starting to like ... and have more respect for you every day ... 😉

I ran into this in Bahrain last year - RH was 85% with the AC on. Unfortunately, the place I was staying couldn't get me a dehumidifier (don't know if it would have worked, anyway, with the continuous stream of moist air being pumped into my room).

But that's what I'd recommend. Get a small dehumidifier, or even those crystal things if you can put your humi in a small, enclosed space.

Just a thought.

The advice here is good, but I make my own 50/50 solution as is a lot cheaper. Your local pharmacy can get PG in 1 or 2 days. I'm surprised they didn't offer. A pint of this stuff is about $7. Then go buy a gallon of distilled water for about $.79 & make your own 50/50 for a fraction of the cost. Explain that you need a humectant & your pharmacist should understand. I guess some people poison animals with the stuff & that may be why they didn't offer to get it for you.

I live in the Midwest also & struggle with humididty fluctuations too. We have AC however.

Every morning I get up to find the sugar in the sugar bowl has set up like concrete, so the ambient rh is quite high. I've heard of putting bags of parboiled rice in the humi helps suck off excess moisture.

Hope this helps.

I'm setting up some tuperdors to accent my coolerdor and got sick of buying 8 oz of 50/50 for $10. I've ordered a gallon of pure PG off the web for about $20. It should arive any day now. Send me your snaily and I'll send you a bottle of 100% so you can make your own of whatever concentration you want.

PG....hat and bucky got it....so did I, 16 oz. for 8 bucks.......took the pharmacy one day to order.....should last me years and years. But, shouldn't it be mixed 50/50 by weight ? When I mixed by volume, my humidor stayed around 60 %

In my neck of the woods (Central CA.) it is bone dry humidity. I have to keep on top of the humdifiers to keep a stable RH in the box. I keep the inside of the house between 77-80 degrees. Where I keep my humidors runs about 70-75 max. My humidity stays between 67-69%. I can't get it any higher and keep it there for long.

While we're on the subject, how warm is too warm if you can keep the humidity to 68-70? Does the humidity even matter when talking about temp?

The reason I was looking for pure PG was so that I could mix a 60/40 batch with distilled water. Seems I read somewhere that having a higher concentration of PG will reduce the humidity several percentage points. Opening up the humidor exposes my cigars to the ambient relative humidity - which is around 85% most days. Mold is my biggest concern. No matter what, I haven't been able to get humidity below 82% for about 2 months.

The other concern I have is changing the humidity too much too soon, causing cracks in the wrapper and swelling the cigars. Could I just but LOTS of the humidity beads and place them inside the humidor to absorb excess humidity? I've even considered removing the cigars and then using a hairdryer to dry out the wood in the humidor.

My bad, if you'd like some pure PG my e-mail address is stogiemac at yahoo dot com

If 85% is your normal humidity, then you are of similar humidity as the origin's of most cigars. Storage at that humidity doesn't result in more problems than mold or a difficult draw...as long as the cigars are stable at that humidity.

It is the varying humidity that cracks wrappers, swells cigars or cause uneven burning issues.

Optimum is 70% + or - 5%. Maybe a dry box will work for you. The beads might help too.

ccordaro,

I think you have a different problem from the majority of cigar smokers; you have too high ambient RH, and most of us have low ambient RH --- we are usually trying to add moisture in the humidor, not remove it, hence some of the confusing advice.

A room dehumidifier will not help, since your home windows are likely open. A "dry box" will not help since its RH is 85%, so it's not so dry. Opening the humidor for a while will not help, since ambient RH is too high, not low.

First, make sure you have a tight seal on your humidor; you may need to switch to some airtight tupperware to better keep unwanted moisture out.

Second, the higher PG to water mix may help; but from what I've heard on this forum about Climaxx beads, they may be even better --- seems there is a 65% Climaxx bead available, and you need all the help you can get. A dish of rice or saltines will absorb moisture, but not control it. A dish of salt will absorb moisture and try to hold it at 75%. More is better. All of the above may have to be dried out once in a while (in the refrigerator should work), the opposite of our adding distilled water to our humidifiers.

Third, try to keep space for air circulation between your cigars. That's not easy, with a crowded humidor and when opening and fanning the lid increases your problem, but air circulation will help prevent mold.

Your wide temp variations aren't good, as well as the 84 deg high it gets to; if you are eventually able to control the humidity with any of the above advice (say "airtight"!), the cellar would be the better storage location. Otherwise, freeze all new cigars (search for that) to supposedly kill beetle eggs.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

I agree with the guys above about temperature. I had this problem when I was still a cigar rookie. The summers here in the Fresno area get over 100, our humidity is usually quite low. I moved my humidor location to the coolest low area possible, a dark closet near a tiled floor in the center of my house. I haven't had a drying out problem since. I also use a 50/50 mix of PG and distilled water. I seems to last longer than just water. I ordered a quart of PG on the net about 2 yrs. ago for $12. Good Luck.