Hello, I am new to the cigar hobby so bare with me and my question. A friend and I have recently taken up this great hobby, well are wives bought us each a humidor for Christmas I believe they hold around 50 cigars. Well we have been having trouble getting the humitiy above 50%, I am wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that neither of are humidors are full of cigars (the most I have had in mine is 5).

Did you wipe the inside down with a wet cloth first?

You may also want to place a shot glass full of distilled water in the dor for a while until the RH reaches 65-70. Sometimes, it can take several days to get to the correct level. Plus, if your house is dry, it can effect it as well.

You can do a search on the boards and find several posts regarding this. Enjoy your new obsession, I mean hobby.

yes, I wet it down left the wet sponge in on top of plastic bag as instructions told me to for 12 hours then took sponge and bag out and let sit for another 12 hours. Humidity got to about 70% with sponge in then dropped to between 50-55% and has not gone up since.

I have been opening the humidor two-three times a day to check the humidity can this also effect the humidity. Also as stated before can the humidor not being full of cigars effect the humidity?

Well I tend to believe that the solution to every humidor problem is to buy more cigars, as a matter of fact I guess I think that every problem in general can be made better by buying more cigars... just my humble opinion.

Where do you live? What are you using to humidify it?

Country

I live in southen Cali. I am using the supplied humidifier with distilled water.

a full humidor IS easier to stabilize than an empty one. Many folks on here advocate not putting your cigars in until you get it stable, but where are you going to put them in the meantime? They will dry out some sitting in the room, so let them acclimate with the humi! If you get it stabilized befor you put the gars in, it will drop anyway as the cigars absorb the humidity lost in transit/waiting, look at the humidity once a day, or it will never stabilize, especially in that small of a humi. Every time you open it up, the lid draws out the air that has been building up humidity, and with no gars or anything to retard the airflow, even if it was reading right, it's gone now! Winter makes it especially hard as the heating system tends to dry out the ambient air, and the colder air outside holds even less moisture. Hope this helps, and good luck! Welcome!

use 50/50 mix of distilled water and Propylene Glycol that will keep the RHfrom going too high, but that doesn't seem to be the problem you're having now.

Go way back to step #1 and do a short test to see if the hygrometer is telling you the truth in the first place. It could be off by quite a bit. Copy/Paste theft follows-

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Author: SteveR@CBid Date: 12/22/2004 11:36 AM Reply

A more accurate method for calibrating your hygrometer is the salt test:

- Take a bottle cap filled with a teaspoon of salt, and add 4-5 drops of water to it. You don't want to saturate the salt, simply wet it.

- Place this inside the Ziploc bag with your hygrometer and seal it up. Let this sit at room temperature for 8 hours.

- After the 8 hours is up, look at the hygrometer, and remember the reading. It should read 75%. If not, you will need to make adjustments.

- Remove the hygrometer from the bag, and allow it to sit long enough to give an accurate reading of the room.

- Adjust according to the reading you remembered. If it read 70% inside the bag, turn it up 5%. Likewise if it was too high.

I usually do a salt test 2-3 times a year.

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Above courtesy SteveR, thank you.

Welcome to the boards ...well worth the price of admission.

Art

A shot glass for 12 hrs seems to me a bit too short of time. It might take longer than that to season it (depending on your specific climate and the condition your humi was in when you got it). My newest desktop took a 3-4 days to settle. I let it sit for a week to be sure. Think of the wood as a sponge. Gotta fill all the pores before it'll hold steady.

Once it hits your desired level, add the smokes. The more mass in there, the easier it'll be to hold the desired conditions.

My hydrometer is off also...I have had mine humidor a long time and know that when it's at 62, it's perfect.

If mine were to go to 70, I'd have to wring out my cigars. Yours may be the same way. Check to see if the cigars are real soft in a week. If so, then you're hydrometer is the problem, not the box..

The perfect setting for yours may end up being a reading of 55.