basically it goes like this, you buy a humidor which usually comes with a "puck" humidifier with a chunk of foam in it, which most people hate using, you can also buy this "pucks" which come with a crystal gel, you can use humidity packs or water pillows also, but alot the guys here like the beads sold by heartfelt industries, they are sold by the ounce from their site(google it)
I use beads and its working fine for me - I'm pretty sure the beads absorb moisture as well as release it, at least thats been the case in my experience. Hugemoose - check your inbox
The beads do absorb and release, though probably not as effectively. I don't use the Boveda packs only because of cost. 3 packs for 50 sticks seems pretty steep considering I'm sitting on 4 to 5 hundred sticks at any given time. Replacing the packs every couple of months would be a lot more expensive than a squirt of distilled water as needed (about once a month). Again, just my opinion.
Heartfelt Industries recommends 1oz for a humidor with 540 cu inches so get the half pound bag. Now if you are going to be opening your humidor a lot Like everyone does in the beginning including myself go ahead and put in 2oz so it could stabilize the humidity much faster when you do open it. Remember you can’t go wrong with putting in more beads.
You may just wanna toss all the beads in if you can - they're rated for a specific percentage. So long as your humidor is about 60-80% full, they should hold that same RH, regardless of how many you have in there (if you have less, then the RH may be a bit higher due to all the room/unused space - the cigars also absorb moisture, which is why unfilled humidors may experience higher RH's). - - - - also, most premium cigars are already aged - the leaves are aged for about 2 yrs, then rolled into cigars, which are then aged for 2 more years. Keeping your cigars in a humidor after you get them via mail serves 2 purposes - 1) Keep them fresh/properly humidified, and 2) When you first get cigars, they may be a bit wet/dry depending on how they were shipped, so keeping them in your humidor remedies that and makes them smoke better (typically takes about a week I think)
The beads themselves last for years; how long you can go without recharging them depends on the number you use. THe more beads you use, the longer they can go without recharging since there's more beads to spread around the humidity (and the humidor will reach proper RH after opening the lid with more beads); likewise, if you have the bare minimum, you'll be recharging them more often and it'll take longer to equalize the RH after you open the lid (though I don't know how much longer - could be weeks, could be months; I just dunno). - - - - Most ppl on this forum recommend between 1.5x - 2x the amount of beads that heartfelt recommends
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