Newly seasoned humidor is waaaaaaay too humid

JohanTheMighty

Bob Luken

Welcome to the cigar.com (ccom) forum Johan. You seem to be doing it right but still may have gotten it too wet. Hard to say for sure. Can you be specific on the RH percentages during your process? The preferred method of most members here is a non-wipe method. It takes longer but is easier to control. If you feel like you Want to start over, be sure to let your over humidified humi dry out slowly to avoid warping the wood. Look for the thread, " how to season a humidor using kitty litter". (Pretty sure that's the title.) there's a lot of Kitty Litter info but also great info on the non-wipe method. I have a question for you. Are you using the hygrometers that came with your humidors or have you upgraded to digital hygrometers? It's one of the first things a new cigar lover needs in their tool kit. Hygroset & xikar make good ones. If you have not upgraded then you really should do that. Analog hygrometers are OK sometimes but usually unreliable.

JohanTheMighty

Lee.mcglynn

For seasoning you doing good! What should happen is the humidor goes over humidity buy 80-85 then you and your two way humidifiers to bring the humidity to it's desired level. This can take a few days so don't rush it! You'll be ok I do suggest you get either boveda 65 or 69 packs for your humidor

JohanTheMighty

Thank you, Lee. I think the next time I get a humidor I am going to try a different seasoning method, but it's good to hear from you and Bob and to get that reassurance that I have not ruined my humidors or purchased faulty units. Thank you both so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with me.

Lee.mcglynn

Not a problem you should stick around here a lot of info and great people on these boards

onestrangeone

Welcome, Your in a good place. Be patient and let it stabilize 80+ RH is not unusual for a humi that has been wiped. It has been my experience that this method only SEEMS to be faster, it actually takes longer to stabilize. A lot of people like me tend to be impatient and put there smokes in to soon and it's much harder to adjust and stabilize the RH

JohanTheMighty

Oh! Good to know! I was actually going to make that same mistake myself! I figured, if it stabilized around 75% that it would be okay to toss 'em in while it drops. I will wait until it stabilizes around 72% and put them in then. Thanks for stopping me from making another newbie error!

Bob Luken

OK you are not bad off at all. 80 to 85% is not a problem. Your wood is still absorbing the moisture. The key is patience. Don't rush to put your cigars in there. I'm guessing you may have some in ziplocks that you are anxious to get in there? Don't worry. They are better off in a ziplock than in a humi that is still trying to season itself. You've got the right idea. Let it drop down to usable RH levels and See if you can get it to stay there before adding cigars. We should assume your cigars are shipped or purchased in a properly humidified state. Therefore the cigars themselves will not need to draw any additional moisture from your humidor's wood. But the same idea applies to your humidor's wood. You want to know for certain it's stable before adding cigars. If it's too dry, your wood will draw moisture from your cigars. If it's too moist it will cast off excess moisture onto the cigars. You want harmony from the start. And upgrade to digital as soon as you can. Two things new guys need to invest in first is a good cutter ( xikar Xi2) and a good digital hygrometer. Oh yeah! Lee mentioned Boveda packets. They are the best and easiest way to keep proper humidity. Especially for a novice. The humidification devices that come with your humidor are junk. They will get you by for now but they can bd hard to regulate RH and they'll probably get moldy at some point. Upgrade to Bovedas as your first and easiest opition. There are many different ways/devices to keep proper humidity but by far Bovedas are the easiest. Good luck and keep us posted. And stick around. I have learned ten times more info and sound knowledge about cigars here on this forum than I could have ever learned without it.

JohanTheMighty