Where did I go wrong?

M

macjoe53

Alpha Silverback
Decided to make a coolidor. Take a used one time 48 qt. Coleman cooler. Cleaned it out real good. Left it open to air out while I was waiting for 8 oz. of 70% beads from Cigarmony to arrive. Followed the instructions for the beads. Placed in cooler, closed the lid and left it sit for three days. Open lid and checked my digital hygrometer and humidity was at 82%. Figured maybe I had to many beads. So I moved about a third of the beads into the shipping container, put the bead bag back into the cooler and shut the lead. Waited 24 hours and check the humidty again. It was 68%. Figured cool! It's working.

Moved a box of 10 cigars I had just bought and about 12 other cigars in a Tupperware container into the cooler. (Removed the lid fromt he tupperware). Shut the lid.

Checked the humidity the next morning - 52%. Re-added the rest of the beads to the cooler. Checked humidity this morning 56%! Oh, the temperature has been a steady 68F in the cooler each time.
 
How much of your beads are saturated? Once you add cigars to a seasoned humidor the RH will always drop because the cigars absorb the humidity. Typically it will equalize after a while.
 
The more cigars that you add I find the more you have to do to keep the humidity up since they absorb some of it. It is also a lot easier to raise the humidity in a cooler then it is ina humidor, my cooler read about the same as yours, 75% plus but when I put the cigars in it regulated down just fine.
 
More cigars will keep cause less variance in RH.

Also, you cannot have too many beads, just too wet of beads. As mentioned, you want about 30% of them white.
 
Give it some time. I added five boxes to my cooler last Friday, and the humidity dropped to around 50% (from a steady 68-70%), but its been steadily increasing. Keep the beads properly wetted. Putting a dish a distilled water in there will help speed things up.
 
Maybe your beads are to wet or not wet enough.

They should look like 1/2 of them are wet and the other 1/2 is dry. If you do that your humidity should be spot on.

You may want to check your hydro as well. If its digital,change the battery to be sure its reading right.

Also make sure the cooler has a good seal as well.

But usually beads are a sure thing.
 
Open space = lower RH

Fill up that cooler and your humidity will be fine.

I have the exact same cheapo cooler packed full, humidity is......63% right now. For humidification? I'm using a 1 in. by 1 in. square chunk of floral foam. No kidding. I douse it with distilled water about once a week.


Fill 'er up! :ss
 
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