Orion21 Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 Groundbreaking experimental researching being done by yours truly today. PigFish will be jealous of my powers of analytical deductions! But really to get down to it here is the sorry: I stumbled upon a discussion about how silica based cat litter (unscented) magically works as well or better than Rh beads that cost almost 30 times more per pound. Too good to be true? Let's see... Upon doing research online I read a post from another BOTL that he had contacted the company that makes a specific cat litter called "ExquisiCat Fragrance Free Crystals" to get more information about them. Long story short, the company that manufactures the product informed him that the scientists who developed their litter found that when the beads try to maintain 68% Rh they work most efficiently. Additionally, people have been discussing these "crystal" products since 2005-2006 and many swear by them. . My task was to find this Holy Grail of cheap cigar aficionado lore and put it to the test . . . magically it was available at my local PetsMart. $15 for 8lbs of "crystals." With beads from a popular source running over $30 per pound I thought this exercise would be a fun experiment. Some more background -- the crystals are made up of clear and blue for a specific reason. Based on the information from the manufacturer the clear crystals are designed to absorb and discard moisture and the blue are only designed to discharge. So my first task was to try and remove as many of the blue crystals as possible, which was a pain. In the pictures you will see a few blue specs, but I removed the vast majority of the blue crystals I could grab with my fingers. Also, I filled up two small Tupper Wear containers with crystals. One container is wet and the second is dry. Observations As soon as distilled water touched the crystals I heard the very familiar "sizzling" noise I hear with my beads from the popular source. However, this is were I notice the first difference between the beads and crystals. The difference is the crystals seem to engorge with fluid and feel like they are sticking to one another. If this is a negative effect or not I don't know. But my beads from the popular source do not do this. Also, as you can see I left my hydrometer out in the open to drop the humidity reading from inside my humidor from 67% to 52% so that of these crystals so that I would have a baseline to work from. I sealed the Tupper Wear and placed the container back in my humidor. I started the "experiment" at 1pm local time and will check back in approximately 4-5 hours with the results. Sorry to keep you hanging. To be continued . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobLobLaw Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 I use those exact crystals with no problems. Picking out the blue ones (which I read on another forum) were indeed a pain in the ass. I ended up pouring it out a cup at a time onto a sheet of paper and using tweezers while watching tv. Wife thinks I am crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanuckSARTech Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 Looking of the pictures of these crystals, I think these are definitely somewhat different from the beads. Based on the wet/dry containers, it looks like the wet crystals are larger, and/or expanded from the water absorption. Beads don't do this. To me then, these particular crystals then are more of a super-absorbent polymer crystal, and not a silica bead. I may be mistaken on this, but just a hunch due to the pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopperb Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 I use this product in an End Table Humidor that holds around 1200 sticks mostly in boxes, two 150 qt Coleman coolerdors, and an Edgestar 28 Wineador. They work great as long as you have a good seal as is the case with any storage. I didn't remove the blue ones and haven't had any issues. In the coolers I am using approx 2lbs each, in the Wineador about 4lbs, and in the end table I was using approx 1lb but I just converted it over to an Avallo Accumonitor set up to test it out. I haven't had any issues with using the product in any of my nits or seen any side effects on the flavors of the cigars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BatFastard Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Very interesting... I'm looking forward to reading the results on this as I've been contemplating buying these as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion21 Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 The results are in . . . I let the container sit until 9pm local time (started at 1pm) and when I returned home the temperature was 70F and the Rh was 63%. My coolidor has been running at 67%-68% with the 65% beads from the popular supplier of silica beads. If these are made of polymer or silica I think is irrelevant if you would like your humidor to be between 63% and 68%. I going to move this experiment to my 74qt coolidor to see if enough crystals will bring the Rh down from 68% to somewhere closer to 63%-65%. So far it looks promising if these crystals hold up for the long term. But at $2 a pound it's an affordable supplement for me at this point. I'll check back in tomorrow morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginseng Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Orion, Thanks for tackling this! I'm very interested in your findings. Science is so cool. Wilkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NMJoe Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Orion, Thank you! I'm following this post closely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nelsontcp Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 orion, thank you for this experiment. Will follow this thread closely. BTW, you can check out the below link, http://robustojoe.com/tobacco-cigars/cigar-conditioning/ The author is also a contributor in cigarinspector website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Thanks Orion! Interested to know if any Australian members are using a similar product? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobmirko Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Interesting reading, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckearns Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Sounds like a very affordable option and one I'd be willing to incorporate if your results are positive. Thanks for taking the initiative, Aaron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cottierm Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Thanks for your service to our community Orion! Best, Michel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick17 Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 thanks for sharing, this is something i must look into for my self Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion21 Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Good morning everyone and thank you for the kind responses. Before I went to bed last night (11pm local time) I placed my hydrometer in my coolidor before introducing the crystals. An hour later I checked and the coolidor was at 68F and Rh of 63%. Normally it runs closer to 68%, so I account for the lower number because of two factors. 1) Opening and closing the coolidor so much yesterday and 2) my "damp" silica beads ( I run 1 lb of "damp" and 1 lb of "dry") were basically dry. Never the less I filled one "salad dressing" sized Tupper Wear container with wet crystals and another Tupper Wear container four times the size with dry crystals. My reasoning for the large amount of dry crystals was to protect against an Rh spike overnight. I checked my humidor at 8am local time this morning to find the temperature at 63F and Rh at 65% I didn't take a picture because I was rushed before leaving for the office, but I am very pleased with the results. Additional Observations There is one specific element of these crystals that gives me just the slightest amount of pause. These crystal release moisture much much faster than silica beads. I obviously did not perform scientific testing to prove this, but from personal observation I am convinced. Example, last night when I opened the test container to transfer the "wet" crystals into one container the hydrometer dropped to 49%. I then decided to see how quickly these crystals could get the internal environment of the container back to it's 63% Rh I had measured earlier in the day. This time I did not place any "dry" crystals in the container and what I witnessed shocked me. Within 10 minutes the Rh in the container went from 49% to 71% and held. I opened the container and introduced in new "dry" crystals and the Rh peaked at 66% and came back down to 64% . . . all within 10 minutes. What this tells me is that if you are going to use these crystals you need at least the same amount of "dry" crystals in the humidor as "wet." Also, these crystals release moisture so fast they may humidify the humidor higher than there own set Rh point (whatever that means ), but having a buffer to absorb the excess Rh will help the humidor come to equilibrium faster and avoid over humidification. Also, there is no guarantee the manufacturing process these crystals go through produce crystals with the same Rh point. The main reason is that the product is designed to absorb cat urine, expel the moisture (assuming Rh is low enough) and eliminate odors in the urine by retaining the odor. Also, my test my not be the most efficient way to measure the effectiveness of these crystals because I am using Tupper Wear that only exposes the top layer of crystals directly to air. It may be more efficient to uses mesh bags instead. My very unprofessional opinion is to be careful with these crystals while you learn how they work and more importantly what they require to achieve the results you want to see. Personally, I left the salad dressing sized Tupper Wear container in my humidor along with the larger container containing the dry crystals. I am going to check back periodically to make sure I don't have any spikes. At this point I am 90% sure I am going to use these crystals in my new wine cooler humidor I will be setting up today, but I won't put any boxes in until I achieve a consistent state of equilibrium from the crystals. Isn't this hobby fun! Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PigFish Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Great work mate... I too love science and have spent more time with silica and other base material desiccants over the past two years or so than 100 'mere mortal' cigar smokers!!! -LOL I am going to try and frame this carefully as to not sound "piggish" about it, but there is a difference in desiccant products. There is a reason why some is more expensive than others and that, like the taste and cost in a cigar defines value. The value is in the eye of the beholder. Some would rather use the less expensive in a greater amount, than the more expensive in the lesser amount. That is one aspect of value. To some general topics. You first should understand what an industrial desiccant does, or better yet what it is supposed to do. AN INDUSTRIAL DESICCANT IS NOT A SPONGE! I typed this in all caps because chipped silica is a low grade desiccant due to the fact that it has random and low density pore specification. Due to this, industry would reject this as a desiccant as it is not reliable nor predictable. I reject it for the same reason among others. Chipped silica can work, but it is not very good at what it is supposed to do. Next. I have to tell you straight out. Straight silica is not water proof! You can look this up if you want. Silica based materials, usually molecularly engineered with other elements have largely replaced silica in industry for precisely this reason. BY POURING WATER ON YOUR SILICA, YOU JUST RUINED IT!!! That crackling sound that heard was the destruction of the pores that are designed to capture WATER VAPOR, not liquid water. Industries that use desiccants, such as for refining gasses, will bed their silica based products with other desiccants designed to withstand water to keep their silica based desiccants from destruction. A desiccant is not designed to be absorbent. It is designed to be adsorbent. It is designed as a molecular sieve, in order to grab and hold water vapor in its pores. Using it as a sponge is one way of using it. But once you have destroyed its pore structure by emerging it in liquid water, you just killed its ability to adsorb, no, not absorb, but to adsorb. If what you are looking for is a supply of water, use a humidifier, a puck or sponge. You don't really want a desiccant. If you want a bilateral buffer, one that keeps a balance in a sealed humidor that is at equilibrium, you want a desiccant. A desiccant no longer works as a desiccant if you destroy its pore structure. It will work like a sponge, but so will a piece of florist foam, or pouring water into a bowl of sand! Next comment. Few people use enough desiccant. I don't have the time today to run through a bunch of numbers for you all but my experiments are leading me to believe that a pound of the most dense hi-performance desiccants is only enough for a handful of boxes and this is largely dependent on air exchanges and internal to external differentials in RH. A 40 bottle humidor should have a lot more desiccant that most are using. I am withholding numbers here for a reason. My research is not complete enough for me to feel comfort about discussing it now. These guys that sell you a pound of beads and claim that you can use this in a 100 qt cooler, are selling magic dust with their beads. This is BS! Industrial desiccants should be conditioned with water vapor not water. My beads are engineered desiccant products, yes they are way more expensive than these, but they are water resistant! Yep... Knowing that people will put water on them regardless of what you tell them has led me to seek out the best of what is available, what gas producers use to refine industrial gasses and I have been working on making them "cigar smoker proof!" If you are going to make them cigar smoker proof, you need water resilient desiccants. This is what I use, and will eventually sell. Lastly. If anyone is happy using this stuff, I am not looking down my nose at you for it. You know what they say about shoes... If they fit, wear them! The point is, if you really want these to work as you expect, do you want to put 15 pounds of them in your humidor? That is the value question. I can't keep typing infinitum this morning so if any of you have specific desiccant information you want I will be happy to help you out if I can, just ask. In parting, these specific chipped cat litter chips can work, I have tested them. They can work! But they are pretty crappy... No pun intended! Oh and lastly; some desiccants contain color change agents. The ones that turn blue, contain chromium. Chromium is a heavy metal and it is not something that I want to be putting in my cigars nor my mouth intentionally. I am not saying that these blue chips contain chromium, they are probably just dyed with food dye. But blue color change silica is something that I would stay away from if I were you. I will not use them. -Piggy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion21 Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Fantastic post Piggy and thank you! If I understand what you are saying these crystals work best as a buffer? As long as they are not exposed to water, but just water vapor they can work? However, they aren't the most efficient product out there because they are "cheaply" made? I appreciate your participation in this thread because the last thing I want is a bunch of guys running to buy cat crystals and end up disappointed in the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PigFish Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Fantastic post Piggy and thank you! If I understand what you are saying these crystals work best as a buffer? As long as they are not exposed to water, but just water vapor they can work? However, they aren't the most efficient product out there because they are "cheaply" made? I appreciate your participation in this thread because the last thing I want is a bunch of guys running to buy cat crystals and end up disappointed in the results. Mmmm, not exactly! No desiccant should be used as a general purpose humidifier. If your system is sealed well and is at equilibrium currently, say 60 RH, then the desiccant can be used as a buffer to keep these nominal conditions. What do I mean by "buffer?" Talking about this briefly is not really easy. Beads hold water vapor. They lock it up in molecular pores in their structure. The typical "high density" bead will have something to the tune of 600 to 800 meters square of surface area, area that water vapor can attach to, per gram of material. Yeah... that much! With all that area they still do not hold as much water as liquid water. If you need a regular water supply... you need liquid water! What makes these cheap desiccants is the fact that they are random and not uniform. By random I mean that the pore diameters are not all the same so they don't reliably catch the same amount of molecules of a given substance and the surface area is not the same per gram of the engineered products. Density pertains to the amount of surface are per gram of product. While an engineered product can have the 600 to 800 Msq per gram these are like 100 to 400 Msq per gram, and not uniform nor reliable. I am thinking I am gonna' have a hard time answering you here in the time I have this morning. While I am happy to do it, I can't spend as much time on the computer as I used to. I can either go on some more when I have time or if you want to email me a phone number and you are not too far (cost me too much to call) I will drop you a line and fill your ear on desiccant data if you want. All for now. -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramon_cojones Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Just buy proper beads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Great response Piggy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strick28 Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 SiO2 (silica sand/silicon dioxide)is what these are made of just like the more expensive beads. The more expensive beads have salts added to regulate the differennt humidities they are rated for. The blue crystals in the new style litter are designed to change color when saturated. After all it is supposed to be used for kitty litter. There is no need to pick out the blue crystals unless you like doing so. I have been using the old style exquisicat (without the blue crystals) for about 3 years now and my coolidor and humidor hold at 66-67% constantly. Every now and then I may have to spritz the beads to add a little moisture but thats it. Put them in and let them do there job because they work quite well. Of course some will say I am not using kitty litter in my fine cigars but Silica sand is silica sand anyway you slice it... disclaimer: I am not here to start a bead war because that has been done on more than one forum. I just would like to relay what I have found from my own research and use of SiO2 beads. Orion good job there on doing your own research and passing on the information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beamer Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 I use those exact crystals with no problems. Picking out the blue ones (which I read on another forum) were indeed a pain in the ass. I ended up pouring it out a cup at a time onto a sheet of paper and using tweezers while watching tv. Wife thinks I am crazy. I laughed out loud picturing this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsmunoz Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 I don't really understand the science, but I used this cat litter for 3yrs, in 4 160qt coolers to keep Humidity stable. yea it moves around alittle bit, but good enough for storage. Some folks will require more precision and they pay for it. I wanted a safe place to store my smokes while I worked on more permanent housing. -mission accomplished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colt45 Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 Interesting discussion all Ray, as always, thanks for the scientific insight - would it be correct to take as basic... Do not wet directly silica media (which I don't) ? Use more - often much more - than prescribed (which I do) ? Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PigFish Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Interesting discussion all Ray, as always, thanks for the scientific insight - would it be correct to take as basic... Do not wet directly silica media (which I don't) ? Use more - often much more - than prescribed (which I do) ? Cheers. This is pretty much it, in a nutshell. There are water resistant silicas but my research has indicated that in order for the pure silica to be of the water resistant type, the pore diameter and the density is such that they would not be considered "high density" silica. Water resistant silicas (pure silicas) will have a pore surface area in the vicinity of 250 Msq/gram. If you have been following the thread, this makes the water resistant silica a lot less efficient. This thread, for me at least, is about information. Whether it is writing style or something else there is a lot of misinformation regarding this substance about on the net. I have found that cigar boards in general are havens for such misinformation. This is just my opinion. There is a significant difference in products here; again, my opinion. Believe me, don't believe me... makes no difference to me. I have no axe to grind, no bead position to defend. I have kept my conversation to talking facts. I have data sheets for desiccants coming out my posterior. I now have hundreds of dollars in texts covering the subject. I bring it here for free; you get what you pay for!!! I am not gonna' tell a brother what to do and I am specifically NOT saying, "buy something specific" by responding to this thread. I am just talking the science of the things and sharing what I know so that others that are reading can establish the value of each product on their own. I won't use the cat litter for a number of reasons now. But that does not, in and of itself make the product worthless. In the quantity that I buy desiccants, makes them pretty reasonably priced (as I see it). Engineered desiccants are expensive when compared to chipped gel. I think they are worth the money. Telling people that they are all the same, not considering manufacturing process, or published data from those who manufacture the stuff for industry, is flat out misleading. It would be equally misleading to pretend that one person's product is a miracle product or panacea for cigar storage. I will not take either position. I separate my opinions from the facts and write accordingly. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat. I went looking for predictable performance in a desiccant formula and I think I found it. I went looking for a reasonable price and I think I found that too. I wanted water resistant products and I wanted them safe for food stuffs, like I consider cigars to be and not contain heavy metals or other carcinogens not suitable for food stuffs. I like what I have come up with when compared to other products on the market. While there is room for all kinds of options here, the facts remain the same. If the cat litter, the pricey beads or montmorillonite clay is what blows up your skirt, have at it! -Piggy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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