New Winedaor - humidity fluctuation help

[Pailong]

Hi all, I just recently bought a wine cooler (thermoelectric) to age my cigars. I've been a smoker for 6 years and have been maintaining my desktop humidor (quite a large box humidor, holds 400 sticks roughly) for a few years now using boveda and I maintain consistent 69% humidity all year round.

I just bought a 24 bottle thermoelectric wine cooler (hard to find thermoelectric in the UK!) and put 2lbs of Heartfelt Beads 70% in there. I put some cigar lids and cedar in the bottom with the beads to help add some wood in there and then put my cigar boxes in, around 10 boxes (the boxes have already been sitting in my other humidor at 69% humidity). I have a Caliber IV hygrometer to measure temperature and humidity. I'm setting my wine cooler at 18C (64F). The humidity is reading between 65-70%, which I'm happy with (I actually wanted to bring it down to 65% for slower aging).

So my problem is - every time the cooler fan kicks on to chill the wine cooler, the humidity drops to around 50-55% humidity, then as soon as the fan stops, the humidity rises back up (as it should do) to 65-70% again.

I've been reading the forums and understand that:

-when the wine cooler starts to run and cools the air inside, by laws of science, humidity will always drop as the air gets colder and drawn out of the wine cooler - even with thermoelectric coolers. If this is the case, why do so many people recommend thermoelectric over compressor? If both types of coolers causes humidity to drop, why is there a bias towards getting thermoelectric? Is it because a compressor will aggressively drive the humidity down even further and have more issues with condensation inside the cooler? Everyone seems to say "buy a thermoelectric because compressor will remove humidity" but it happens in both, except no one talks about it happening in a thermoelectric.
-a lot of people say that their wineadors sit at "rock solid" humidity all year round - how is this possible when the wine cooler fan kicks in to chill the air? Unless they have so much boxes and cigars in there to buffer the difference and hardly notice any real significant drop in humidity?
-Should I be worried at all? All my cigars in my new wineador are in boxes - I wanted a wineador to age boxes and will only put boxes in there (not single sticks) - from what I understand, the boxes will help humidify the cigars and protect them from humidity changes through the day and the cigars themselves won't really see any real difference/issues, right? I do like having a stable environment (consistent 65-70% without the multiple drops in humidity during the day) but am I worried over nothing? Do the RH swings (which is happening multiple times a day due to the fan kicking in to maintain the 18c temp) affect my cigars if they are protected in the boxes?

-I read on the forums that a lot of people plug the drain hole - is this so that the humidity built up isn't pulled away when the fan turns on? I decided to tape the drain hole with black electrical tape to see if it helps create a more stable environment - it seems to have slowed the RH swings and my recovery rate is better but the RH swings still happens when the fan turns on, bringing my humidity down to 50-55%, then recovering back to 65-69% when the fan turns off.

What do most people do to counter this? I know some people leave their wineador turned off (unplugged) and I did try that and it sits at a stable 70% but I wanted the wineador to control temperature, around 18C for the main compartment. My wineador has a separate compartment in the top and I was thinking of bringing that temperature down to 12C for real low and slow aging (with 62% humidity) but I know the colder the air, the less humidity it can hold. I was thinking of getting an electricity timer to plug into the wall socket to control when to give power to the wine cooler (only problem with this is that the temp settings resets to 12c when the cooler is switched off) but I could at least lessen the amount of RH swings in a day. Maybe I could also try spreading my HF beads all around and really loading more boxes in to stabilise more.

Do I just have to accept that the RH swings will keep happening as long as I have the wineador switched on? Do I need more buffer e.g. more cigar boxes/more beads spread throughout? I was thinking of adding boveda packs in there too. Any advice would be appreciated.

[LordAnubis]

Firstly, welcome new member. Perhaps start with an introduction in the relevant thread about who you are, where you are and what you smoke etc.

Oh man piggy is going to have a field day!!! Let me give you the cliff notes.

-when the wine cooler starts to run and cools the air inside, by laws of science, humidity will always drop as the air gets colder and drawn out of the wine cooler - even with thermoelectric coolers. If this is the case, why do so many people recommend thermoelectric over compressor? If both types of coolers causes humidity to drop, why is there a bias towards getting thermoelectric? Is it because a compressor will aggressively drive the humidity down even further and have more issues with condensation inside the cooler? Everyone seems to say "buy a thermoelectric because compressor will remove humidity" but it happens in both, except no one talks about it happening in a thermoelectric.

This is a pure lack of understanding of science from pretty much everyone (you get that on the internet). The thermo electric will remove moisture from air, by way of condensation on the cooling element, in exactly the same way as a compressor will. The one reason those in the know tend to go with compressors is due to their efficiency. Compressors cool quicker, and hence you can recover your rH back to desired settings through less cycling.

-a lot of people say that their wineadors sit at "rock solid" humidity all year round - how is this possible when the wine cooler fan kicks in to chill the air? Unless they have so much boxes and cigars in there to buffer the difference and hardly notice any real significant drop in humidity?

They don't. They either have poor instruments, or they leave their fridge off. Yes having more boxes in there adds more "buffer", but still doesn't make anything rock steady.

-I read on the forums that a lot of people plug the drain hole - is this so that the humidity built up isn't pulled away when the fan turns on?

The condensate has to go somewhere. Be cautious of blocking the drain hole. If you block it you need to have somewhere for the condensate that drips of the cooling to go... preferably not form a pool of water and soak one of you boxes of cigars. Just something to consider. For the record i have not plugged my drain hole, but i am no perfectionist.

-Should I be worried at all? All my cigars in my new wineador are in boxes - I wanted a wineador to age boxes and will only put boxes in there (not single sticks) - from what I understand, the boxes will help humidify the cigars and protect them from humidity changes through the day and the cigars themselves won't really see any real difference/issues, right?

If you want perfection, you will need a cooling element, heating element, humidifier and dehumidifier, all working in unison to control the internal climate of your humidor and ofcourse accurate equipment to detect these conditions. Off the shelf xikar and cigar oasis equipment is not the answer you seek.

Bottom line, while you can do things like put humidity beads infront of the fan that circulates air through your fridge so that it recovers humidty better, ultimately you will always have swings with your setup, so play with things yourself to figure out what best suits your situation.

Me i have a compressor wineador in a house with no air con (and it gets frikkin hot in my house during summer) and i just have a heap of beads infront of the fan in the fridge and let the fridge do its thing. Its not perfect by any means, but my cigar smoking is enjoyable and that's all i care about these days.

[Pailong]

Firstly, welcome new member. Perhaps start with an introduction in the relevant thread about who you are, where you are and what you smoke etc.

Oh man piggy is going to have a field day!!! Let me give you the cliff notes.

This is a pure lack of understanding of science from pretty much everyone (you get that on the internet). The thermo electric will remove moisture from air, by way of condensation on the cooling element, in exactly the same way as a compressor will. The one reason those in the know tend to go with compressors is due to their efficiency. Compressors cool quicker, and hence you can recover your rH back to desired settings through less cycling.

They don't. They either have poor instruments, or they leave their fridge off. Yes having more boxes in there adds more "buffer", but still doesn't make anything rock steady.

The condensate has to go somewhere. Be cautious of blocking the drain hole. If you block it you need to have somewhere for the condensate that drips of the cooling to go... preferably not form a pool of water and soak one of you boxes of cigars. Just something to consider. For the record i have not plugged my drain hole, but i am no perfectionist.

If you want perfection, you will need a cooling element, heating element, humidifier and dehumidifier, all working in unison to control the internal climate of your humidor and ofcourse accurate equipment to detect these conditions. Off the shelf xikar and cigar oasis equipment is not the answer you seek.

Bottom line, while you can do things like put humidity beads infront of the fan that circulates air through your fridge so that it recovers humidty better, ultimately you will always have swings with your setup, so play with things yourself to figure out what best suits your situation.

Me i have a compressor wineador in a house with no air con (and it gets frikkin hot in my house during summer) and i just have a heap of beads infront of the fan in the fridge and let the fridge do its thing. Its not perfect by any means, but my cigar smoking is enjoyable and that's all i care about these days.

Hi, thanks for replying. I posted an introduction in the relevant thread.

Interesting about compressors. Well this is good to know for the future. Although surely compressors are much more agressive at cooling than thermoelectrics, thus more frost/condensation? Anyhow, I've already bought my thermoelectric. I already think it's too small and should have gotten a larger compressor type cooler.

I knew things wouldn't be rock steady. My Caliber IV hygrometer shows the humidity drop straightaway, so if I sit there and watch the hygrometer whilst the fan kicks in, I can see the Caliber IV measuring the drop in humidity and then again, once the fan stops, I can see the humidity rising. This RH swinging up and down when the fan kicks in made me believe that no one gets rock steady humidity. Then again, with so much boxes, cigars and beads/humidification, does it matter?

I will keep an eye on the drain hole and condensation. If it starts to build up badly then I will unplug the hole. Even with it plugged and when the fan kicks in, the humidity still drops on my hygrometer reading (again, this might just be the cool air swirling around being read by the hygrometer, with so much boxes and beads in there maybe I should stop worrying) so right now the drain hole being plugged isn't solving the RH swinging issues.

From the sounds of it, like you said, ultimately I will always have RH swings if the cooler is plugged in and switched on. It runs maybe 2-3 times per hour, so that's 2-3 times the RH swings down and up (good thing is that so far, I've noticed as soon as the fan stops, the RH recovers very quickly, which leads me to believe that the 65-69% humidity is still in there, it's just been swirled around with the fan on). I guess the main question is: does this affect the aging of the cigars? Does the constant RH swinging affect it at all? If I only keep boxes in there, then the cigars are surely protected by the cigar boxes, correct? The cedar wood boxes must be absorbing the humidity moisture and aging the cigars, so ultimately, am I worried about nothing? The only sure thing I can think of is to unplug my cooler (which I've tested) and let the humidity stay CONSTANT at 69% - again, I would only want to do this if the RH swinging is affecting the aging of the cigars. I'd rather not turn the cooler off as the reason I got it was to control the temperature i.e. age at a cooler temperature.

Thanks for your advice and any more tips would be greatly appreciated.

[PigFish]

Firstly, welcome new member. Perhaps start with an introduction in the relevant thread about who you are, where you are and what you smoke etc.

Oh man piggy is going to have a field day!!! Let me give you the cliff notes.

This is a pure lack of understanding of science from pretty much everyone (you get that on the internet). The thermo electric will remove moisture from air, by way of condensation on the cooling element, in exactly the same way as a compressor will. The one reason those in the know tend to go with compressors is due to their efficiency. Compressors cool quicker, and hence you can recover your rH back to desired settings through less cycling.

They don't. They either have poor instruments, or they leave their fridge off. Yes having more boxes in there adds more "buffer", but still doesn't make anything rock steady.

The condensate has to go somewhere. Be cautious of blocking the drain hole. If you block it you need to have somewhere for the condensate that drips of the cooling to go... preferably not form a pool of water and soak one of you boxes of cigars. Just something to consider. For the record i have not plugged my drain hole, but i am no perfectionist.

If you want perfection, you will need a cooling element, heating element, humidifier and dehumidifier, all working in unison to control the internal climate of your humidor and ofcourse accurate equipment to detect these conditions. Off the shelf xikar and cigar oasis equipment is not the answer you seek.

Bottom line, while you can do things like put humidity beads infront of the fan that circulates air through your fridge so that it recovers humidty better, ultimately you will always have swings with your setup, so play with things yourself to figure out what best suits your situation.

Me i have a compressor wineador in a house with no air con (and it gets frikkin hot in my house during summer) and i just have a heap of beads infront of the fan in the fridge and let the fridge do its thing. Its not perfect by any means, but my cigar smoking is enjoyable and that's all i care about these days.

... you're hired!

-Piggy

[Blazer]

"-a lot of people say that their wineadors sit at "rock solid" humidity all year round - how is this possible when the wine cooler fan kicks in to chill the air?"

"Funny, this was one of my first questions when I joined here as well! Welcome!

[Pailong]

"-a lot of people say that their wineadors sit at "rock solid" humidity all year round - how is this possible when the wine cooler fan kicks in to chill the air?"

"Funny, this was one of my first questions when I joined here as well! Welcome!

So I'm guessing you also get RH swings? How do you deal with it and are you bothered by this? Or do you believe that actually, in reality, it doesn't affect the aging of the cigars if they are in boxes?

I just checked my wineador and it is indeed collecting condensation/water since I plugged the drain hole with electrical tape. I noticed my humidity spiking too, something I never ever get when using boveda. I've decided to unplug the drain holes, since even with them plugged I still get RH swings, so what's the point of plugging them? Thought I might as well let the water drain out rather than it building up inside my wineador.

Anyone else have any opinions on RH swings and how it affects aging? I'm hoping the boxes will protect the cigars.

[LordAnubis]

Put your hygrometer inside a box and test for yourself. Mine seemed quite steady inside the boxes itself.

If you really want steady, then put all your boxes in zip loc bags or vacuum pack and then put them in the fridge.

With what you have, you will always be worrying. If you are the always worrying type, you will need to get another system, at a higher price point.

Read through every single one of the hundreds of threads in this humidor section paying particular note to posts from PigFish. He will teach you more science about tobacco storage than anyone else. Read them all first. Do not ask questions, just read all of them. Then read them again. Then if you're really that keen to make your system perfect, then pay someone to build and design or DIY your perfect system.

Cigars are a lot more resilient than you think. Do i care about a few swings of 5 or 10% rh every now and then? Nope. Am i going to spend thousands of dollars on my storage system to make it perfect? Nope, i'd rather buy 10 boxes of cigars and smoke them. Do i enjoy the science behind cigar storage? Yes. Does it mean i care enough to chase perfection? Nope, i'd rather gather some mates, grab a drink, talk **** and smoke good cigars!

Maybe I don't have a tasting pallet good enough to notice any effects my less than perfect storage is doing my cigars.

[Pailong]

Put your hygrometer inside a box and test for yourself. Mine seemed quite steady inside the boxes itself.

If you really want steady, then put all your boxes in zip loc bags or vacuum pack and then put them in the fridge.

With what you have, you will always be worrying. If you are the always worrying type, you will need to get another system, at a higher price point.

Read through every single one of the hundreds of threads in this humidor section paying particular note to posts from PigFish. He will teach you more science about tobacco storage than anyone else. Read them all first. Do not ask questions, just read all of them. Then read them again. Then if you're really that keen to make your system perfect, then pay someone to build and design or DIY your perfect system.

Cigars are a lot more resilient than you think. Do i care about a few swings of 5 or 10% rh every now and then? Nope. Am i going to spend thousands of dollars on my storage system to make it perfect? Nope, i'd rather buy 10 boxes of cigars and smoke them. Do i enjoy the science behind cigar storage? Yes. Does it mean i care enough to chase perfection? Nope, i'd rather gather some mates, grab a drink, talk **** and smoke good cigars!

Maybe I don't have a tasting pallet good enough to notice any effects my less than perfect storage is doing my cigars.

Funny, I had this idea last night! I was planning to put my hygrometer inside a cigar box and wait to see what the reading was.

I have read some of the threads from PigFish but will do so again and even more of them. Thanks.

You're right about the swings of 5-10% but I guess the way I see it is, the humidity swinging 5-10% accumulating over 5-10 years - that's a lot of RH swinging! It's because I want to try and age for the long term that I'm slightly worried about this. Again, I will read more of PigFish's posts.

[Pailong]

Just to give an update - I put the hygrometer in a cigar box and left it in the wineador for over 24 hours. The minimum and maximum reading of humidity throughout the 24hours (during which the wineador fan was turning on and off) was between 65-69% humidity, so I guess that confirms that I have nothing to worry about with regards to humidity fluctuating when the fan kicks on, as the boxes protect the cigars.

[jcorona]

just curious to see how your cigars are smoking, with that rh swing? I am thinking of getting a wineador myself, just researching right now.

[heminway186]

Interesting read!

[Pailong]

On 13/06/2016 at 0:52 PM, jcorona said:

just curious to see how your cigars are smoking, with that rh swing? I am thinking of getting a wineador myself, just researching right now.

I haven't actually smoked any of it yet! This wineador is purely for long term aging but obviously I will be smoking a stick here and there to see how they progress.

So I have one compartment that is running at 16c temperature and is staying stable at around 60-62% rH. This is perfect for what I want.

The other compartment I have running at 12c temperature and I am trying to keep it at 60-62% rH as well but because the fan in this compartment kicks on more frequently to keep it down at 12c temperature, it is sucking out the moisture constantly so my hygrometer is reading 40-55% rH most of the time, which is worrying. At first I wasn't that worried because I have 70% beads in there plus some boveda packs but now I am seeing that the cold temperature is drying out the boveda packs fast and making them hard. This compartment used to be more stable around 60% rH but ever since I filled this section up to the brim with boxes it's been blocking some airways I think so difficult for the air to get around therefore the reading might be slightly off. I'll have to put mostly 70% rH beads in there to balance out the humidity being sucked out all the time with the lower temperature. It all takes trial and error and you'll have to mess around with your own wineador to see what works for you.

Life would be easier if I would just make both compartments 16c temperature but I am curious to age at 12c as I have smoked cigars that have been aged at 12c and noticed that they smoke amazingly well and have aged brilliantly. Also I'm curious to compare both my compartments in a year's time.

[Cep]

Does anyone store all their boxes in ziplock bags inside their wineador?

Seems like that would be a great way to protect from any possible water damage.  Are there any negatives to ziplock bags?

 

My 12 bottle TE cooler seems to be doing OK.  Its set at the max temp of 64F.  Temp inside is always between 61.7 and 62.9, perfect for me.  

As my condo has AC,  I dont seem to have any condensation, well none yet anyways.  I am hoping that I never do.  Humidity is solid at 65% in the bottom half,  but I have another hygrometer at top middle right above the fan (that runs 24/7 BTW), and it always measures a couple % lower.  Not sure why.   

Anyways,   bags sound like a great idea    Please let me know if there are any negatives.  

Thx!

[Professor Twain]

Don't over think this. I have had a wineador, stored cigars there for over 10 years. Sure there will be variability in temperature and humidity when the fridge kicks in. But I have experimented with this, the humidity inside of boxes varies only a slight amount with such shifts.

The bigger issue you have to watch is that humidity will be higher at the bottom part of the wineador compared to the top. So watch out for your humidity getting too high at the bottom. Check your stock and rotate every month or so. Or install fans so that the variance is diminished.

Cigars are not precious snowflakes that will be ruined with a bit of variance in humidity. Just keep them in the ball park and they will be fine. Before smoking, be sure they are not too humid, you might need to transfer to a desktop humidor for a bit.

Enjoy this great hobby!

[Smokeygun11]

On 3/16/2016 at 2:23 AM, LordAnubis said:

Put your hygrometer inside a box and test for yourself. Mine seemed quite steady inside the boxes itself.

If you really want steady, then put all your boxes in zip loc bags or vacuum pack and then put them in the fridge.

With what you have, you will always be worrying. If you are the always worrying type, you will need to get another system, at a higher price point.

Read through every single one of the hundreds of threads in this humidor section paying particular note to posts from PigFish. He will teach you more science about tobacco storage than anyone else. Read them all first. Do not ask questions, just read all of them. Then read them again. Then if you're really that keen to make your system perfect, then pay someone to build and design or DIY your perfect system.

Cigars are a lot more resilient than you think. Do i care about a few swings of 5 or 10% rh every now and then? Nope. Am i going to spend thousands of dollars on my storage system to make it perfect? Nope, i'd rather buy 10 boxes of cigars and smoke them. Do i enjoy the science behind cigar storage? Yes. Does it mean i care enough to chase perfection? Nope, i'd rather gather some mates, grab a drink, talk **** and smoke good cigars!

Maybe I don't have a tasting pallet good enough to notice any effects my less than perfect storage is doing my cigars.

Lord you answered one of the concerns i had. My humidity in my winecooler has been going up and down 2 points for the past couple of months but today when i opened u my windows to air out my house (was running the ac on for a week too hot lol) within 12 hours my rh dropped like a brick. i turned my ac back on and its slowly climbing back up. As you said 5-10 point difference are gonna kill the cigars lol. 

[bb360]

Very informative i like the posts here.

Ok well so i purchased new wine cooler fairly decent size 1.2m high 60 cm wide 58 cm deep approx. I currently have beads and boveda packs. (new 320 gram ) 

I was going to purchase more of the hbs beads to keep humidity stable, any other recommendations.

possibly considering a hydra kit with more fans.

I know im going to need more beads thats a must

The unit has 3 fans  don the middle any advice would be great