Humidity Beads

[PigFish]

7 minutes ago, vladdraq said:

well, i was serious. As you say, the two substrates have different behaviour. The water content of each doesn't matter as much. It's more about surface tensions, adsorption, active surface  and way complicated stuff. I was wondering nowadays the water in the leaf is bonded chemically or just van der waals bonds....it would take months for me to recall all that infos and really understand whats going on.

 

Sorry if i felt cheap. Really.

 

Don't take it personally my friend, I crack foxy at just about anything these days. You have to take me with a grain of salt.

If you want to follow along, there is a guy on another thread asking everyone from the Center for Disease Control to the Peace Corps what rH to store his cigars at. I guess it has got me a little punchy... -LOL

-Piggy

[Fugu]

Somehow got a similar feeling recently....

51 minutes ago, vladdraq said:

The water content of each doesn't matter as much.

This statement doesn't make much sense with respect to your previous question..

51 minutes ago, vladdraq said:

 and way complicated stuff. I was wondering nowadays the water in the leaf is bonded chemically or just van der waals bonds...

It's not complicated stuff, it's adsorption we are dealing with here. The water is bonded by Van-der-Waals force. There is of course also chemically bound water in tobacco, but that is not relevant to the problem here.

[vladdraq]

ok. I was thinking about what piggy said, with the water content in cigars vs beads at the same rH, roughly 1:4. I might be wrong, but what i understood was in "ideal" conditions you would need at each pounds of cigars at least a quarter pound of beads.

After i was thinking about a lot of things and that's how i popped up with that smart ass question.

Anyways, i personally would like to know how tobacco adsorb the water vs the beads and if you have infos about please share it.

[Bohn007]

On September 5, 2016 at 2:21 PM, PigFish said:

Blanket claims about desiccant buffer rations based on cubic space are really meaningless, but people need to start somewhere.

You should understand that a silica desiccant will contain approximately 30 to 40% water based on weight at 65rH. This is just an estimate based on some knowledge of the substrate.

Tobacco on the other hand is about 10 to 12% water. So you have to ask yourself, what is buffering what when you look at a relationship of desiccant content to cigar content?

If you really thought much about the comparison, pound for pound, the desiccant holds (lets just keep it simple) 4 times the water than cigars do at the same rH. The logical answer then would be a ratio of 4/1 cigars to engineered desiccant. That makes the water content of each substate about equal. This means that the desiccant is truly buffering the cigars verses the cigars buffering the desiccant!

Unfortunately if you tell the shopping public what real parity in water content in the humidor will cost them, they will look at the number, likely baulk at it and choose a different product. If you tell them a 'more reasonable' number and then answer any question with "just buy more desiccant" then the result is about the same, except that you sell more desiccant as the result!

There are a lot of myths in the cigar desiccant world. This comes from a misunderstanding of the substate that starts with the reseller. It is after all a buffer. And the closer the ambient is to the internals of the humidor, the less buffer you need! The lesser the air exchanges with the ambient, the lesser the buffer you need... This factors into a ratio somewhere but it is never brought up, except my me! When asking most folks why their desiccant buffer is not up to the job, the most common answer is you don't have enough... This almost always works out in favor of the desiccant reseller!!!

This is of course why people turn to cat litter. Cat litter is just a lousy desiccant (not engineered). As always you have choices. Engineered products are markedly better (more efficient) but you have to pay for that!

Just a little food for thought! -Piggy

And to think, all I wanted to know was did anyone have experience with Humidity Bead Systems or Heartfelt Industries beads, which was best and what was the best way to charge them...... LOL

[SloppyJ]

best way to charge them is with an oral syringe. Not putting too much on at one time. 

[Bohn007]

On September 5, 2016 at 2:21 PM, PigFish said:

Just a little food for thought! -Piggy

On a side note, thank you Piggy for helping show all of us the science that makes the difference in our ability to enjoy our smokes. I used to keep my cigars over humidified and not survived the experience. I just let up a '97 Partagas Serie D No. 4 that tasted terrible, through it out and lit up a 2014 CoRo that while young, came from a box that I know will be preserved better over the years to come due to what you teach us. 

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, Bohn007 said:

On a side note, thank you Piggy for helping show all of us the science that makes the difference in our ability to enjoy our smokes. I used to keep my cigars over humidified and not survived the experience. I just let up a '97 Partagas Serie D No. 4 that tasted terrible, through it out and lit up a 2014 CoRo that while young, came from a box that I know will be preserved better over the years to come due to what you teach us. 

You honor me! Thank you for taking the time to say that. This is the reason I have taken this role here. It is always my pleasure.

Cheers! -Ray

[PigFish]

1 hour ago, vladdraq said:

ok. I was thinking about what piggy said, with the water content in cigars vs beads at the same rH, roughly 1:4. I might be wrong, but what i understood was in "ideal" conditions you would need at each pounds of cigars at least a quarter pound of beads.

After i was thinking about a lot of things and that's how i popped up with that smart ass question.

Anyways, i personally would like to know how tobacco adsorb the water vs the beads and if you have infos about please share it.

I think I would say that 'ideally' you would need not sorbents at all. The higher the delta rH, the more porous the humidor, the greater the air exchanges, the more support you need.

There gets to be a point, one that would necessarily be self-defined, where one might abandon desiccants (sorbents) for an active humidification system. This complexity brings solutions as well as some potential problems... but that is not the point.

I have a lot of tobacco data. And maybe if I can find the time I will get you a quote or some papers to review if you are interested. One, caveat. I no longer spend a lot of time looking at papers. While I am detail oriented, I begin to lose interest in 'nth' degree details that have no relevance to my purposes. I am not a kid anymore! The data goes in, some sticks and some does not. I have piles of data, but I no longer keep it convenient to me. In other words, don't hold your breath on me digging up data for you. Just ask Gooey!

Well, my steak is getting to the right temp, so that is all for now. If I remember to revisit this thread tomorrow, maybe I can throw you some data.

Sorry if I was rude... Cheers! -Piggy

[vladdraq]

I was lurking on the net for months, interested about the leaf chemistry, fermentation, oils, humidityetc. I actually found a book too, but it was ~500$ and i said to myself better spend that money on the culprits, i mean cigars. :-)

Anyways thanks for your time and keep up the good work. Cheers!

(what is your steak ideal temperature? : ))))

[PigFish]

12 hours ago, vladdraq said:

I was lurking on the net for months, interested about the leaf chemistry, fermentation, oils, humidityetc. I actually found a book too, but it was ~500$ and i said to myself better spend that money on the culprits, i mean cigars. :-)

Anyways thanks for your time and keep up the good work. Cheers!

(what is your steak ideal temperature? : ))))

... I prefer 126F. A range of 125 to 130 is acceptable to me, but moving past 130 gets a little too well cooked to be called optimum.

Cheers.

So are you taking sorbent uptake data, or tobacco water uptake data? Cheers! -Piggy

[vladdraq]

13 minutes ago, PigFish said:

... I prefer 126F. A range of 125 to 130 is acceptable to me, but moving past 130 gets a little too well cooked to be called optimum.

Cheers.

So are you taking sorbent uptake data, or tobacco water uptake data? Cheers! -Piggy

I think sorbent is more available, after all is widely used so Tobacco would be awesome! 

[PigFish]

... join the club!!! -LOL It took me a long time to find isothermal charts for tobacco and I have been looking for that original document for our friend Goo here.

I have gathered a lot of data, but since most is not OCR data with poor or generic, numerical document titles, I have to open hundreds of documents to find a lot of this data again. Get in line my friend, sorry! Cheers! -Piggy

[Fugu]

13 hours ago, PigFish said:

Just ask Gooey!

Yes, ask me...

[Miller1985]

On September 5, 2016 at 3:02 AM, Lezanstar said:

Contraversial topic sometimes, but I use 100% silica litter and boveda. The litter I use is Mimi brand from Wally World. $4 for a bag that will be more than sufficient for any size humi you have. Spritz with distilled water and leave them be. In a well sealed humidor, the boveda will last a year or more once everything is seasoned and regulated.

Same here. Same brand. Love it. Mine even has blue crystals in it. Buddy of mine has been using it for years and years and his cigars are perfect. 

[Miller1985]

17 hours ago, PigFish said:

You honor me! Thank you for taking the time to say that. This is the reason I have taken this role here. It is always my pleasure.

Cheers! -Ray

While I rarely understand half of what you're saying, simply because I'm not that educated, I always enjoy reading your posts/comments. Someone who dedicates themselves to a field so enthusiastically is refreshing to me. The amount of knowledge you have is astounding. 

[vladdraq]

3 hours ago, PigFish said:

... join the club!!! -LOL It took me a long time to find isothermal charts for tobacco and I have been looking for that original document for our friend Goo here.

I have gathered a lot of data, but since most is not OCR data with poor or generic, numerical document titles, I have to open hundreds of documents to find a lot of this data again. Get in line my friend, sorry! Cheers! -Piggy

it's ok, sad but ok. And i'll not ask Goo,  i don't trust him, he's fishy and on the other side.

 

 

[Merovius]

Same here. Same brand. Love it. Mine even has blue crystals in it. Buddy of mine has been using it for years and years and his cigars are perfect. 

You know it's good cus it's blue...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Miller1985]

10 minutes ago, Merovius said:

 

You know it's good cus it's blue...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 

 

Lmao!! I wasn't sure of it when I bought it, but it's worked better than anything I've ever used. 

[MaxG]

So you just add water to KL till you get to the RH you want?  Then add when it lowers over time?

 

- MG

 

[CigarmanTim]

On 9/7/2016 at 7:24 PM, Bohn007 said:

I am getting two bags and 1lb of beads. Is that how you charge them the best? By spraying water on the bag?

It is better to spray than pour. Use distilled only.

[Fugu]

5 hours ago, vladdraq said:

it's ok, sad but ok. And i'll not ask Goo,  i don't trust him, he's fishy and on the other side.

 

 

Not fishier than the pigletFish